Dear future Bernie,

How are you? How is life? Through my classes at Loyola, I learned a lot about the possible future of our environment – rising sea levels, warmer temperatures, decreased biodiversity, stronger hurricanes, and many more things. Is it true? Wherever you are, are your choices significantly based on environmental conditions? In my classes, we discussed different individual ways on how to mitigate environmental problems, such as reducing food waste, eating less meat, recycling, and educating others on these problems. Especially as an Environmental and Sustainability Studies minor, I am trying to implement this more and more into my lifestyle. Do you think that is enough? I would like to think my individual actions are doing something right for the planet, but is large-scale, government action taking place? During most of my environmental-focused classes, I would leave feeling sad and hopeless because I feel like the things that I do are not enough and that our government and society as a whole is not doing enough. However, it has made me feel more motivated to work towards addressing the issue and more passionate about preventing it. Besides my individual actions, as the Sustainability Intern at CCSJ, I want to make a larger impact on the school and make members of the university aware of the issues and do something about them. I think that convincing others to practice individual mitigation strategies is going to make a much bigger impact. In addition, this class and my other environmental classes have solidified my desire to do this as an occupation. I want to work in an environmental NGO to fight for different environmental issues or work for a corporation that is working towards practicing environmental strategies. Is this what you’re doing? If so, how has this impacted your mental health? No matter what you end up doing, I hope you are happy and living in a healthy environment not needing to worry about all these issues. I hope you’re able to have children and not worry about the environment they’re living in. I hope you’ve been able to make an impact on people and were able to convince and motivate them to address these issues. I know you’re doing what you can and I’m proud of the work you’ve done and are doing to make a more sustainable world.
Bernie, 12/9/2021