A Letter to My Daughter

I must start by saying, I am sorry!

I am sorry that I have lived my whole life without much thought about the environment or the climate crisis. Life before you did not include considerations about water usage, limiting travel, single-use items, food choices or food waste. For the past decade I feel like I have been focused on just the basics. Trying not to be wasteful, recycling and reusing packing materials, old clothes, and food packaging. I use glass food storage containers and filter water at home instead of buying bottled water. As a family, we make most of the food we eat, which helps to minimize wasteful takeout containers. We use our own cloth bags for shopping. And now, we have our electric car and solar panels for the house. Still, none of this feels like enough, and I am certain it is not! We still live with abundance and convenience, way more than is necessary.

It is unsustainable!

The way that we are living, in fact, is unsustainable. Globally, human activities make too much carbon. The earth does have a system of filtering the CO2 out of the atmosphere because it is true, CO2 naturally occurs on the planet, but those natural filters, mostly trees, soil, and the oceans, have become overworked and overfilled and they can’t hold all the carbon that we are emitting. There is no question about this. The carbon in the air has been measured and tracked, and 99.5% of scientists agree that the climate crisis is human caused, and that if we do not get to net zero emissions by 2050 the world’s future will be impossible for many, scary for more, and entirely different for all.

There is only one solution!

We as humans must put less carbon into the air. As your mom, my emotions these days are running back and forth between despair and determination. As your parent, my main purpose in life is to prepare you for the world, but that assumes that the world will still exist in a way that provides your generation with opportunities for living. I do not know how much environmental damage has been done and how much, if any, is reversible. What I do know is that as your mother I will ALWAYS take any and every action necessary to protect you! So, I am going to do EVERYTHING within my power to save the planet for you. There is so much that needs to be done, and a lot of the heavy lifting is out of my hands, but I know where I can start.

There is only one direction!

We can start with our food choices. Too much of the harmful greenhouse gas emitted is from factory farming and the land needed to produce food for the food (animals) we eat. We need to eat with the climate in mind so that less is produced and less is wasted. Our earth needs us to reduce methane emissions. Methane is the fastest and most powerful way to impact the climate.

We need our food to produce less carbon and that is a huge first step that I can take as an individual to act positively towards saving your future. Now, you know me, I cannot do just that! I am going to be loud about this because I want as many people as possible to join me on this climate crisis solving mission. There is only one direction for me to go! I want the story of my life to be the story of saving the planet for your life and the life of your children, and their children. Let’s do this! Here we go Planet A!

I Love you beyond what you can imagine!

Love, Mom

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