An article on Treehugger reported a couple of weeks ago that young asians are not as concerned about the environment as their peers in the west.  This struck me as a rather intriguing study as I continued to ask myself … what does that really mean?

I remember when I was in elementary school and the big topic of the day was recycling — everyday teachers, guest speakers and the school would continue to promote recycling.  As a kid, I would run back home from school and tell my parents.  The effect would last about a week and then recycling would be close to be forgotten.

Photograph by Carl Wozniak

My point is — how effective is such a survey — and does such a survey really effectively measure the concern that one has for the environment?  I have to admit that as I grew up, I did not care much for the environment despite all the propaganda (aka. marketing materials, aka. information booklets) out there.  It was not on my priority.  How did the environment become a concern for me?  When something valuable to me was threatened — my view of the sky and trees in the city.  Some may laugh but I really enjoy seeing an open sky without condo or skyscrapers blocking my way.  While I hated downtown because there just weren’t enough trees, I hated what I deemed as “clone housing” for threatening large inhabited natural pieces of land.

Courtesy of PaperSac

This led to my discovery of what was important to me–and what actually has an impact on what was important to me.  I am sure that there are kids out there who are attuned and enthusiastic about preserving the environment but there are those like myself who will take their time to find out more about themselves.

How do we reach those kids who are like myself (way back when)?  I guess we’ll need to find out what’s most important to them first.  It’s the only way to reach people effectively — as individuals.  We all have our own opinion on the environment and we each define what is important to ourselves.  Until each of us looks at our environment from that standpoint, would we consider the area we live in worth fighting for?