It is 2034. Brevard County children who entered elementary school at the turn of the millennium are now raising their own families. Our dependents are now adults, and they are judging us. Our kids loved growing up in Brevard back in the 1990s. The wonder of the world they had was fostered by an accessible backyard wilderness. To come of age in Brevard meant that childhood homes often included the homes of splendidly social scrub jay families, grazing gopher tortoises, and lanky bobcats lending measured glimpses. Back then, many kids were just a bike ride away from a vista of green space. The times allowed lessons about how towering pines and ancient oaks presided over an important part of our world. But Brevard was changing. In 2004, the county was on the cusp of radical physical alterations and shifts in culture. Yet those changes did not have to be so severe. With what they know now in 2034, our kids are gravely disappointed in us. Back in 2004, how could the adults in charge not have anticipated losing what made Brevard such a pleasant place in which to grow up? Didn’t they realize their opportunity to preserve what we loved about our county? Indeed, it’s a pity.
   Gallant efforts to preserve our beloved Indian River Lagoon could not keep up with the deluge of polluting water running off hundreds of square miles of sprawling suburban tracts. We loved our scrub jays and gopher tortoises, but not enough to keep their populations from dwindling in the isolation of tiny pockets of sandy scrub.
   The demise of natural vistas and open cattle country has changed our Brevard. And we have all sensed our own personal changes. We lament that

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we did not successfully fight the compulsion to build another South Florida.
   Now, we find ourselves evolved into the high- stressed, roadraged, South Florida residents we once ridiculed.
   We plead that it was an economic compulsion. We thought that benefits from our building boom would endure. We thought, “ Why invest in green space when it is concrete and asphalt that drive our economy?” “ Because it was destined to end sometime,” the children of 2004 tell us. Our boom could have ended short of losing an interconnection of open spaces, or it could have ended with those open spaces filled with roads and rooftops.
   Tragically, we chose the latter.
   We missed our chance in 2004, but not because we didn’t care about our county.
   Of course we cared. We simply made the common impetuous mistake of undervaluing an investment. Green space, it seems, can get only rarer and more valuable.
   We fancied ourselves as fiscal conservatives. Yet, by singlemindedly shunning taxes, we lost what conservatives value most — restraint of radical change, preserving traditional values and cautious persistence.
   We had our chance to keep a sustainable economy built on treasures that others would pay to experience, but sadly, many of those treasures have been frittered away.
   Thirty years later, the children of 2004 realize what was lost for their own kids. If only they could go back in time, grab their parents by the lapels, and beg them to invest in a greener Brevard where outdoor wonders are still commonplace.
   If only the parents of 2004 could heed their plea. Perhaps they will.

   Witherington is a biologist and writer living in Floridana Beach in south Brevard County.