When I think of the environment I think beyond the things we can see and feel that are obvious to everyone. I apologize for the damage we did and generations before us, that either did not know better or totally disregarded the warnings.

I am sitting here writing this letter on a quiet Sunday afternoon. The wind is gusting, blowing the piles of leaves into the air and depositing them in dusty, forlorn and forgotten corners. The leaves, most of them still clinging to the trees, crinkly and brown, are unwilling participants in the changing climate. A reminder of the record breaking cold snap from last month, having frozen them in place, denying them their time of glory and natural order of business.

As one of your sister species, having evolved from you and alongside you for 3.8 billion years, I am heart-heavy to say with such regret that our species has created a mess. We have come in like a whirling dervish, in a few short centuries, to turn on end the homeostatic balance of the world you depend on. Climate disruption, plastics and chemicals spread to every corner, and loss of our planet’s beloved creatures every day. I must ask… how are you doing?

The year 2050 feels a long way off, and whether that year we see earth’s continued deterioration, or an earth healing, still beautiful yet changed, remains to be seen. I hope and believe it is the latter, and oh my, is there work to do! So let's get rolling.

I am writing this on your 7th birthday, today. On your 38th you’ll know all too well that in 2019 we failed to stop carbon emissions in time to prevent catastrophic changes. Venice, Miami, Manhattan, and many of our greatest coastal cities are changed forever as the oceans rose into the streets and canals of the centers of our civic life.