Having grown up in a small mountain town called Idyllwild with parents who would probably be considered “hippies” even by the most liberal greenies, I feel like a dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist. My parents started our little town’s recycling program from scratch, and I still remember the days when my dad would drive to the dump and climb into the huge bins, dutifully re-sorting the clear, brown, and green glass. Around the house, he had set up an assortment of interesting contraptions to minimize our use of resources. There was a compost heap in the yard, and every one of our light fixtures was fitted with a CFL. He’d scout out fallen trees in the forest to chop up for our little cast iron woodstove, which was the only source of heat in our house (and a very effective one, too). He’d wash a sink full of dishes with only a teacup’s worth of hot soapy water. Teetering wooden drying racks would pop up all around the living room on laundry day, and a makeshift pipe system directed sink and shower water to the garden outside. And to top it all off, all three of us were vegetarians.

At the time, I thought all of this was really weird. After all, nobody else I knew had all this crazy stuff at their houses, and I always had to bring my own tofu dog to my friends’ birthday barbeques. But the environmental movement has come a long way since then. Now I see people changing their habits all the time, making it a priority to live responsibly and care for the earth. Even our LEED Platinum rated office building in Santa Monica features sophisticated versions of many of the things my dad was trying to do back then. I feel extremely fortunate to have been exposed to the concept of sustainability at a young age, and to have the opportunity to work at NRDC alongside dedicated colleagues who strive every day to address the issues, push the envelope, and keep our environment safe and beautiful. She blogs on NRDC's Switchboard.

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