Unless modern medicine advances significantly, you’ll likely be dead in a 100 years.
You’ll see the impact of climate change, watch the world and environment grow sickly and decrepit. But you likely won’t see what happens once we completely run out of natural resources, once oxygen becomes scarce, once cities turn in to underwater monuments.
You won’t be living any Day After Tomorrow, horror scenarios. Your children might though. We can still reverse the effects of climate change but to do so we need to pass on the importance of green living to younger generations. Only 32 percent of millennials identify as environmentalists according to the Pew Research Center, less than older generation groups. To save the world the environment needs to be a priority, here’s how you can teach your kids the importance of sustainability.
Andrew Vadnais, a teacher at South Kent High school argues that teaching kid’s ways to live sustainably encourages problem solving skills. At South Kent sustainable living is built in to the curriculum. Students are encouraged to think up and enact sustainable solutions on both a local and global level.
Green children often have more empathy for all living things. As Dr. Jim Taylor writes for the Huffington Post, young children actually do hug trees. Early efforts to teach a love of environmentalism to children like having them nurture for plants and animals are proven to increase children’s emotional intelligence, empathy, and compassion, according to The Washington Post. Likewise, having people imagine the impact of pollution on plants and animals increases their likelihood to fight for more sustainable practices, according to an article at Berkley’s The Greater Good.
If you’re raising your children in a green environment, using green household products, feeding them green food, and encouraging them to spend plenty of time in nature, then you’re teaching them healthy practices as well as environmentally friendly ones.
Environmentalism also comes with a mindset of gratefulness for all of the resources the Earth does give us. There’s something to be said about trying to repair a mess you’ve made or treat your home with respect. Not only does it help the planet but it’s the sort of attitude that will help your kids navigate life being the best people they can be.
