Because I don't live in a vacuum of neighbourhood fun and games, here's something that happened in the museum today: I explained why aeroplanes stay up in the air to a group of teenagers and then went on to discuss the impact air traffic is having on the environment/the climate due to the massive amount of emission. Then one boy said, "But even if we don't take the plane, it won't have any impact because that plane will still be flying."
And I thought, Fuck this. How can it be that it is necessary to explain market-based economies and the principle of supply and demand to children as soon as you talk about the environment? It felt as if I was suggesting that the only power they really have is through being a consumer. How utterly depressing is that?
Not as depressing as when children think that all the garbage that they throw into the bin will be turned into shiny new things by a mysterious recycling animal, or that all electricity we use is renewable energy (I have yet to meet a child that isn't convinced that we only use water/wind/solar power) but still...
'It felt as if I was suggesting that the only power they really have is through being a consumer.' - well, because it's true, unless you remind the people driving this kind of system that it's also possible to think outside this box by getting them back down into the real, physical world (e.g. by just walking up to them in one of their shiny offices and punching them in the face. Before getting kicked out by hired security personnel, restoring the system back to its perfect order. Oh yay.)
ReplyDeleteDude, kids AND adults. "But I recycle my plastic." Okay, first of all, half the stuff you "recycle" isn't taken by the city so they just throw it out...and you do know recycling isn't a perfect closed loop, right? [But no, they don't.]
ReplyDelete