Tamar Christensen

About ten years ago, one of my nieces (I have 26 nieces and nephews) posed the question on her social media account: What kind of world am I inheriting?

The question was paired with an image of a sea turtle whose shell had formed within the confines of a plastic ring that belonged to a six-pack of canned beverages resulting in an hour-glassed shaped sea turtle when it should have been oval. She was around 20 at the time and 30 now. I know she wasn't talking directly to me, but as her aunt I couldn't help but wonder what I was doing to make her world better. Or maybe even what I was doing to make it worse.

Since that day, I took it upon myself to educate myself about the impact humans have on the very ecosystem that supports our ability to live here. I want to know how I can avoid things that will make the world worse for my niece, Haley. And I want to do all that I can to leave her an environment that she can thrive in. Haley now has two children of her own, making the necessity for me to act even more pressing than before. What types of resources will her two children have available to them when they are my age? How can I ensure that they will have more, better, or at least the same as what I enjoy today?

That sea turtle image and the question Haley put out into the socialverse put me on a path to reduce my waste in the beginning. Since then, I've ditched almost all single use plastic from my life. I buy groceries from the bulk bins and opt out of plastic packaging at the grocery store, when I am eating out and every other opportunity where I am able. But I have no desire stop with waste reduction because I have also learned that our impacts are intertwined and complex. Over the years, I have looked at every sector of my life to see where I can live differently, better, with Haley and her children's futures in mind. Being here in the Project Drawdown EcoChallenge is going to be a place where I can learn how to further and fine tune the work I've already begun so that I might improve the lives of my nieces, nephews and all the other young people, like my students, who have their futures ahead of them. It seems like the very least I can do.

Photo of my niece, Haley, and her two sons on her 30th birthday.