Peter Webber's Letter

To those who come after me,

I can only apologise to all who come after me and have to deal with a world that has been damaged by my generation and previous generations. We understood too late what we had been doing to our beautiful planet. Important science was withheld by those with their own agenda, and when the truth of the damage we had inflicted was undeniable, those in power still chose to put short term gain above the long term health of our world. Those who understood what was coming shouted loudly but were shut down or ignored by the rich and powerful who continued to rape the planet for their own gain. Our political leaders were no better. Popularity and self interest were driving forces, when care of our environment and changes to our unsustainable consumption levels should have been their priorities.

As has been the case throughout history, it was the richer nations that could have done most, and the poorer ones who suffered greatest. Those powerful nations chose to ignore the plight of poorer countries, using their power and money for their own selfish ends.

We are leaving you with a damaged planet, partly now uninhabitable, climate driven conflict and forced migration. You have the task of trying to rectify the damage caused by 200 years of extraction and burning of precious fossil fuel resources. We have latterly made efforts to replace our reliance on fossil fuels, but too little, too late. You will never see some of the most wonderful sights that we were privileged to witness. So many species of plants and animals don’t now exist because of our greed and selfishness. We have visited on you the sins of multiple previous generations and for that I am truly sorry.