Christie shares her blunt and honest experience about letting go of her desire to be European and how this contributed to her journey to end climate change. After seeing a pirated version of "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006 an alarmed Christie started a flyer campaign in Aruba. While the campaign itself had little impact on the island, this action shaped her life forever. She changed her study path and completed a graduate program in environmental science at the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands. Believing strongly that the fight against climate change should go hand in hand with poverty reduction she spent much of her education outside of Europe doing research in middle income countries. After completing an internship with Metabolic she joined the team and ended up leading Metabolic Foundation with her partner Tony. Together they've worked on a wide scope of projects looking at DIY-able appropriate technology and community-based development in Thailand, Jamaica, and in her home country of Aruba, where the foundation started Brenchie's Lab, a community maker space, and Plastic Beach Party, a small scale plastic recycling facility. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx