Young planet-savers

摘要

Their parents grew up in the shadow of a possible nuclear war. Children today are growing up in the knowledge that the environment is in peril — and that some actions make things better whereas others make things worse. Last year, my daughter Ella, then aged_six, began to ask whether various activities, such as bouncing on her trampoline, "made global warming" or not. If Ella is any guide, her generation has picked up on the climate of ecological concern, but seems to have nebulous views about why they should be worried and what they should be doing in response. Ella is surely not alone in expressing particular concern for the fate of polar bears as the Arctic ice melts, a consequence of climate change that is much easier for a seven-year-old to grasp than are falling crop yields or desertification.