World Environment Day

Yesterday was World Environment Day.  Every year the UN Environmental Programme chooses a new theme.  This year the topic is ' The Green Economy, Does it Include You?'.

Tuesday night is my time to program family time* so naturally, I thought to talk about the Environment on World Environment Day. 

*Family time happens 5 times a week for the Enrichment year students, usually from 9-10pm.  Usually they hear announcements, talk about their days, their challenges, tell stories, talk about the core values, or other topics like how to avoid getting pregnant, HIV etc.  On my night I usually bring a song to learn or a game because otherwise half of them sleep. (and who would blame them... they are up at 6 am and don't go to bed until after family time, and they are teenagers.)

Environment Club clear a new walking trail in the Nature Park

First we talked about 'what is the Environment?'.  Why is the Environment important?  What are the major problems facing the Environment?  Now, with the exception of of one of the girls in the ASYV Environment Club, I'm not sure if many of the girls had ever thought about forests, clean water, clean air, soil health, pollution, climate change in that way before. (or had even heard of those terms before)  Many of them knew about erosion (likely because this is the land of many hills, and many, many farms), and many knew that we needed oxygen to breathe.

Sometimes in discussions with the Enrichment year kids, it is difficult to know if they are actually ignorant of a subject, the subject is outside their personal experience, or if they are lacking English vocabulary for the new subject matter.  It may be a bit a combination of all of the above. 

For example, in school they have been doing sketches (skits, or theatrical performances) that they have written and performed.  Most of them are about orphans, teen pregnancy, HIV and sugar daddies.  Now, these are complicated subjects, but subjects that they have experienced (maybe not personally, but very closely), and have learned the English vocabulary for their sketches.  The performances are very good and you can see they they understand the topic very well.   Afterwards, there there are always questions for the performers.  Here, although they seem to understand the questions, their ability to articulate their opinions in a coherent manner (outside the practiced lines of the sketch) are a bit more difficult.  The answers end up sounding simplistic, even though you have just seen them perform a complex sketch.  But slowly, slowly... the language will come, the ability to put their thoughts into words will come.

Shady bench sitting area in the Nature Park

So, back to family time.  I guess I am saying that it is not surprising that we did not have a riveting discussion in English about the Environment for many reasons.  Which is why  I brought in some videos clips to help me explain.

Before they can understand the Green Economy, I wanted them to understand the business model where 'the Environment is your enemy'.  In order to gain, you must destroy.  This is the mentality with many extraction industries.

First I showed some clips from Manufactured Landscapes.  This movie  is about the work of   Edward Burtynsky, a famous Canadian landscape photographer. He doesn't take pictures of what inspired the Group of Seven, but of large scale industrial landscapes. 


Manufactured Landscapes is mostly about the large industrial manufacturing industries in China. What Edward Burtynsky is so gifted at capturing is the scale of these processes.  It will blow your mind.

So I showed them some clips from the e-waste part of the movie.  Over 50% of the world's e-waste goes to China, where it gets smashed and scavenged for metals that can be melted together to be sold again.  The only problem is that there are many toxic substances in the computers that are released in the process of breaking them apart to get at these metals.  In the movie, in one town, the toxins had run into the local aquifer so that they could no longer drink the water, and it had to be trucked in.

This also points out that Environmental problems are not just issues of middle class Americans, Canadians, Europeans that drive hybrid cars, carry a to-go cup, wear birkenstocks and wax poetically about hiking and eating organically. As with many things in the capitalist system, the Environmental and social impact of business does not get accounted for in the price of an item.   The problem is that because these costs don't show up in the price tag, the costs get socialized, and usually the are felt by the poorest people.  Hence, when you are using you smart phone, you get to benefit of updating your twitter account on the fly, while indentured laborers slave away in the Congo for the Coltan. When you buy a new computer and get rid of the old one, you are not the one who's water, soil and body gets poisoned by the e-waste, it is the poor people of China.  When you buy those non organic grapes from Chile, you may ingest some chemical residues, but the majority will be felt by poor farmers applying them and killing their soil.  While the oil companies make money off the tar sands, it is the Aboriginal people of Canada that feel the effect because they can no longer drink the water or fish in the Athabasca river.

African Tulip tree planted last year in the Nature Park

Then I showed them clips from Taking Root, a movie about Wangari Maathai.  The beginning of this movie illustrates the effects of how population increases and cultural changes towards the Environment were some of the causes of deforestation, desertification, erosion, loss of clean drinking water in Kenya.  This in particular, impacted (and still impacts) poor women because they generally fetch water and wood for cooking and had to go further and further to get it.  This is why Wangari Maathai started the Green Belt Movement, a movement to teach women to plant trees to reduce and reverse the social and Environmental impacts of deforestation.

This film I used because the images are close to their lives, their experiences, than say, a tribe in the Amazon rain forest.  Also it shows that Environmental destruction goes hand in hand with social effects.  It also shows a different model, maybe part of the Green Economy, where people are working with the environment, instead of against it to make their living.

Aloe in the Nautre Park

The last thing I showed them was the Earth Song clip from Michael Jackson's This Is It movie.  Although it is cheesy, the footage and song have very simple messages to understand.  Furthermore, Environmentalists get a bad rap for being downers all the time, so I wanted to end on something a little more up beat.  In addition, as these kids are teenagers, and worship what is cool, can sing every pop song on the radio, I thought I wouldn't hurt to cash in on MJ's famous pop star status to sell my Environmental message ( I mean, it is his message too, at least in that song).  MJ says in the film "The time has come, this is it. People always say, they'll take care of it, the government will... they will.... they who? it starts with us, it's us. Or it will never be done."

At the end, I asked if anyone had any questions or comments. I'm not sure how much of any of it they had understood or absorbed... but sometimes they surprise you.  One of my girls, who is also in the Environment Club asked:  "If people in America and Europe know that these industries cause pollution.  Why do they still build them?"

Good question indeed... Why?  The simple answer is greed and myopic decision making.  Maybe the Green Economy will become the new model....one where as Wangari Mathai says 'we are not digging our own grave'.  The UN Environment Programme defines the Green Economy as:

"one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. In its simplest expression, a green economy can be thought of as one which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive."