Mikael's Letter

To my daughter, whom I will never have. ,

Hello little one,

Currently, you only exist in my dreams. Dreams and spontaneous thoughts that consider your existence and are immediately followed up by a single thought.

Not on this planet, not under these conditions.

You see, I would love to be your father, and at the time of writing I am 33 years old, but it simply would be too selfish now to bring you into this world. For my entire life we have spoken about climate change, global warming and Ecosystem Collapse. For 33 years your would be Grandma, Your Grandad, Your Uncle and Aunt and all the family have done their utmost to make as little negative impact. Me and your uncle started a company to deliver environmental conservation across Yorkshire, we've been vegetarian for over 28 years, we've protested, we've delivered, we've researched and committed ourselves to being the change we want to see in this world.

But daughter, not everyone does. If I told you that for the 33 years I've been alive, the Oil companies have continued unchecked, emissions targets have been missed, pathetically woeful Political targets have been made and missed and everyone in charge likes to believe that they're the greenest so and so in their position ever. Truth be told, I personally do more before second breakfast than many of them will ever achieve in their careers, and that is why I found myself in the difficult position I find myself in now.

I'm sorry, I chose the Environment over you. You wouldn't thank me if you were born. We've just had the worst heatwave since the heatwave the year before, which was worse than the year before that. Still politicians in fight and have their eyes shut. I see wildflowers blooming earlier than the pollinating insects that feed on them, and still they argue about what to do instead of asking us. I took a picture of the first bluebell I saw in May in your Grandma's garden in 2012 when I lived there, in 2022 I took a picture in the same place, a bluebell in January. Still big oil companies try to dispel climate change and pay for it to be kept quiet. In March, a neighbour showed me a picture from March 1986 of my garden almost a metre deep in snow, This year, we barely got a centimetre for three days. Still our council only recycle 4 items from the curb and spray Glyphosate on the footpaths.

Whomever reads this before the date intended will know that we have been warning them for decades, and we get ignored, even when I am personally out working hard in the very environment they never think of. I see it first hand, but they still put in woefully low targets and miss them. They know what we think of them, and they do it anyway.

It's been 33 years since I was born, and nothing politically, socially, Environmentally or economically has improved. The world's getting hotter, you can barely afford to live, noone seems to care about anything but themselves and politicians all act like narrow minded rich half wits with about as much intellect as a grain of sand. They do not care about your environmental conservationist father, your care worker mother, their friends, Family, neighbours and even the people who deliver the post, police the streets, empty the bins and look after them when they are sick. All they care about is making money from greedy corporations destroying the world, avoiding tax, and making everyone's lives utter misery until the general election while we hurtle into ecological disaster.

So no, unfortunately you will not be born, you'd be too smart for these idiots, and you'd see the blindingly obvious choices that need to be made, Just as most of us do, and become as dismayed at the complete inability for those in power to do anything sensible. You are better off not born, and not suffering at their inaction.

For now, I promise as long as I can, I will continue to work to restore the nations peatbogs, diversify the woodlands, re-meander those rivers, put in natural flood management measures and seed those rare haymeadows, with the like minded people I know who work as hard to give them such beautiful places to trash with their inaction. I'll just leave behind a nice wet peatbog in your name when I go.

Plus, with the rubbish money that the environmental sector gets now we left the EU, I'm afraid I have to spend it on the habitats to help prolong the inevitable destruction though their inaction, I'd never be able to give you the life you deserve. It is possible that in 2030 I will see this letter in my Beach side house in Huddersfield, remember fondly the cool winters and smell of wild plants, and wonder what you may have been like.

I apologise that you won't get to see what they've done and get to be as angry as I am.

But I do still wish things were different as I would have absolutely loved to have shared what makes me happy about the natural world, but by the time you'd be old enough, it'll all be gone.

Mikael