This week, I decided to talk to my grandparents about how they feel about the climate change issue as a whole. I chose to talk to them because I know that they often have very different opinions than me on issues like this. They also tend to be very stubborn–especially my grandpa, and do not change their opinions very easily. I started by talking to my grandpa and asked very generally: “How do you feel about climate change?” He responded by saying that he did not think that it was something we had to put too much effort into right now because it will not affect us for a while. When I asked him why he does not worry about it and dismisses it, he just responded by saying that his effort alone was not enough to make a huge change and that to change his ways would be inconvenient. While I agreed with him that it can sometimes be inconvenient, I told him that I think it is important that we try to make a change sooner than later. He shrugged it off. “I’m not going to be around for that!”
This conversation reinforced a lot of what we have been talking about in class because we often hear the argument of “my individual effort is not good enough” or “climate change is not going to affect me in my lifetime.” From my grandpa’s perspective, sure maybe he will not be around for the effects of climate change to really be significant; however, I was a little bit disappointed that he was not thinking in terms of my generation.
My grandma responded similarly. She tends to agree with most things that my grandpa says, though she also made the comment that where they live many people do not even think about climate change as being a real thing–so they did not think that they were doing anything wrong. They recycle a little bit, and they now own a Prius, so she thinks that they are making somewhat of an effort towards helping the planet.
It was interesting to see the difference between my grandparents’ opinions and my own. True, I live on the opposite coast and I am many years younger than them, but I sometimes forget how not everyone looks at climate change the same way. I have been a student at the University of Oregon for almost four years now, and I have gotten used to seeing all of the different ways we recycle and compost at our school. It is weird to think that not every college campus does this when I have started to accept it as just a part of my life.
I think that we really need to consider the older population when talking about climate change and to get them more involved because many of them have a more relaxed approach to climate change because the expected negative effects are not tomorrow, but a few years from now. If they are not expecting to live that long, they have less of a reason to care about preventing these changes.
It’s interesting on the perspectives that different perspectives have compared to ours. It makes you compare and contrast generations differently as they way they lived and the way society was built up. I also like the fact that you brought up the fact that not every campus works the way ours does when it comes to recycling and compost. I went to FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) prior and there weren’t really recycling centers on campus like there are here. We especially focused more on reusing fabrics and clippings.
Thanks for sharing these reflections about the conversations you had with your grandparents. As you suggest, I think it’s important for different generations to work together. I find it hopeful to recognize that such cross-generational collaboration is something that’s already starting to happen, particularly around the issue of climate change. For instance, there are many organizations out there — both local and national — of grandparents who are working to solve climate change.
See for instance: http://www.staycool4grandkids.org/ (a U.S. based group); http://www.campaigncc.org/grandparents (international grandparents against climate change groups); http://www.raginggrannieseugene.com/ (a local Eugene group, who actually was performing at the PIELC keynote on Friday just before Bill McKibben spoke).
Perhaps your grandparents would be interested in these groups, or you could mine them for ideas about how best to talk about climate change with them the next time you talk. Not everyone who is of an older generation is relaxed about these issues (as the very existence of these groups suggests), though I think you make a really excellent observation that younger people have more of an investment in the future.
The key, I think — and to cite Gary Paul Nabhan’s talk from Friday — is to find commonalities between generations, so that we can all work together. Having conversations like you did is a great start!
I also find it interesting how different people view climate change. After this class I really do see that climate change can affect us in greater ways than I had previously realized. Why is it that climate change gets such views as it does is something that has always interested me.
I find it really interesting how people have different outlooks on global warming and do not feel the same about it. I think that, that is one of the main reasons it is hard to make change because people are all on different pages. Getting all generations together would definently help make change happen faster.