Posted: May 1, 2023   •   Posted in: Climate concern, Discussions, Environment

Responses to ‘Us and the climate and the future – Letters to Tomorrow’

This Friday discussion was offered by our Climate Concern Group, looking forward to an open event planned at the Meeting House on Saturday 10 June (All welcome).

We invited Martin to reflect on the session, and Valerie was also happy to share her ‘letter to tomorrow’.

Martin’s reflections

I attended a climate-change discussion at Beccles Quakers on 28th April.  It was titled “Letters to Tomorrow”, inspired by a Climate Coalition campaign.  The idea is to write a letter to the future, expressing hopes and fears about the climate change crisis, and the response to it.

Our group, which was led by Valerie whose ‘Letter to Tomorrow’ is below, had a wide-ranging discussion, including the threat of sea-level rise, the need for climate-friendly building regulation (e.g. solar panels on new-build properties), and reducing car use. We also reflected on how we could engage with local and national politics, and what personal changes we could make.  And there was a lively exchange about nuclear power!

Anyway, I’ve written my “Letter to Tomorrow”, urging a future government to invest in tidal power, including a tidal barrage,  The advantage of tidal power is it’s predictability, compared to other renewables like wind and solar. That predictability could help to reduce our dependence on gas, which still accounts for 34% of UK electricity generation.

So, what next? I’m not sure I want to go on demonstrations in London, but maybe there are other things I could do.  There’s another climate-change event at Beccles Quakers in June, so perhaps I’ll get some more ideas then.

Valerie’s Letter to Tomorrow

Dearest Lucy

We had such a perfect week together in Suffolk to celebrate your 8th birthday. Swimming from the beach at Walberswick and arriving famished at the café for tea and cake all round. Watching the frantic activity of the terns and avocets with nests on the scrape at Minsmere. The babies were so cute. Then you racing and me breathless climbing the church tower in Beccles to survey the busy town and the peaceful river and fields.

After I waved you goodbye I thought I would learn more about this lovely county but instead I was saddened to find, instead, how much of it was threatened by rising sea levels. It was quite a shock to realise that if we didn’t stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere then our coast would be changed beyond recognition. No more Covehithe or parts of Southwold and Aldeburgh.    No more Walberswick, Minsmere or the Orford Ness Nature Reserve.   Will the terns and avocets have left while trying in vain to find dry places for their nests? We might even have to reach the church at Beccles by boat as the River Waveney’s water levels rise.

We created such cherished memories that week all those years ago. Can we bear that future generations will be denied that joy? I know you and I will have tried to save those things we value but will we do enough?  I am too old to find out. So that’s why I’m writing this letter for you to open in 2050 reaching out in time and hoping that some of those things we have loved will still be there to delight you and your children and grandchildren to come.

With all my love Grannie Valerie