Writing a letter to your future self, or loved ones in the future, can be a powerful way to reflect on and connect with your thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears about how our climate is changing and what we can do about it.
This was our intention when we offered an opportunity to write a Letter to Tomorrow at our Nature Festival back in June this year. In a packed out schedule full of learning and activity, the invitation to write a letter offered a moment to pause, reflect and sit with your own thoughts about climate and nature for a while.
We deliberately kept the brief fairly loose so people of all ages could engage with the activity in their own way. Some people wrote to their future self, others wrote to loved ones, others wrote more generally to the future and some chose to focus in on 2030 when we are due to reach the drastic cuts in emissions as determined by the Paris Agreement.
The ages of participants ranged from 8 to 80 and it was a joy to watch people sit in quiet contemplation as they wrote, slowly filling up the gallery wall at Harbour House with their words and wishes. Thank you to everyone that took the time to write and add their letter to the exhibition. We have transcribed the letters here for you to read through. We hope they inspire you, galvanize you, entertain you and comfort you. Perhaps you will even be moved to write your own. If you do we would love for you to share it with us.
Unsurprisingly, the process of writing a letter to the future - as well as engaging with the nature festival as a whole - brought up lots of emotions and questions for many people. Anxiety, eco-grief, fear, anger, confusion, uncertainty, restlessness and hope to name just a few. As a climate action group we are acutely aware of the spectrum of feelings that climate change and biodiversity loss can evoke within us.
One of our aims is to build a more resilient community around these issues and to offer companionship, connectivity and the opportunity for collective action as we face these challenges together. Please look out for the date of a new "Climate Cafe" in Kingsbridge soon. This will be an informal space to gather for an evening to meet people that share the same hopes and fears for the future, to swap useful books, inspiration and ideas, and to create connections and simple pathways to action for those that want to take it. We are working on the date for a first gathering and look forward to sharing this news very soon.
In the meantime, please sit down with a cup of tea and enjoy these wonderful letters.
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