I love the water.
I grew up swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, and
I still love to swim, wade, snorkel, bodyboard, and run in the waves.
In a way, not much has changed since I spent summer afternoons toddling along
Church's Beach on Cuttyhunk Island.
In another way,
everything has changed. Our human activities threaten our ability to
live on this planet: high levels of CO2 acidify the oceans, manmade
toxics spew into rivers, factory trawlers clear the seas. This was
business as usual when I was a boy, but now there is a worldwide
awareness that we need to change our behavior, or face the prospect of
turning our world into a place that we might not be able to live.
I
feel this even more acutely now that I am a father: not only do I want
my daughters to inherit a healthy world, I want to get them the tools
they'll need to begin solving the staggering challenges facing their
generation.
So this time around, I won't simply swim 1,500+
miles, or brainstorm ways to protect the ocean with my kids, or stage
ethical electronics recycling events: I will challenge 50,000 students
to launch projects designed to improve the health of our waterways and our
world.
Hopefully, when the effort ends, there will be more to
show for it than just my daughters bugging me to walk to the store,
there will be thousands of kids leaning on their parents, teachers and
caregivers to protect our ocean planet.
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| Church's Beach on Cuttyhunk Island--where my love affair with the Atlantic began |
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