Parents: Talk Climate Change With Your Kids

Start Them Early It’s their earth they will inherit, help them to appreciate and respect it. Everyone has to do their part to help reduce their carbon emissions — it is especially important to teach your kids. They hold the keys to saving the planet. We all have some type of mess in our lives. It doesn’t matter if it is economical or ecological, it is up to to do our part to help clean it up.

Lessons

• Take your kids on a train or a bus ride — even better if it’s a natural gas powered bus. Explain that- Trains and buses, mass transit, move groups of people, with far less fuel consumption and pollution than everyone taking their own car.
• Use a time to limit the length of showers. Let your kids know that showers account for two-thirds of your water heating costs? If you shorten your shower time, you can save money and 350 pounds of CO2 emissions per year.
• Plant at least one tree. Have a tree planting ceremony. Turn it into a celebration. Teach your kids that a single tree can absorb a ton of CO2 over its lifetime. Trees also absorb pollutants from the air.
• Change your menu. Eat less meat, especially beef. If you reduce the meat in your diet by half, an average family can avoid creating about three tons of emissions a year.
• Take your kids on scavenger hunts. Designate objects such as bottles and cans. Have them point them out to you around your neighborhood or in parking lots, then you can safely bag them. This saves the recyclables from ending up in landfills.
• Include a civics lesson. Teach your kids how democracy-in-action works. Together, with your kids, let policy makers know you are concerned about global warming. Wrap it up.
• Teach a lesson on insulation. By wrapping your water heater in an insulation blanket, you’ll save 1,000 pounds of CO2 per year. As with all the lessons you teach your children, remember to use the world as your classroom.