Cascadia Scorecard News
February 2005

On winter mornings when Ann Christensen looked at the windowsill in the bedroom of her childhood home in Louisville, Kentucky, she would find a layer of coal dust. "That must be all right," she'd think, "because they wouldn't let it happen if it were dangerous." Ann doesn't think that anymore.

"Right around the time of the first Earth Day [in 1970] it was environmentalism that radicalized me," Ann reflects. "It must have started with water issues in California," where she began raising her family. Before she knew it, she and her husband, Doug, were leading family trips with the Sierra Club and she went back to school to augment her knowledge with every biology and environmental class she could find.

Doug, a builder, also got active. "He was so outspoken people began to warn him, 'You better keep your mouth shut...if you know what's good for you,'" Ann confides. Today, her two daughters continue the tradition, one working in international environmental law and the other learning to live sustainably in Marin County. "I have raised two environmentalists," Ann proclaims with evident glee.

Ann has been a Cascadian for more than 20 years. "We led a Sierra Club trip to the White Clouds here in Idaho and it was so beautiful," she remembers. "The next winter we came up to ski and ended up buying a small ranch. It was not a very carefully planned decision!" But she's never looked back. In Idaho's more conservative political environment, Ann got even more involved in promoting sustainability.

Somewhere along the line she got word of Sightline Institute. "I recognized Alan Durning's name from the Worldwatch Institute [where Alan served as a researcher before founding Sightline in 1993], and I knew that was a good thing." Ann became a fan of Sightline and read all the books over the years. Recently, she got more involved because of the Cascadia Scorecard.

"Sightline has highlighted indicators that can be used to understand where we're going and where we've been. They do the research, make interesting and useful comparisons between different places, and show what works," Ann explains. "And great reform ideas, like pay-as-you-drive auto insurance, spring out of the indicators-ideas I wouldn't have thought of otherwise." Ann likes Sightline's work because it is positive, hopeful, and solutions-oriented. "I read lots of very depressing stuff all the time," Ann laments. "Sightline's work is different."

Ann is a founding member of the Cascadia Stewards Council, Sightline's multi-year giving society of major supporters. Why did she make her first donation to Sightline? "Because someone asked me," she says. And, "Because it's so important to get the word out. There's so much ignorance about environmental issues. People say they're concerned about the environment, but then don't act that way. We need to understand the importance of a sustainable environment. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, everything is dependent on a clean environment! And the Cascadia Scorecard can help people see the connections."

"I hope more people will support Sightline," Ann concludes, "so that they can do more research, and reach more people with their message."