The role of kids in the climate crisis

This Friday, I have the remarkable privilege of going to Melbourne to train with Al Gore and become a Climate Project Ambassador.

As part of this training, I have committed to giving a minimum of ten presentations of (my adapted version of) An Inconvenient Truth. Amazingly -- and happily -- several schools have been waving their hands in the air for presentations: Pick me, pick me! The schools are for small-to-medium children, from five-year-olds to teenagers. They have recycling programs or they're enviro-schools or they're reading A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids. And for all of them, climate change is a front-burner, hot button issue.

The popularity of the topic isn't generated from the top down, either. In a fantastic sign of the times, my friend Kim's son Oscar, aged 10, sent me a tweet when he heard about the Climate Project training. "I hear you're going to meet my hero Al Gore," he messaged. "What's the story?"

We adults are fast becoming the followers, not the leaders, when it comes to taking action. Take a look at the myriad youth movements going on, from It's Getting Hot In Here to the UK Youth Climate Coalition to TakingITGlobal to 350.org's many youth actions. If we didn't already feel a sense of urgency to behave more responsibly with our Earthly home, we should quickly develop one, if only to save ourselves from the embarrassment of being on the receiving end of our children's disdain.

We need to get our own acts together, and then we need to make sure we're giving kids whatever they need to create a radical shift in the global culture.

A couple of weeks ago, my eight-year-old nephew sent me a picture he had drawn of "New Zeland". It was two brown islands -- reasonably accurately shaped -- on a sea of blue. I called to thank him. "You're such a good drawer!" I enthused. "I can almost see my house!"

"Really?" he asked, skeptically. "I didn't even draw your house!"

Despite millenia of evidence to the contrary, we still suffer from the delusion that we can put things over on our kids -- but it's plain we can't. They know we're not doing our best for the planet. They know we've been slack and are being slack. They know they didn't draw our house.

And they're not afraid to call us on it. If you haven't already, take 18 minutes out of your day and watch John Doerr's TED talk -- and then come back here and tell me whether you can appreciate his shame at the thought of letting his daughter down. I know I can.

One of the reasons I'm grateful to be involved with MiniMonos is the virtuous cycle I know it will create. The kids I know are smart, inquisitive, and joyful; when they're watching, we're forced to stand a little straighter and try a little harder. When they refuse to accept the excuses that hold us back, we grownups are forced to reexamine those same excuses. When they lead us in the fight against climate change, we will have no choice but to follow.

And I will follow them. Will you?

Comments

[Alex Valencia]

Melissa- this is true about Kids even with my 3 year old there is no pulling the wool over his eyes. Children are smarter and are now more detailed in their thought process. Love the answer back from your nephew too funny!!