Michele Bigley

It’s impossible to ignore the impact of humans on our warming world when standing on polluted shorelines of Latin America, watching tourists sip glacier melt from plastic water bottles on a retreating glacier, trying to find specks of color in bleached reefs, or gasping for fresh air in wildfire-stricken California. For research in my book project, I recently interviewed David Katz, CEO and founder of Plastic Bank, an organization that monetizes plastic as currency to feed, house and educate the planet’s most impoverished residents. I’d watched his inspiring TED Talk with Kai that morning, and Kai told me to ask Mr. Katz if there’s any hope for his future. In response to Kai’s question, David Katz told me to do the following (you should try it, really, take a minute and try it right now):

For months, I’ve been reading about sustainability, plastic pollution, and my own carbon footprint realizing it’s time to make a massive change in my life. But after reading the devastating facts about plastic pollution, I knew we had to try to lessen the impact of our footprints this summer. This will prove super challenging as water is not always safe to drink, and we’ll need to lather ourselves with sunscreen and bug repellent throughout our time exploring the Amazon and the Cartagena coast. The plastic we must take (bug spray and sunscreen) we’ll recycle with organizations like Green Apple.

And as they dreamed of scoring soccer goals, I sat on my couch wondering how to deliver the news gently, without rubbing in the fact that our country, the one they gleefully cheer for in World Cup events and the Olympics, voted for fear and hatred and bullying and intolerance. And yes, as an activist, I want that to be a lesson I teach my boys–that together we fight against intolerance and hatred. But I also don’t want them to think that it is ok to support a democracy that has been usurped by the fascist ramblings  of a narcissist whose supporters have spray painted nazi symbols across our country this morning. I want my boys to know that it is not alright to grab a woman’s pussy, or insult a person’s disabilities, or hate someone because their skin is darker than theirs.

And if I want my boys to grow into the kind of people who can and will make the world better, then they have to see that people who are different than they are are not bad. While traveling in Europe this summer, we made choices more aimed at our safety–avoiding large crowds, a slight challenge during the Eurocup frenzy in Germany. While watching a Eurocup game with another Dutch friend, a couple Molotov cocktails were thrown on the field and I asked her how she talks about the state of the world with her kids, eight year old twins. And then we returned to reading Harry Potter, me hoping he didn’t ask details I wasn’t ready to share as he then pointed out the window at the astounding Austrian Alps, and said, “Europe is really beautiful.