A recent report by the Australian Institute titled “The Attitudes of Young People to the Environment” concluded that:
“Despite the increase in both scientific and political attention paid to environmental problems and a heightened emphasis on the environment in school curricula, young Australians are among the least likely to see themselves as environmentalists … They are, however, among the most likely to believe that threats to the environment are exaggerated.”
The report is based on data collected by Roy Morgan research from 56,344 respondents aged 14 and over across Australia.
Institute Director Dr Clive Hamiton has interpreted the results as a problem with our political leadership and suggested that “Howard’s children are characterised by apathy and scepticism.”
I disagree completely. I would suggest they are just a bit tired of the exaggeration and looking for something more substantive and interesting than what the mainstream media and their mostly too politically correct teachers tell them about the environment.
No doubt they will be even more jaded after the visit by Californian Professor Jared Diamond to Australia. He is speaking at the Sydney Writers festival on 29th May and in Brisbane on Thursday 2 June.
Diamond will be promoting his new book titled “Collapse”.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
On 31st January 2002, Douglas Shire Council’s draft Sustainable Futures Strategy was released for public comment. Fifteen statements included in the last segment of the draft, entitled Final Word from the Next Generation, revealed that all these Mossman Primary School students agreed that their Shire needs to be greener, even though 82% had already been protected to perpetuity under Australia’s highest order of conservation protection within the World Heritage Estate. These impressionable youngsters appeared not to know that Douglas Shire is the greenest and most heavily protected shire in Australia.
‘I would suggest they are just a bit tired of the exaggeration and looking for something more substantive and interesting than what the mainstream media and their mostly too politically correct teachers tell them about the environment.’
The young folk I’ve been yakking with – troublemakers that they all be – are far too stupid too understand why such things as environmentalism would be exaggerated. Where else should they look than the mainstream media? What, by God, is the mainstream media for, if not to indoctrinate our youngsters? Where should we make them look instead? Is it time to start burning books?
And what are we to do about these blasted teachers, damn their hides?
Hi Pl12, I think Generation Y are a clever lot – my daugher included. I don’t advocate the burning of books, but do suggest that the books currently used in schools be scrutinized/assessed against the hypothesis that an eduction in environmentalism (eg SoS) today is more about ideology/faith than science/evidence.
So you are saying we should make sure that the books in schools are correct according to you?
Ender,
Not at all. I am all for robust discussion and different points of view. But the uninitiated should know when a book is teaching a ‘faith’ as opposed to ‘evidence based’ subject. Some of what is currently taught as science is really just green ideology.
Indeed it has been my observaiton that many environmentalists appeal to science to give authority to their beliefs that have no basis in observation or tested theory.
Steven Jay Gould has written about the distinction between ‘faith’ versus ‘evidence’ as a basis for decision making in “Rocks of Ages: Science and Religon in the Fullness of Life”.
Edited again!
Please explain? Perhaps you should provide a comments policy.
Re: Edit of final sentence, your comment could have been interpreted as inciting violence.
And?
Jennifer – that is just rubbish. How is teaching kids concern for the environment Green ideology? You live in this fragile Earth why are you not concerned for its long term future?
The concern is based on science not faith. I do not have faith in science, I do not need it as the fact presented in science have been proved to be a true picture of nature by experiment. There is no faith needed.
Religion needs faith because NONE of their claims or beliefs can be proven by experiment or physical evidence. You believe in God because you have faith not because you can sense your god with any measurable instrumentation or your senses.
To not teach kids to revere the Earth just because you want a more hard line view that the Earth is just here for humans to exploit will just produce a new generation of perfect consumers. Saving the Earth will start with our children. One day they may turn to to and ask you why you ruined it so thoroughly so that they have nothing. What will you say then???
Hi Ender,
I hear the frustration in your post. Hey, I care deeply about the environment at an emotional level. But it is not enough. I believe I need to be disciplined in my approach/evidence based in my approach if I am to deliver some real good.
For example, it is the faith-based approach/the emotional-response from people who really care about the environment that has effectively resulted in the banning of GM food crops in Australia. Yet this same technology offers so much for the environment in terms of reducing our ecological footprint. The Greenpeace campaigners may care, but their ignorance limits our potential to develop new farming systems that use less insecticide and less water.
Also, I am not against teaching kids to love the environment, but loving it with their eyes closed to the reality of how it functions is not healthy.
I don’t think an ideological and an evidence-based approach are generally compatible. Do you?
Jennifer – I do not think that kids are taught to love it with their eyes closed. My 11 year old has been taught to question and look at the environment with a science based approach. I have seen nothing in her lessons that would indicate a religious type approach. I have also had 3 other kids go through the state school system with much the same experience.
We should be taught to question and some of those questions should be “is the current economic system sustainable?”. If the answer is no then our kids should be the ones to change it. To be fed the ‘realities’ as you see them is, to me, forcing them to accept that the consumer society that we have today is correct.
GM crops at their heart are about corporate profits and this is the main objection that NGO organization have with them. They do not want people tied to corporations for their basic food. Witness the farmers in the US that are being prosecuted for saving seed. Also the results of cross-breeding with non-GM crops has not been fully tested and it is almost impossible to predict all the implications. Finally there is no way to stop bees from pollinating non-GM crops with GM crops’ pollen or stop birds eating GM seed and dropping it elsewhere. There have been cases of farmers being prosecuted for illegally growing patented crops that have drifted in from GM crops on the next farm.
GM crops may lead to corporate profits but then so do cardiovascular solutions, greenhouse management strategies,war and so on. What really needs to be said about GM crops is that they have become the sacraficial lamb for a raft of disgruntled, discontented minorities around the western world. It might be globalisation, green politics or organic farming that these people are so passionate about but their line in the sand as it were has become GM crops. Yet scientific discoveries ( like the unravelling of DNA ) will continue to forge new ways mankind to live smarter, healthier and more comfortable lives. And this is where leaders must recognise, pandering to a form of populism that fosters a distrust of expertise in technical issues is tantamount to leading or relying on ignorance.