Imagine the world six generations hence.
Perhaps you see an enlightened population that has managed to work it all out — environmental hazards evaded, violence eradicated, civil rights granted for all. Or maybe you see a bleak dystopian wasteland where the polluters — environmental, social, or otherwise — have won.
Some say the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, taking place in Paris Nov. 30-Dec. 11, is key in determining which of these scenarios comes to be. Environmental advocates are calling the talks our last shot at creating a global environmental policy with teeth. World leaders could decide to curb carbon emissions once and for all, or decide to do nothing and let our species’ nasty fossil fuel habit plunge us into environmental turmoil.
That’s why, along with other alternative newsweeklies across the country, we are participating in the Letters to the Future project. Orchestrated out of the offices of the Sacramento News & Review and sponsored by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and The Media Consortium, the project reached out to thinkers across the country — writers, scientists, politicians, activists, musicians, even an astronaut — and asked them to write letters to inhabitants of an imagined future, with the intention of sharing the letters with American delegates and accredited observers attending the conference. Contributors have included U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, former U.S. Rep. and presidential contender Dennis Kucinich, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists Jane Smiley and Geraldine Brooks, and author Michael Pollan.
Additionally, the 40-plus participating altweeklies sought letters from key locals in their own areas. In the Tampa Bay region, which stands to be profoundly impacted by the effects of climate change, especially sea-level rise, CL reached out to renewable energy advocate Susan Glickman, Studio@620 director Bob Devin Jones, and climate activist Kelly Benjamin, among others. Their letters follow, along with some pithy quotes by participants from around the U.S.
The tone of the letters varies, depending on the world the author believes future generations will inherit.
Some offer glowing optimism, based on the good decisions we managed to make in spite of ourselves. Others apologize for the mess we left our descendants to clean up.
You can read all of the letters to date at letterstothefuture.org, where you can join the conversation and write a letter to the future yourself. Given the wide enthusiasm for the project, organizers are discussing how to extend Letters to the Future beyond the Paris Climate Talks — and perhaps mobilize a movement to craft a future we can be proud of. —Kate Bradshaw
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2015.
