I Hope We Fixed This

To the grandkids of the kids in my life: I wish I knew how this turned out for you.

Are you living in a reasonably healthy world? I don't imagine you're in a Utopia: I know human nature too well. But are you okay? Is there enough water, food, power, medicine? Is your daily life manageable, even joyful?

Or is it too hot, too dry, to sustain human life in any tolerable way? Is the world overrun with famines, mass migrations, epidemics, wars? Does my beautiful city of San Francisco even exist, or have the waters risen and drowned it? Are you not even reading this letter, because the world has disintegrated so badly that "reading letters from the past on the Internet" is not a priority, or even an option?

Did we fix this in time?

I think about social change activists of my day, and I often wonder if we're all fools. If we don't fix global warming, every other fight we're fighting -- for fair housing and voting rights, against misogyny and racism and plutocracy -- will be a moot point. If we don't fix global warming, now, today -- game over.

I know that's not fair. I know we all need to do the work that inspires us. And I know all these struggles are connected. Part of the reason I work so hard for a more rational, evidence-based world is that I want more people to acknowledge that global warming is real, and to take it seriously. But I often wonder if all of us -- not just all activists, but all humans -- are foolish beyond description to work on anything but global warming, with every scrap of power we have.

I'm an atheist and a humanist, and I have no notion that there's another life, another world, where everything will be okay. I accept that this life is our only one, this planet the only home we have. If we don't fix global warming, it's game over. And I love this game. I love life. As terrible as it can be, as much as it's filled with suffering and brutality, I love life, and humanity, and the world. So I'm working to get this right. I'm persuading as many people as I can to get this right.

I hope it's enough.

I hope we fixed this.

I love you. I hope you're okay.