Letter To My Child about Climate Change

My dearest son,

Today when I am writing you this letter, you are just a 3 year old and mostly won’t understand the things I am writing here. I am writing this letter for you to read when you grow up. I wrote many other letters to you to tell you how much I love you and how much your dad and your grandparents love you. What fun things we did together since when you were born. I am sure by the time you read this letter you must have read all the other letters I wrote to you.

But my darling I am writing this special letter to let you know what world you are living in now, in 2016, and what it used to be, long before you were born, hoping you are living in a better world. Now in 2016, just a few days back here in UAE (where we are staying now), a storm came with heavy rains and washed out almost the entire country. There was unimaginable water logging in our community, I got a call from your nursery to pick you up early and then Mumma had to find a way home to avoid water on roads and reach home safely. It never happened before in this country on this scale. The fact is since few years everywhere around the world, the climate is changing visibly!

I hope, at the time you read this letter (when you are a young adult in 15 years’ time), things are back to what they used to be during my childhood. I hope, in these 15 years, governments and businesses around the world have already given priority to the environment instead of just short-term financial goals. I hope, in these 15 years, people around the globe have realized, accepted, and taken efforts to address the causes of climate change.

In case you are wondering how the world was during my childhood, let me tell you how it was when your dad and I were kids. I spent my childhood in a small city by the river and surrounded by one of the mountain ranges of India. We have many cozy winter memories from my childhood when temperatures used to reach almost freezing, foggy mornings, soft woolen wears, bonfires, doctor’s brandy as medicine for cold, to name a few of my memories. Three years back, when you were born, I was very excited to be back there in the winter after many years and was hoping to revisit all those cozy winter memories of childhood. But sadly, not only was it much warmer but it was hardly any colder than Dubai’s winter. Climate change every part of the world is so visible now, that I get surprised when people question if climate change is real.

We used to have regular seasons, back in India, spring, summer, monsoon, autumn, and winter. Seasonally predictable things used to happen during those seasons, but life was fun! Since a few years, all the seasons are disturbed, there are lots of cyclones, storms and unpredictable rains everywhere. Because these crops are getting spoiled, farming is getting affected, farmers are committing suicides in India, food prices are soaring all over the world. Now every year, either they are significantly hotter or colder or wetter. Larger numbers of people are going hungry, inequality in society is increasing.

When we were kids, we didn’t have electronic devices at our times for playing, so watching Peppa pig or Pocoyo, cartoons, etc was not an option that you love to watch when I am writing this letter. I hope in your times our society is not wasting too much money, energy, and time on electronic devices. Or even better, all your devices are made a cradle to cradle and all their parts are interchangeable. In short, what we call now the new concept of the circular economy, I hope it will be in practice full swing and even developed to produce things by then.

But if you wonder, if we didn’t have electronic devices what we did? We used to play outdoors and yes there wasn’t much traffic outside, so it used to be safer. We used to climb trees, get dirty in the mud. We used to breathe much fresher air every day, for which we now take you to remote rural parts of India or even as far as the Alps in Switzerland or the deep rainforest in Bali. Looking at it positively, you still get to experience this great fresh air when we go close to nature.

I hope you have not opted for smoking and you have an electric car. I even hope in your time, buying cars is looked at negatively and that there is excellent public transport, and riding a bike is a norm. In our childhood we used to ride a bicycle, driving a scooter before junior college was a luxury. We used to have a fresh source of water and enough water for everyone. I remember seeing river beds clearly and no waste floating in it.

During my childhood, people were much closer, neighbors were extended families, people talked to strangers on buses and trains, instead of looking into screens. Relationships were valued much more than materialistic things. People were dependent on each other rather than technology. Currently, Google is our helper, if we need some help. During my childhood days, an elderly neighboring aunt was Google for my mom.

