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2020ment, and although skipping them altogether
is an option (one employed by determined
souls who want to speed up potty t raining and
probably don’t have carpeted floors), it may
not be an approach that your family is
prepared to embrace.
Individual consumer choices do matter (go
for that bamboo toothbrush over a plastic one;
the sea turtles will thank you), but they are not
the deciding factor in halting the current
crisis, says Mary D eMocker, an environmental
activist and author of “The Parents’ Guide to
Climate Revolution: 100 Ways to Build a
Fossil-Free Future, Raise Empowered Kids,
and Still Get a Good Night’s Sleep.”
“Busy parents — along with everyone else —
have been told for years that individual
lifestyle changes can stop the climate from
spinning out of control, but the truth is they
can’t,” she wrote in her book. “Not by them-
selves, anyway.”
Climate change, experts have widely stated,
is a problem that must be solved at a policy
level. But this doesn’t mean that families can’t
make choices that will have a real impact.
DeMocker and Heather McTe er To ney, a for-
mer regional Environmental Protection Agen-
cy administrator and the national field direc-
tor for Moms Clean Air Force, offer a few
suggestions for parents who want to know
where to start:
Focus time, energy on larger movement
If you only have a little time to spare at the
end of a busy week, the best way to spend it is
not by meticulously sorting every scrap of
recyclable material in your home, but rather
by contributing to bigger environmental ef-
forts — whether at the local, state or national
level, DeMocker says.
“Spend 10 minutes looking at your local
grass-roots climate group online,” she says.
Are they protesting a proposed pipeline?
Urging residents to call their elected officials
about pending legislation? Advocating for the
protection of a threatened park or waterway?
“Understand your sphere of influence,
where your interest is and where the levers of
power are.... Look up the important deci-
sions being made on the policy level in your
own community,” she says.
This is especially critical in an election year,
DeMocker says. “Now is the time to plug into
the electoral cycle, at whatever level parents
and families can,” s he says. “That might mean
volunteering, it might mean phone-banking
or knocking on doors, it might mean just
having more water-cooler conversations
about the climate champions who are running
for office.”
Moms Clean Air Force encourages its mem-
bers to bring their kids with them when they
do advocacy work, To ney says. “There are kids
who, I swear, should be registered lobbyists
because they know how to advocate, they have
been in the practice of speaking for them-
selves,” s he says. If you don’t have time to plan
a trip to your local representative’s office, she
adds, your child can help you reach out in
other ways.
“Sign a petition, write an email, send a
Facebook message with a picture of a hand-
made sign,” Toney says. “Find out what people
in your community are doing, and join in.”
Connect kids to the environment
“This sounds really simple, but just getting
outdoors is hugely helpful for getting your
children to have a connection with nature and
the environment,” Toney says. That doesn’t
mean you have to take them on a grand tour of
every national park: “I don’t mean, ‘Go buy
$500 hiking boots and climb through the
mountains,’ ” she says. “Figure out what you
have right in your space, and just go outside.”
When you’re out there, help your children
learn how to pay attention to their surround-
ings. Even with very young kids, this is
something that sets the stage for a deeper
environmental awareness, To ney says.
“When we walk from the front door to the
car, which is just down a little sidewalk, we
take note of what’s outside. ‘There’s the grass,
and the trees, and is that a flower? What color
is the tree? Is that a rabbit?’ ” she says. “It
creates a relationship. Now when my l ittle one
gets out of the car at night, he immediately
looks up. He says, ‘Oh, stars! The sky! Clouds!’
We’re trying to create, at a v ery young age, this
connection with the natural things around
us.”Pick one thing to champion or to give up
If the eco-parenting “to-do” l ists are feeling
like too much, DeMocker suggests finding just
one thing that feels reasonable for your family
to give up, such as eating red meat, buying
tropical wood, taking vacations that involve
plane travel or using a bank with ties to the
fossil fuel industry.
“When my kids were little, we made sure
people knew that we didn’t want plastic toys
or battery-operated toys for the holidays or
birthdays,” s he says. “We said, ‘Give us movie
tickets, give us roller skates or puzzles, tennis
rackets and jump ropes.’ Things that will allow
children to play outside and learn how to
cooperate.”Or you might choose one thing for your
family to embrace, such as advocating for
more local pedestrian and bicycle infrastruc-
ture, or supporting local farmers. To ney’s
family decided to collect reusable bags in lieu
of single-use plastic ones.
“Other people go to visit a place and come
back with a cup or a mug, but we come back
with a bag and add it to our collection,” she
says. “When we’re traveling, the kids are like,
‘Oh, have we gotten our bag yet?’ It’s a p ractice
that makes them think about the kinds of
materials we use.”Empower kids to be agents of change
Is your community debating an environ-
mental policy or pondering the possibility of
adding more pedestrian- or bicycle-friendly
infrastructure? If there’s a public hearing
coming up, let your child be the one who
addresses your elected leaders. Planning to
attend a pro-environment demonstration?
Bring the kids, and let them make their own
signs.
Not every young climate activist is Greta
Thunberg, but any child can carry her mes-
sage forward, DeMocker says. “A child can
make a sign to display on your car or the bike
or the front lawn,” she says. “They can knock
on doors, help you write a letter or an email.”
For younger kids, this sense of initiative can
start at the household level. When To ney’s
daughter was 7, the family’s community did
not provide recycling bins. She was deter-
mined that the family should recycle anyway,
so she created her own container, decorating a
big cardboard box with crayon drawings,
To ney says.
“We kept that box until it was soaked
through with God knows what, and that was
our recycling container, and that was initiated
by my child,” Toney says. “It’s important to
find things that they can initiate themselves,
and support them in that.”Don’t give in to despair
For Christmas 2016, DeMocker asked her
family to create a “wall of kindred spirits” in
their home, complete with portraits of inspi-
rational figures, climate heroes and creative
icons — among them Harriet Tubman, Susan
B. Anthony, Honduran environmentalist
Berta Cáceres and Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize
winner Wangari Maathai, who was honored
for leading an effort to plant 30 million trees.
The point of this display, DeMocker says, is to
offer encouragement in moments when opti-
mism feels hard to come by.
“When I’m ragged and without the strength
to go o n, my h eroes silently say, You’ve got this,
dear. Keep on fighting,” s he wrote in her book.
The climate crisis can be frightening and
heartbreaking, and we must make space to
process those emotions, DeMocker says; cry,
vent, go for a run — but then rally, because it’s
not too late. And kids need to see determina-
tion and optimism modeled for them, too.
“We have hope; scientists are telling us that
we are not doomed, and this is really an
important conversation because so many
people think we’re a lost cause already,”
DeMocker says. “A nd we have to work hard to
address that, because I think it’s the biggest
issue we face — the emotional response that
people have to the climate crisis. And I
understand why; it’s b ig, it’s d aunting. But it is
not a lost cause, and we must remember that.”
[email protected]Inspire kids by
looking beyond
the climate
to-do lists
“We have hope;
scientists are
telling us that we
are not doomed.”
Mary DeMocker, an
environmental activist and author