I have to say that after more than half a year of talking formally and informally to people about Peak Oil, climate change, and how their lives may be changed, I still struggle deeply with how to really discuss this with youth, my own included.
Most adults have a hard enough time coming to terms with the implications of PO, and how it will affect them. With every small “victory”, where I see that someone is beginning to comprehend what this is all about, it is tempered with the reality that I have brought the pain of bad news into their life, like a doctor telling a patient they have a terminal disease. The audience thus far has been a more mature lot – co-workers, and the like, most of which have the emotional intelligence to deal with this (and that is an article all in itself).
But the challenge remains – how do you talk to kids about this, especially those who are in high school – those who are more aware of the world around them and who have been conditioned by the system, their families and the media as to what their adult lives and expectations should be? How do you tell a kid that their standard of living is going to be much less than what our generation has enjoyed? How do you get the point across that they and their peers will have to adjust to what may be the largest socio-economic upheaval in modern history, and on a global scale? Worse, how do you get across to them that they are in this mess because of the selfish, shortsightedness of their parents and grandparents generations? I mean face it – this is scary stuff!
At the same time, we do them a huge disservice by avoiding the issue with them. We owe it to them to give them the heads up that change is coming, and that it will be hard, but that they will face it with the love and support of their family and community. I would love to be able to link up with a PO-aware child psychologist, and then get the fruits of that dialogue out to the PO community and the community in general (so doctor, if you’re reading this, talk to me!).
I believe that children are actually a pretty resilient lot and that if the information is fed to them over time and in a careful, sensitive manner, that we’ll have a generation of youth more mentally prepared to deal with the coming changes than many of us were. In fact, to see a great example of how one group has spoken to youth, please see the video, linked below, for a group in Ireland, called FADA (the video is broken into three parts). The speaker, Brian Kaller, has done a wonderful job outlining the problem and presenting a vision of a more resilient, sustainable future that may be within our grasp if we all work together at making it happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8pPh1-KO_Q
A strong and resilent community, one which is aware of the reasons why we are in the mess we're in, must have its young people mentally, physically and emotionally prepared. They have every right to be angry and resentful at the individual and collective people and systems that led our society into this wasteland of blind and selfish consumption and greed, and a future that they did not ask for or deserve.
We owe it to them to change what we can, and to help them clean up the mess that we made.
Most adults have a hard enough time coming to terms with the implications of PO, and how it will affect them. With every small “victory”, where I see that someone is beginning to comprehend what this is all about, it is tempered with the reality that I have brought the pain of bad news into their life, like a doctor telling a patient they have a terminal disease. The audience thus far has been a more mature lot – co-workers, and the like, most of which have the emotional intelligence to deal with this (and that is an article all in itself).
But the challenge remains – how do you talk to kids about this, especially those who are in high school – those who are more aware of the world around them and who have been conditioned by the system, their families and the media as to what their adult lives and expectations should be? How do you tell a kid that their standard of living is going to be much less than what our generation has enjoyed? How do you get the point across that they and their peers will have to adjust to what may be the largest socio-economic upheaval in modern history, and on a global scale? Worse, how do you get across to them that they are in this mess because of the selfish, shortsightedness of their parents and grandparents generations? I mean face it – this is scary stuff!
At the same time, we do them a huge disservice by avoiding the issue with them. We owe it to them to give them the heads up that change is coming, and that it will be hard, but that they will face it with the love and support of their family and community. I would love to be able to link up with a PO-aware child psychologist, and then get the fruits of that dialogue out to the PO community and the community in general (so doctor, if you’re reading this, talk to me!).
I believe that children are actually a pretty resilient lot and that if the information is fed to them over time and in a careful, sensitive manner, that we’ll have a generation of youth more mentally prepared to deal with the coming changes than many of us were. In fact, to see a great example of how one group has spoken to youth, please see the video, linked below, for a group in Ireland, called FADA (the video is broken into three parts). The speaker, Brian Kaller, has done a wonderful job outlining the problem and presenting a vision of a more resilient, sustainable future that may be within our grasp if we all work together at making it happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8pPh1-KO_Q
A strong and resilent community, one which is aware of the reasons why we are in the mess we're in, must have its young people mentally, physically and emotionally prepared. They have every right to be angry and resentful at the individual and collective people and systems that led our society into this wasteland of blind and selfish consumption and greed, and a future that they did not ask for or deserve.
We owe it to them to change what we can, and to help them clean up the mess that we made.
I'm in the same boat with you. I am not sure how to reach out to youth and mobilize them because there is so much bad news and dire news that it can be hard to focus on positive movement forward. I've only gotten through the first 2 videos of Brian's series, but hope to watch the rest at some point.
ReplyDeleteM