My name is Taylor Gunderson. I’m 28 years old and was born in Minnesota. I’ve lived in several different states and even a few different countries. I graduated high school in Colorado so that’s where I claim home to be. Right now I’m living in Casablanca, Morocco assigned to the U.S. Consulate. Before this I was in Lahore, Pakistan (not a very nice place for Americans) and before that I was assigned to the U.S. Mission in Geneva, Switzerland (great place). I’ve been serving with the U.S. Marines for a little longer than 10 years now, and I’ll complete my current my assignment with the U.S. State Department, later this year. I’m not entirely sure about my future as of right now. One of my best friends just finished his bachelor’s in GIS, and he always made geography out to be a very interesting subject to study, so we’ll see how it goes!

Just in my lifetime, the world’s population has increased from about 5,000,000,000 in 1987, to more than 7,000,000,000 today. It doesn’t take a great knowledge of math to know that those are incredible numbers, and barring any of the major existential risks coming to fruition on the planet, this number is likely to double within my lifetime. With that, studying and understanding human impact on the environment will only become more important as time progresses. Humans will need to learn how to grow our population without completely depleting the natural resources that are available to us, or causing major extinctions in other organisms. Establishments of environmental policies will become paramount, and leaders that will be making those decisions will require clear, concise, and accurate information so that the best possible outcome can be facilitated.