At Target Field, there are waste bins for your food scraps, water refill stations to keep you hydrated, and a rainwater reuse system that saves and recycles water every time it storms. The Minnesota Twins didn’t do this for political reasons—they did it because water matters here in Minnesota. They looked around, saw what needed care, and acted. Not because someone told them to—but because they understood the spirit of this place.

That’s the heart of stewardship. No one had to be convinced to care about water. Baseball fans already loved the game. The Twins just gave them a new way to show that love for Minnesota, too. That’s what makes Target Field so interesting. We have very few public spaces that feel both temporary and eternal, both intimate and shared. But a baseball game is one of them. It’s slow enough to notice the sky. Repetitive enough to pattern your attention. Communal enough to carry our shared myths—without anyone needing to name them directly.

So maybe the question isn’t “How do we get more people to care about the environment?”
Maybe it’s: “Where are people already practicing care?”

At Upstream, we imagine a future where kids grow up assuming that sorting your waste is just part of going to any public event. Where stories about Minnesota’s water aren’t confined to textbooks or grant applications—but are woven into scoreboard graphics and menu choices.Where stewardship isn’t a program—it’s just something Minnesotans do. Because it always was.

Now we’re just finding better places to remember it.

That’s what makes this Earth Day feel different. For once, all the signs point in the same direction—not toward more division, but toward shared attention: 
Target Field. Upstream gatherings. Schoolkids planting trees.

This isn’t environmentalism.
It’s memory.
It’s identity.
And if we do it right—it’s also the future.