We must prepare our children for ecological decline
As Ontario’s COVID-19 restrictions ease, many of us are eager to get out of town to experience nature with our kids again. But by teaching them to care for nature, which is in peril, will we set them up for a lifetime of sorrow?
We know the many benefits of being outdoors with our children: it’s good for their health and well-being — intellectual, physical, spiritual — and those of us who care about nature want our children to care too. Yet nature continues to weather the storm of human activities; the climate change tsunami is reaching our shore. As a society, though, we still tend to ignore or deny what is coming. Some negative social and ecological impacts will occur regardless of how quickly we act to prevent more catastrophic change.
Unfortunately, those who love nature will suffer most from its loss. In fact, psychologists have introduced a new set of terms — ecoanxiety, ecogrief, and ecoparalysis among others — to describe how people who love nature so much will be affected by its loss.
We need to alter the way we approach nature with our little ones. We recommend three ways to do it.
First, we must acknowledge that nature isn’t doing well. Our kids’ experience of nature won’t be like ours. For instance, bird populations in North America have declined by more than one-quarter over the last half century. As parents, we must prepare our children for the decline they will likely experience and admit that our good intentions aren’t yet translating into the actions needed to ensure a sustainable future for them.
Second, much like preparing our children for the impending death of a beloved grandparent and the grief that follows, we need to grant them space to process the shock, pain, guilt and anger of environmental loss.
Third, we must not assume that our kids will be our environmental legacy, that they will carry our environmental values into the future. They might. But it is unfair to ask them to be responsible for the destruction caused by prior generations — especially that of their parents, who may still be using fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow.
On the whole, though, we must continue to share nature with our children to enrich their lives as well as our own. Having a sense of gratitude for Earth and the living beings we share it with may bring forth grief, yet it will also magnify our duty to protect and restore.
Protecting our children from an awareness of disappearing nature when they are very young is a good instinct. As they mature, though, we can begin to discuss it with them. We can even engage them in the challenging political work of protecting nature. But we should also be prepared: our kids may expect us to change our harmful habits that contribute to nature’s decline. Let’s be open. We have a real opportunity to learn from them, as well as from the patience and endurance of the creatures that survive.
Brendon Larson is a professor and associate dean of undergraduate studies in the faculty of environment at the University of Waterloo. Katie Hayes is a climate change and mental health researcher.
Originally published Toronto Star on Sun., June 27, 2021