In the long term, what topic could be more important than a declaration on theresponsibilities of the present generations towards future generations? There is goodreason to be pleased and grateful. If future generations themselves were able to speak tous, I am sure they too would be delighted by this remarkable progress.

This leads me to wonder just what future generations would say to us, if they could.What follows is a message to us in their own words.

"Thank you for listening to this message from future generations -- those of uswho will inhabit this lovely planet for many decades to come. Our voices are usuallyoverlooked by your generations, so we are very appreciative of your willingness to listento our perspective.

You are alive at a pivotal moment in humanity's development. You are making some of themost important choices in human history. Your era is marked by positive and negativepotentials of such newness and magnitude that you can hardly understand them. We stronglycare about your choices, of course, since we benefit or suffer from them quite directly.We live downstream from you in time; whatever you put into the stream flows on to our era.

In order to give us equal opportunities, your individual behavior, social structures,economic assumptions, paradigms, and worldviews must change. We know that these changesare not shallow or easy. But if you continue your shortsighted selfishness, we will bemuch worse off than you are; the consequences will be catastrophic, perhaps even beyondyour imagination. From our long-term perspective, we see how foolish and unfair you willbe if you fail to make the required changes soon. How would you react to a bus driver whoknew the brakes would give out soon, but did not bother to get them fixed promptly?

We will be very grateful if you devote your best efforts to four particular priorities:

1. A Long-Term Perspective

In all your major decisions and actions, please consider our perspective and well-beingalong with your own. Our needs and rights are not inferior to yours. Please regard yourgeneration and ours as equals: this is the principle of intergenerational equity.

Reflect on your unique place in human history. You face the historic challenge ofmaking the shift from a narrow, self-centered, short-term focus to a long-term globalfocus taking into account our needs as well as your own. If you succeed, your era will beremembered for saving human civilization and its planet from catastrophe, and building thefoundation for a more positive world.

As members of future generations, we are particularly eager for you to designate aspokesperson for our needs in your various policy-making forums, planning processes,legislatures, parliaments, and so on. Because we are not yet alive in your era, we areunable to lobby or vote. We have no voice. We seem unreal and unimportant to many of yourpoliticians because we have not yet been born. Our perspective and interests are rarelynoted in any depth. This is why we are enthusiastic about your era's diverse proposals forincorporating our views and needs into legislative and policy-making processes. We nowurge you to move on to practical, innovative experiments. Our ultimate hope is that allparticipants in public and corporate decision-making will eventually adopt the perspectiveof future generations, and serve as spokespersons and guardians for our interests.

The overriding importance of avoiding the worst catastrophes of all will become obviousto you as you make progress in adopting a long-term perspective. Please begin now. Studythe entire range of potential trends that could eliminate or severely harm humancivilization. Avoid losing the foundation that the previous hundred generations have builtup for you -- and us. Take particularly creative steps to avoid a severe world war --perhaps even to eliminate warfare entirely. Equally important, take action to stabilizethe size of the human population and end the rapid deterioration of the planet. These twopotential catastrophes, warfare and environment, are so probable and have suchfar-reaching consequences that they are clearly central in any list of priorities.

2. Future-Relevant Research

In order to achieve a satisfactory future, you need to expand rapidly your efforts todevelop future-oriented knowledge. You need to know far more about world problems, socialand individual change, potential futures, the effectiveness of various possible paths, andother future-relevant topics. The amount of effort going into creating knowledgesignificant to the long-term future is only about one-third of what it should be; your aimshould be to multiply your futureoriented inquiry threefold over the next years. Thelong-term benefits will far outweigh the costs.

At present, world problems are outstripping your knowledge of how to deal with them.You are going to have to run much faster simply to catch up; you may find the negativeforces becoming more and more challenging. You certainly have the potential to win therace, but not by coasting along at your present level of future-oriented research.

3. Future-Relevant Education

Learning and teaching about the future provide an essential foundation for building abetter world. You cannot achieve a positive future without far-reaching learning andchanges by individuals around the world, including all of you -- not just leaders,officials, or experts. You no doubt recall the prescient words of H.G. Wells: "Humanhistory becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." You cansuccessfully navigate through the next few decades only if much of the world's populationunderstands global problems and potential futures, cares about future generations, acceptsthe need for change, and takes a cooperative and constructive approach to dealing withhard choices. Once enough people care about future generations, implementing these fourkey priorities will become much easier.

From early childhood to late adulthood, educational institutions should provide coursesin futures studies with some emphasis on the perspective of future generations, usingapproaches that affect the head, heart, soul, and hands. In every city on Earth, schools,colleges, adult education programs, libraries, television, electronic sources, and printedmaterials should help people understand global issues, think skeptically and criticallywhen appropriate, treasure all life on Earth, feel concern for other people, grasp theimportance of caring about us future generations, grasp our perspective, feel committed tonecessary changes, tolerate diverse cultures and views, cooperate for the common good, andpursue meaningful non-material goals. In addition, we urge you to consider a worldwidecampaign to increase caring for future generations.

4. Learning, Caring, and Meaningfulness

The final societal priority that we recommend for your era is very important to us, sowe hope it will soon become important to you, too. It involves three closely interrelatedareas that focus on the deeper and softer aspects of individual lives.

(a) Your society could do much more toward widespread individual learning about themost important questions of all. You should encourage and help each individual to learnthe accumulated knowledge on these questions, and also to think through their own bestanswers. Obviously they will be more successful if your society has fostered their abilityto think clearly, creatively, and skeptically about difficult and controversial questions.Here are some of the big questions that thoughtful individuals face: the origin, evolutionand ultimate destination of the universe, and humans' place in it; the history andlong-term future of humankind and human culture; our appropriate relationship with theplanet and its diverse forms of life; core values; finding a path to a positive humanfuture, and ways for each individual to contribute to achieving it.

(b) Your society should do much more to help people feel a deep bonding orconnectedness with all humankind, the planet and its diverse life forms, and futuregenerations. As more and more people experience a bond with something ageless,transcendent, and much larger than their own life, they will act on that deep love andcaring, eager to make a positive difference for humanity and the planet. Creatinginspirational groups dedicated to future generations could be particularly useful andprovide people with a transcendent purpose in life.

(c) Your society should also focus much more attention and support on the individual'sdesire for a sense of meaning and purpose in life. This sense can easily pervade a societyin which people share a sense of connectedness with the cosmos, its diverse life, and thecontinuous procession of generations.

We agree with you that the above four changes are startlingly large, deep, andfar-reaching. But the alternative is for your grandchildren's generation to spend most oftheir adult lives in a social and physical environment that is bleak and nasty. If youchoose the tempting path that lies right in front of you, squandering time and energy onconsumption, luxury, competition, quarrels, violence, and the faddish projects and causesof the moment, think of the pain and suffering you will cause us. We cry when we think ofwhat might come to pass; perhaps you too will feel some tears as you think about this.

Of the four changes, the most important of all is the worldwide shift toward caringdeeply about the well-being of all the people who will be alive over the next few decades,and the well-being of the planet. This paradigm shift is necessary for citizens,policy-makers, business leaders, and key people throughout governments. As more and moreof you change your inner perspective, there is an excellent chance that the necessaryouter changes will also occur. Thank you for your deep and serious attention to oursuggestions.