“Daddy, why do you want to be mayor?” asked my daughter Calla at bedtime the day after I filed as a candidate. “To make the world a better place for you,” I replied.

When my wife and I were thinking about having children, I felt some anxiety about bringing children into a world in which they would endure the effects of climate change essentially their whole lives. But my wife and I wanted to have children, and now we have two wonderful daughters.

Ever since my own childhood, I have been interested in and concerned with environmental sustainability. While I have always strived to live sustainably and supported environmental organizations, I had never engaged in environmental activism — or activism of any sort. Once my family and I settled in Louisville, I decided that I must act to ensure productive, enjoyable lives for my daughters and, potentially, to secure a healthy, livable future for my daughters. The scientific consensus on climate change — and humanity’s insufficient efforts to mitigate climate change — had become a call to action. I set out to be that resident who stands up for environmental sustainability, especially climate action, at every opportunity in Louisville.

Mitigating Louisville’s contributions to global warming and adapting Louisville to the effects of climate change are not the only ways in which I want to make the world a better place for my daughters. For instance, I want to raise my daughters within a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community. I want them to have a diversity of friends and acquaintances so that they are exposed to a diversity of ideas and perspectives. I want them to experience and appreciate the benefits of an equitable and inclusive community. Bringing more affordable housing to Louisville, for which I have advocated extensively, represents one strategy to make Louisville such a place.