Planting Seeds

A fundamental problem that is preventing us from moving towards an environmentally sustainable society is the way we are cultivating a generation of young people who have no connection with the environment. Young people can, and many do, go an entire day without looking away from a screen; there is no wonder we are having trouble raising youth who are passionate about the environment. We live in a world where there is an illusion of separation from nature; there is no dotted line that connects our facebook profile to the trees and the water. People don’t need to care, and they won’t if they have no relationship with nature. This is where the problem lies. We have a detached generation that is growing up with no genuine reason to care for their environment, and it is hard to foresee a society that values the environment as much as it needs to be. It is not enough to have people protect this planet because they must; we need a society that protects this planet because there is a burning desire to.

There have been efforts to raise awareness and to educate youth of environmental issues through a plethora of mediums. The persistent messages of a planet in crisis have numbed people from the statistics and images and quotes. The media has drowned us in information, and it is now harder than ever to inspire change through traditional marketing campaigns. Not only is the volume of these messages overwhelming, but the angle in which they are communicated are very daunting. We have been spoon-fed a diet of fear and hopelessness towards climate change throughout our childhoods. While the reality may be melting ice and drowning polar bears, we are made to feel like this is an insurmountable problem.

So the question can be stated, how do we encourage people to create this connection with nature that will ultimately instill the values of sustainability and environmental stewardship within them? The most powerful way is the one that I was fortunate enough to experience in a very remarkable way; simply returning to nature. Have an experience where you’ll fall in love with nature and its beauty. Being in the Arctic for just two weeks completely changed the way I viewed the world around me, and it was a pivotal experience. It is difficult to get everyone to put on a pair of hiking boots and take a weekend away from the rest of the world, so we also need to bring this beauty to the people through an approach that doesn’t strike fear, but rather inspires hope. Show the mountain ranges that I saw, the Inuit that I met. There is so much reason to love our planet, but it’s hard when we see it through a dark telescope. People will fight for what is good before they fight against what they fear. The science can tell us why we need to protect the environment, but it is the beauty that convinces us to.

Joey Loi is a member of the Youth Environmental Network of York Region, and in July 2011 participated in the Arctic Expedition with Students on Ice. Please visit studentsonice.com for information on how you can go to the Arctic or Antarctic!