I’m sorry for what we’ve done to the planet, but it’s not too late to rewrite the end of this story
TV meteorologist Laura Tobin has been a climate-change campaigner for the past 10 years. She knows all too well how devastating its effects can be – and how overwhelmed people feel as they wonder how they can help.
In Everyday Ways To Save Our Planet, Laura shows how an individual can make a huge difference in the effort against climate change. The below excerpt is a touching letter from Laura to her daughter Charlotte, five, about what the future could hold for her…
TO CHARLOTTE...
They say there are seven wonders of the world, but to me there is only one – you.
On this whole amazing planet you are the most special thing of all, in my eyes.
In fact, most of the original wonders aren’t ‘wonderful’ any more because they have been destroyed or left in ruins. Some people are working hard to protect those that are left, but why did we take so long to act? Why didn’t we try sooner?
So this letter is to tell you that I will do everything I can to make sure that you can see all the wonders our world has to offer. I want your eyes open wide at all the new things you see and for those memories to last a lifetime.
I’m sad that some things may only be alive in stories, photos or the memories of other people. Will I be able to take you to Svalbard to see the beautiful fjords that stretch as far as the eye can see? Will you see the polar bears and reindeer, or will they be long gone?
One thing is for certain – if you stand where I stood, the landscape will look very different. It’s already too late to preserve it as it is now, BUT we can do something about just how different it will look, because that will depend on how long we carry on overheating our planet and how much ice melts.
It’s not too late to rewrite the end of the story and I want to do that for you, so you can see the world in all its glory with all the tiny islands, all the beautiful plants and all the amazing animals.
I’M SORRY…
I’m sorry that we have known for so long that our world is overheating because of our actions. Sorry that we’ve polluted all of our oceans and all of our skies. Sorry that the ice is melting and the seas are rising. Sorry that millions of people are having to move away from their homes because of the impacts of climate change – because of heatwaves, wildfires and floods. Sorry that we continue to burn fossil fuels and pump them into the atmosphere – the air that you have to breathe. Sorry that in the short span of your life so far our planet is the hottest in human history. Sorry that one in eight animal and plant species are threatened with extinction (that’s one million!) and that in the last 50 years we have lost 68% of global wildlife.
I’m sorry that we aren’t kinder to our planet and everything on it. Sorry that we think it’s okay to dig holes in the ground and fill them with rubbish when so much of what we cover with soil could have been given new life. Sorry that we keep cutting down trees, which act as the lungs of our planet. Sorry that by 2050 all the plastic in the oceans will weigh more than all the fish unless we take urgent action. Sorry that there are tiny low-lying islands that will soon disappear beneath the waves through no fault of their own.
I’m sorry we think it’s okay to throw rubbish on the ground. Sorry I can’t answer your question, ‘Why did we do that?’ because I’m not sure we know ourselves. Laziness? Not caring? Not understanding? I’m sorry we think it’s okay to drive to the shop for some milk or bread when often we can easily walk. Sorry that we are not kinder to our planet – it’s the only one we have and we should look after it as
carefully as I will look after you.
I PROMISE…
I promise that I will do everything I can to save our planet – to encourage everyone to listen to the scientists and take action.
I promise that we will slow down and then stop pumping pollution into our atmosphere, to make the air clean again. I promise we will make more use of the wind and sun and tides that are ours for free to give us power. I promise that we will give the Earth’s marine life a fighting chance by phasing out the plastic that pollutes our rivers and oceans.
I promise we will live more sustainably so we can save more of the planet’s resources, that we will think more of others and help developing nations to give their people a better life.
I promise that we will let nature flourish – like it did during the pandemic when the world started to heal, the pollution cleared, we could breathe fresh air, hear birdsong.
I HOPE…
I hope that the message of this book does not fall on deaf ears. I hope it will inspire lots of people to start making the kind of small but important changes that will give you and your generation of children the most beautiful and unspoilt planet possible.
Charlotte, I love you and I love our planet. I want to protect you and I want to protect it too. I do all this for you, my Number One Wonder Of
The World.