Those times, we used to have fresh naturally grown food in my city, which is now termed as organic. People used to be healthier and there used to be fewer diseases. Now every year some new viruses are found around the globe, as a result of climate change. I even have fewer memories of natural disasters shown on TV news channels but unfortunately, I remember a lot of news related wars and tensions between the countries and communities. Now sadly the world is busy with both sets of this news, some governments are least bothered by climate change. At this time, of course, people are talking about climate refugees and war refugees. Though it’s great to have the whole world as a family (we call in Sanskrit ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’). I hope a few cultures are not forgotten and vanished by the time, you are reading it. I hope very strongly that countries are co-operating with each other better in your times.

We used to have a wide variety of wildlife almost a century back, you can find it in the encyclopedia. I grew up learning about extinct and endangered species. Many people have been so selfish, that for their selfish monitory purpose they are poaching and creating great danger for some important animal species like elephants, rhinos, tigers. You know, right now at the age of 3 years, how much you love elephants and tigers! So we took you to show you these animals in their habitat and you have even fed elephants in a safari. I hope your favorite animals will be still there when you read this. I hope not all forests around the world are developed and cut down or even better I hope you have more forests reserves on the planet after 15 years. And hope by that time people really love animals and their natural existence instead of things made out of their teeth or skin or some entertainment shows where these powerful animals are displayed as puppets.

Those small joys of running behind butterflies, listening to singing birds, signs of season change from looking at trees around, fresh smells of nature, great tastes of fresh farm goodies, caring for a lost baby animal, planting trees and gardening, collecting natural goodies like dry leaves or flowers or bird shed feathers or shells from beach and trading between friends. Dark skies are full of twinkling stars at night. These are the memories of my childhood. These I try to give to you now, by searching for places where tourism is not yet commercialized or Ecotourism is developed. I hope you can still enjoy them after 15 years. I believe these joys make us good human, we are supposed to live close to nature, it’s not something we need to learn. Rather we need to unlearn attaching ourselves too much with artificial things and even attach our emotions and happiness to them. During my childhood, people were more connected and happiness was not counted in money as much as it is now.

My precious child, but if things are not as good as I hope, I AM VERY SORRY! I want to apologize not only to you but all your friends and the whole of your generations and the generations after yours. It is because of us, your parents and your grandparents and our ancestors from the last century, who didn’t realize what we are doing with our environment. Our ancestors got too excited about industrialization and the more sophisticated life that came with it. The people got too used to the material comforts they got out of this industrial revolution and became ignorant of environmental impacts. We continued harming our beautiful nature for years after years without thinking about what we are passing on to you. Yes, we were foolish enough to think if we earn lots of wealth our next generations will be happier. Sadly we thought this wealth is money we are making by directly or indirectly harming the very planet, on which our existence is dependent. And even when some of us realized where things are going wrong, we didn’t push our governments, businesses, and even ourselves enough to take action. Didn’t change the way to make things, to demand things, to consume things, to throw things. We didn’t make the change in our lifestyle and didn’t push everyone around us to do that. Just because, we hesitated, or even thought that what can one man do to change the situation.

Remember, if you are suffering because of unpredictable weather, natural disasters, food scarcity, or in the worst case, water scarcity, please don’t blame our beautiful nature, just blame me! My darling I couldn’t give you the better world!

Try to remember better things from your childhood. We also are doing the same, when it comes to climate and natural beauty. But in your case, I know your sufferings are much more than us.

But please have the same sustainable lifestyle which I taught you, or even make it better. I know it’s hard when you are young, want to explore things, go little (hope only little) wild. But think what the effect is going to be on your kids or younger kids around you. I know at your age nobody thinks about kids. But please don’t repeat the same mistake we did. Have faith!

I still hope, things would be better! We are going to celebrate Earth Hour today with millions of people around the world who care for the environment. Many more people are going to be Eco-aware if we keep on spreading the word. I really want you to live in a better world, where the air is fresh, water is clean and the land is adorned with natural beauty. I want people in my generation to do something concrete now and let all your beautiful children enjoy planet earth, the way we enjoyed in our childhood.

Your’s Loving,
Eco Mama

(If you also want your children to enjoy a better world, click here to be part of our Tribe and learn practical ways of living more sustainable)