When Maeve Haley told us that she "loves the Earth," it was not a casual statement from a teenager with plenty of time to imagine what her life will be. It was a clear-eyed, sober, down-to-earth statement of purpose, a notion of what comes next. She can't relate to the way humans are taking care of -- or not taking care of -- the planet today and is certain that her generation will have to be unlike any other in its openness to change. She does what she can to shrink her carbon footprint and to help her friends do the same. She is a feminist with a picture of Gloria Steinem up on the well-curated walls of her blue bedroom and the words of Toni Morrison on her lips. She’s grateful to have attended schools with a diverse student body and has an integrated group of friends, she says. When she was in grade school she had the lead role in the Highland Community Players’ production of “Judy Plays with Fire,” a play with many references to the ‘90s TV show “Twin Peaks” (which she hadn’t yet seen). She learned about global citizenship and other cultures early on, traveling with eighth grade classmates at Highland Community School to Costa Rica for a capstone project. Today, she's a climate change activist heading into her junior year of high school with ambitions to study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.