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The San Diego Union-Tribune

 
RICHARD LOUV
Young hunger for environmental hope

November 15, 2005

The smugness with which many of us, over 30, view young people is matched only by the cynicism that the young often express about their own generation. How different it could be.

Last month, Arno Chrispeels, a science teacher at Poway High School, invited me to talk with his students about the changed relationship between the young and the natural world. Expecting gum-popping and note-passing (an assumption that reflected my own latent cynicism), I faced 200 intently curious students who seemed starved for something unnamed.

Later, when I remarked on their intensity, Chrispeels said, "That's because you said something positive about the future. They're not used to hearing that, especially not about the environment."

That may be. In the days that followed, Chrispeels asked some of his classes to write down the dominant messages that they hear about the environment from media, environmentalists, and the wider culture.

Most of the essays described two dominating messages: Pick up after yourself (nature is a chore); and the natural world is in big trouble (but it's too late to save it anyway). Mixed among these statements were positive references to the beauty of nature, but the dominant tone was negative. For example:

"Humans are a bad environment for other humans ..." " ... you will see the Earth reach its end as (we) continue our selfish acts against the environment ..." "Ozone hole getting larger, global warming ..." " ... the environment will die ..." " ... the dangers of nature ... natural disaster, or somebody is found dead in the woods." "If you go out (in nature) there has to be a parent, because you can't protect yourself." "People are inherently bad." "We will resort to artificial nature because we destroyed it all to make room for people." And so on.

How did such despair become so fashionable?

Not that long ago, environmentalism was infused with optimism – or more accurately, worry put to good use. In the early 1970s, such books as "Ecotopia" and "The Greening of America" – noted for their utopian conjecture, were huge best-sellers. Naive, sure, but useful.

Such idealism helped create the first Earth Day in 1970. During that era, President Richard Nixon, of all people, created the Environmental Protection Agency, and signed the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act.

Just three decades ago, few Americans talked about recycling. In the '50s and '60s, my father – who loved nature – thought nothing of throwing empty beer cans and hamburger wrappers out the car window. On just about any car trip, in the Midwest and much of the rest of the country, it was common to see the rusted hulks of automobiles dumped into river beds or roadside ravines.

Such scenes are rare today. Rivers that once caught fire are now fishable. The bald eagle is back. But now the world is ending, or so it seems.

While conservation focused on the localized preservation of natural beauty and endangered species, as they should have, larger challenges, including global warming, overtook us. So did institutionalized despair.

David Sobel, co-director of the Center for Place-based Education at Antioch New England Graduate School, describes the growth of "ecophobia" – the fear of ecological deterioration.

"Between the end of morning recess and the beginning of lunch," school children will learn that "more than ten thousand acres of rainforest will be cut down, making way for fast-food, 'hamburgerable' cattle," he says. In theory, these children "will learn that by recycling their Weekly Readers and milk cartons, they can help save the planet," and they'll grow up to be responsible stewards of the earth." Sobel believes these are important messages, but counterproductive when delivered in age-inappropriate ways.

Even as they cut their teeth with bedtime tales of ecological collapse, children are less likely to experience the natural world simply for the joy and wonder of it. No wonder they begin to associate nature with fear and apocalypse – an association amplified by their parents' terror of strangers.

Still, times change. My sense is that we're passing through, and about to put behind us, an indulgent, pessimistic period. Not that environmentalists were wrong in their analysis of the problems or their belief in preservation. But they did lose their ability to inspire.

There is no practical alternative to hope.

If the Poway students are any indication, it's time for a new environmentalism. Magnificent innovation and exciting environmental careers are waiting on the other side of that polluted horizon.

Like fire, hope is easy to extinguish, but quickly reignited with the use of the right elements. Witness what happened when Chrispeels gave his students a simple, radical assignment: to spend a half-hour in the natural world. What these young people reported may surprise you, but that's another column.

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© Copyright 2005 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. • A Copley Newspaper Site