When I was 9 years old, my family vacationed on the Chesapeake Bay, and on that vacation I witnessed environmental destruction first hand for the first time.  I was appalled at what I saw.
On our first day there I sat on a pier, and as the tide went out, I saw hundreds of dead fish covered in tar lying motionless on the ground.  It was the first time I realized that the luxuries we have as humans cause drastic and irreversible devastation to the environment. As a 9 year old it was easy for me to dismiss things that weren't present in my daily routine, but this realization was the first of many that made me wonder how humans can knowingly destroy the environment in exchange for things that we've learned to call necessities.  From that point on I saw life from a very different perspective, one that implored me to not accept the explanations that were given to me, but to draw my own conclusions.