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Sustainability Starts in the Schoolyard
Why we need greener schools
I learned a new word the other day. It’s one of those ungainly activist-movement portmanteaus that, like so many of its brethren, lives on the barrier between communicating a useful idea and doing violence to the English language.
Ready? The word is (yes, I know, I don’t like it either).
The person using it was a young climate activist who was tired of hearing about how the children are going to set everything right, of being trotted out as a prop by older people and then not listened to. Youthwashing is when older people absolve themselves of blame for environmental problems by shifting their hope — and the responsibility — to the young.
Though I don’t think I’m going to incorporate this word into my daily vocabulary, I understand why young activists have developed a word to describe this situation. They’re tired of being patted on the head and told that they’ll figure it all out someday by adults who aren’t doing enough. They’re over being asked to become heroes by people who aren’t willing to sacrifice anything. They want to do something, and they find the economic, social, and political systems arrayed against them to be near-impossible to penetrate.
