What do you see in your horizon?

What do you think when you look outside the window? Have you ever found an appealing skyline, equally unsettling? What do you feel when you snuggle into bed on a winter night, knowing monarch butterflies are living their last as the last flowers of milkweed wilt away?

On the fifth floor of my favorite high-rise on campus, I stood still as the aurora shimmered across the night sky. Through its glass walls, I watched the ribbons of green and pink that lit up the concrete forest. This is my new reality.

The irony doesn’t evade me. In this endless skyline of cold, shivering steel, asphalt and glass, I’ve begun to find a home in the contrived warmth of this building. A home, in the silence of the air that feels both peaceful and alienating. But every time I look out, my heart sinks, as it remembers the bright red sun that sank into the green horizons of my home in Nepal.

 Yet, here I am, sitting five floors above a city I’ve barely traversed, gazing at the concrete forest below. A vantage point that sharpens the duality I carry within me. A view that reminds me why I’m here. The glass walls frame a city thriving on innovation, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. But they also remind me of the land I’ve left behind, where survival depends on small, labored resources, where warmth is kindled, survived on woodfire and cow dung logs.

Look around you. We appreciate amenities, we need them. We like the warmth in the lecture halls, but we also shudder at the thought of a 1.5-degree Celsius rise that we anticipate by 2050. We admire the sight of a frozen Lake Mendota, but what if one day it doesn’t freeze? What if Madison’s skyline grows so towering that the lake to the north is no longer visible? What if the ladybugs no longer hover the Allen Centennial Garden? Today, the fireflies in my fields back home are quieter than they were when I was a little girl. They are leaving, waning, as we develop, expand, research, and grow.

Our fields in the alluvial flatlands of Nepal, once bursting with life, now struggled to yield. Changing monsoons brought floods one year and droughts the next, leaving my community grappling in uncertainty. Mango trees that stood resilient for generations are giving up, their fruit sparser each year. I begin to wonder how the comforting warmth of this building may be a stimulus to the changing climate reality 8000 miles away, back home. Is the flourishing skyline here, preventing the rainfall back home?

Development, expansion, and research drive progress, but at what cost?

The critical question is, how do we design sustainability while growing, researching, expanding, developing? If we don’t integrate sustainability into our decisions now, what will remain in 2050? A 19-year-old freshman then might peer through the same glass walls and see a city with taller high-rises, stronger and more erratic blizzards, yet weaker snowflakes. The aurora may be less visible, the hum of ladybugs almost unheard.

The Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 loom ahead, but they remain disconnected from our daily lives. Why aren’t these goals embedded in every college curriculum? Shouldn’t sustainability wired into the youth of today? Why isn’t it a non-negotiable part of every budget, whether in a developed, developing, or frontier country? We cannot wait until 2030 to act. That’s a luxury we no longer have. Sustainability isn’t a choice—it’s a necessity. It must be ingrained into every classroom, every laboratory, every policymaker’s desk, every farmer’s fertilizer, and every engineer’s blueprint.

As I aspire to graduate as UW-Madison’s Class of 2028, not too far from 2030, I wonder: Will the new buildings around me embody sustainability? Will they stand as a testament to innovation that doesn’t compromise the planet? The changes we need are monumental, but they must start now. Look around. Ask yourself: How sustainable is what I see? What can I do today to make a difference?

Sustainability begins with awareness but demands action. It’s the engineered warmth and comfort we keep inside, balanced against the world we share outside. It’s the fireflies we’ve lost and the fields we must protect. Let’s ensure that in 2050, the view through these glass walls isn’t one of regret but of resilience.

As I stand on the fifth floor of my favorite high-rise, gazing at the city skyline, I realize that I carry with me the memory of my homeland—its changing landscapes, its uncertain future. Yet, here in this towering glass building, I see innovation and progress, and with it, my responsibility to make both work in harmony.

Look around. What do you see in your horizon? What would you change? How can you make a difference? As a student at UW-Madison, how will you ensure that your studies don’t just contribute to the growing skyline of knowledge, but also to a future where that skyline doesn’t come at the expense of our planet?

Try asking yourself the what first, so that the how become your lifetime goals. As they are for me. As they are for me, as a freshman studying chemical engineering 8000 miles away from home to learn to design sustainability.