By Kara Callahan
Junior, City West High School, Iowa City, IA

(from The National Voter. June/July 2000)

I sometimes wonder what life would be like for my children. With all the social and economic problems I hear were stressed on the evening news, I cannot help but notice that one critical element of our lives is being vastly over looked -- our environment. Even with the current that presidential campaigning, when we should be hearing about the candidates’ plans to conserve our natural resources, we aren't. The environment is virtually ignored in the media. Thus, I reach the conclusion that the greatest environmental problem of all is the lack of education about the issues surrounding it.

To confirm this idea, I asked 65 of my peers (high school juniors and seniors) what they considered to be their most important environmental concern. Although some students had a problem narrowing the options down to just one choice, I still ended up with most tallies in the "Don’t Have Any" column. Runners-up were global warming, deforestation and the depletion of wildlife. And, of course, being from Iowa, there were a couple kids who said that air pollution from hog farms was their main worry. Another common response to my question about our environmental problems: "Like what?" A lot of students couldn't even think of any prominent concerns, which serves as further evidence that students, along with the rest of the population, aren't knowledgeable about environmental issues.

These statistics worried me immensely. I couldn't believe that so many people were uninformed about the seriousness of our situation. Those same people who said they were concerned about global warming also are driving to school alone instead of carpooling, and those who worried about our clean water resources probably leave the water on while they brush their teeth instead of conserving. It’s not because they don’t care; it's because they don't know. Educating people would be the most effective way to make progress toward saving the environment, because although my peers may have expressed half-hearted worries, none seemed to know what to do about it.

If there were a formal high school course that served the sole purpose of environmental education, I am confident that a lot of students would elect to take it, and would benefit from knowing how they could make a difference in the deterioration of the ozone layer, air pollution or whatever the case may be.

The severe condition of our air, water and land also are downplayed in our culture. We don’t value our natural resources and don’t hesitate to waste, waste. We tend to act as if our clean water and air are unlimited, when in fact this is far from true. We are losing about 74,000 acres of rainforest each day, which, when burned, emits excess carbon dioxide into the air. This results in a process called the greenhouse effect.

There also are millions of gallons of waste dumped into lakes and rivers all the time, eventually making their way to the oceans and killing marine life. There are serious issues that need to be taken into consideration, but people don’t act because they don’t know how. This is why I feel that the general ignorance of our population is regard to the environment is, ironically, the greatest threat to it.

People either don’t know of any significant problems or they have no idea how to solve them. Formal education regarding these issues is imperative if we want to change this situation. I know that someday when I have children, I will want them to know about their world and the things we are doing to destroy it. I will want them to know how they can do their part to save it. And I will want them to know that their mother cared about their world and wanted to make it a better place for them.