Street Roots • April 6-12, 2018
News
Page 5
ESSENTIAL READING FOR YOUNG CLIMATE ACTIVISTS
In “The Parents’ Guide to Climate Revolution,” author Mary DeMocker lays out
100 approaches to cultivating a climate-conscious and empowered family. One
way is to get kids reading. These are DeMocker’s favorite books for inspirinq
and motivating youths into action.
For children 12 and under
For teens
“Follow the Moon Home: A Tale of
One Idea, Twenty Kids, and a
Hundred Sea Turtles” by Phillippe
Cousteau and Deborah Hopkinson
“We Rise: The Earth Guardians
Guide to Building a Movement that
Restores the Planet” by Xiuhtezcatl
Martinez
This story teaches children what a
powerful difference young people can
make in the world. The books ends with
a message o f advice to young activists
from activist-author Phillippe Cousteau.
Mary, DeMocker’s children, Forrest and Zannie, and her huT^nd, M
p Z e T ^ a T
m a blockade formed by 100 kayakers to protest coal and oil exports on the Columbia River.
CLIMATE, from page 4
toward real solutions.
The comprehensive guide lays out 100
methods, each with various options for
parents to choose from based on factors
such as the amount of time they want to
spend, their budget and the age of their
kids.
On Saturday, April 14, DeMocker will be
at Powell’s City of Books in downtown
Portland to discuss climate-conscious
p a r e n tin g . A q u e s tio n -a n d -a n s w e r s e s s io n
and book signing will follow her 2 p.m. talk,
and 350PDX director Adriana Voss-Andreae
will be onsite to help connect interested
audience members to local climate
campaigns.
Street Roots spoke with DeMocker
recently to find out more about parenting in
the age of climate change.
E m ily G re e n : A t what age do you think
children are ready to learn about climate
change, and how do you recommend telling
them that their planet is heading toward
catastrophe?
M a r y D eM o ck er: I don’t tell any kid
under age 14 that their planet is headed
toward catastrophe. I think there are
distinct periods of childhood that we need
to honor where children are develop-
mentally. And we also need to honor who
they are as individuals.
I would tell a young child that we need to
work together to make sure that we’re
protecting our forests and protecting the
climate. It’s more about living well on a day-
to-day level and making good decisions to
support our animal friends, to support
people in other countries, to support the
health of humans and animals and the
planet.
M y kids, because we didn’t use T V at all
in the home, they didn’t see frightening
images, and we were very careful not to
bring that to them when they were young
because it’s not fair to burden them with
adult problems. For young children, they
need to have an adult filtering the
information so that it’s age appropriate.
For an older child, an 8- to 10-year old,
that’s different than it is with a 4- or 5-year
old. They’re starting to be much more out
in the world and getting much more
information on their own, separate from you
and your family life. They’re going to start
getting information in schools and on their
cereal boxes - endangered pandas on their
Panda Puffs cereal. They’re going to have
questions about it, and they need to know
that we’re working on things - that adults
are working very hard - and they need to
hear about the different solutions that are
out there.
And if they’re interested, they need to
know about different ways they can engage
in t h o s e s o lu tio n s . T o k n o w th a t E a r t h
Guardians exists, for example, would be
really empowering for a 10-year-old, who is
hearing about climate change and watching
the news or reading about it or talking
about it with friends. (Earth Guardians is a
worldwide group of youths fighting climate
change together through litigation and other
actions.)
What gets tricky is that there are a lot of
different opinions out there about how dire
the situation is. There are some scientists
who say we may have passed the tipping
point. And I hope they’re not right, but I’m
certainly not going to tell a very young child
that. To an older child, I think it’s
appropriate to say, hey we’re in a big race,
and we’re going to have to work hard on
this, and there are lots of people working
on it, and we’re going to get this done.
Moving to teenaged children, they’re in
an amazing time. Teenagers right now, my
own kids, all of their friends, all of the
teenagers that I see and sometimes work
with on this climate stuff, they are
amazing. They are so brave, and they are
so able to look this crisis in the eye and
say, “We’ve got this. We’re not letting it go
down. Not when we’re on this planet, and
not when we have decades ahead of us to
live on this planet.”
I am lucky to be around a lot of young
people in Eugene that are engaged in a
really positive way in the Our Children’s
Trust lawsuits against the federal
government.
I’ve learned a lot from the teenagers in
my community about despair and about
positive ways of engaging, and those are the
things that I point readers to: Look at what
these young people are doing, look at what
See CLIMATE, page 10
The 17-year-old
leader of the group
Earth Guardians
shares his story
and lays out
effective activism
strategies in this
new book.
“One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay
and the Recycling Women of
Gambia” by Miranda Paul
One plastic bag can break into hundreds
of pieces of trash, but what if that bag
were turned into something beautiful
instead? This is the story o f a girl in
Gambia who finds a unique solution to
her village’s plastic bag problem.
“The Lorax” by Dr.
Suess
Since 1971, The Lorax,
who speaks for the trees,
has been teaching children
about the dangers of a
culture that consumes until
there is nothing left.
“The Boy Who
Harnessed the W in d :
Creating Currents of Electricity
and Hope” by William Kamkwamba
This is the true story of a young boy who
built a windmill with tractor and bicycle
parts to bring energy and water to his
drought and hunger-stricken community
in Malawi.
“Ruby Bridges Goes to School:
My True Story” by Ruby
Bridges
“The Legacy of
Luna: The Story
of a Tree, a Woman, and the
Struggle to Save the Redwoods”
by Julia Hill
Hill writes about her experience in 1997,
when she climbed into a Redwood tree to
save it from logging that was destroying
old-growth forests.
“I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood
Up for Education and Was Shot by
the Taliban” by Malala Yousafzai
l/V7?e/? Malala was 15, she stood up to the
Taliban, refusing to give up her right to
an education. She nearly paid for that
d e c is io n w ith h e r iif e h u t H ire d t o in s p ir e
youths around the world ever since.
“Turning 15 on the Road to
Freedom: My Story of the 1965
Selma Voting Rights March” by
Lynda Blackmon Lowery
Lowery was the youngest person to
march from Selma to Montgomery in the
1965 voting rights march with the Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is her
story as she told it.
“Drawdown: The Most
Comprehensive Plan
Ever Proposed to
Reverse Global
Warming” edited by
Paul Hawken
Ruby Bridges was the first African-
American child to integrate into a
white school in 1960. This is her
story, written for children, in her
words.
“Ada’s Violin: The Story of
the Recycled Orchestra of
Paraguay” by Susan Hood
This is the true story about
the Recycled Orchestra of
Paraguay. It began when
people in an impoverished
village near a trash heap
wanted to find a way to make
music. Today the orchestra
plays concerts around the
world with its instruments
made from trash.
“Heroes of the Environment: True
Stories of People Who Are Helping
to Protect Our Planet” by Harriet
Rohmer
The true stories of 12 North Americans
who fought to protect the environment
and won, including youths in Ohio and
Rhode Island.
This book is full of
innovative solutions to
global warming, from agricultural
practices and green energy to cultural
changes and emerging science. This
book shows that reining in greenhouse
gases is possible, and we already know
how to do it.
“March” by
John Lewis
This trilogy of
books written by
political icon and
& & & #Wtofr
civil rights activist
John Lewis offers
younger
generations his
perspective as a young activist in the
1950s and 1960s, putting a human face
on the historic events they’ve read about
in their textbooks.
MARCH
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