Kid stuff

From record-high gas prices, to an overflowing landfill, to the power line that threatens to cut through the river valley, there’s a lot of depressing stuff going on out there. In this typically optimistic and forward-looking nation, recent polls show that, for the first time, people expect that their children will be worse off than they are.

But looking at the stories that have come across our desk over the past couple of weeks, we have been struck by the degree to which those children are themselves stepping up to take the future into their own hands. We might be tempted to give up on the long-term perspective, to grasp at whatever straws might keep us afloat for just a few years longer; but maybe we could learn a little something from the people who are going to have to live with our short-sighted decisions.

The children of the Green Power Alliance, who demonstrated at Congressman Chris Carney’s office on behalf of the Clean Water Protection Act (see page 1), are a case in point. Yes, they were organized by adults. But it’s pretty clear from Sandy Long’s account that they have entered fully into the spirit of campaigning to preserve the planet they will inherit, exemplified by the little girl who told Carney, after he hemmed and hawed about his position on the act, “We will be waiting for your answer.”

Their commitment also shines in letters they wrote applying for acceptance into the Homestead Environmental Club, some of which are printed on page 19 of this week’s Kids Amphibian. Homestead School fourth-grader Isaac Solstein wrote in one of the letters not printed, “I want to educate people who fool themselves about mountains, saying, ‘So what, it’s just a giant heap of dirt,’ I want them to know, ‘This is not a heap of dirt, it’s something called home.’”

Another youth we heard about is Ryan Jameson, a 17-year-old Pike County Delaware Valley High School student who has taken on a lead role in organizing the local campaign for Barack Obama. He exemplifies a spirit that is apparently being felt all over the country: after decades of being labeled “disengaged,” young people have been voting in the Presidential primaries in record numbers. In Iowa, the number of under-30 people who showed up to vote in the Democratic caucuses was triple the comparable number in 2004; in New Hampshire, that number rose by 43 percent; in California, the increase was 16 percent.

We can also see in our children the workings of compassion, in youths like Nick Mootz of Sullivan West High School, a cancer survivor who was among the people, many of them youngsters, who showed up to have their heads shaved at the recent St. Baldrick’s event, which raised over $19,000 toward the goal of eradiating childhood cancer. (See the upcoming health section in our April 4 edition for more on Mootz.)

The story of Chellie Norrisa of Swan Lake, now enrolled as a student at SUNY Syracuse, combines the themes of environmental activism and compassion. She is engaged in a project providing poor villagers with potable water in Honduras. (See our March 13 issue, page 34). Her story inspired us not only because, like Mootz, she is doing good for others, but because she clearly understands that here in the developed world, we must apply the same principles of thrifty environmental management that are essential to the neediest if we are to survive. “These skills must be utilized in the industrial and post-industrial world as we realize that we cannot consume at our current rates,” she said.

With the economy continuing to deteriorate, problems in our personal lives and the issues our towns and counties face are likely to get harder, not easier, over the next couple of years. Whether it’s trying to solve the garbage problem, managing development or figuring out how to plug financial holes, the danger is that quick answers—like gambling and natural gas drilling—will increasingly appear to be the only answers.

But there is a Native American proverb that says, “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Next time we are tempted to give up, to take the fast, easy way, to grab the closest lifesaver without considering long-term consequences, it might be a good idea to look around us and see what our children are doing. And then let’s take a deep breath, take our time, and make the effort and short-term sacrifices necessary to get it right.

Dr. Punnybone

The Woof at the Door