Greenwashing Generation

The era of wasteful consumption and environmentally dangerous products is slowly disappearing. Unlike our parents, today’s youth have grown up with a “green” mentality and tend not to think before making environmentally friendly decisions. “Green living” is something almost innate to the lifestyle of the green generation. The “green” mentality is something that older generations have to actively shift to constantly after having grown up thinking it’s okay to throw everything in the garbage.

They’ve been exposed to a great deal of information about the green lifestyle and in some cases just don’t know how to take it all in. Just as adults take longer to learn the ins and outs of computers and cell phones, it will take them just as long to adapt to the green lifestyle today’s youth have been born into. It’s as if they must assimilate into a new culture and still maintain some of their old accent. We’ve all heard that with age comes wisdom, but to be completely honest, today’s green generation may be more wise about being eco-friendly than the generation who was forced to adapt.We are more likely to save something electronically in the work place rather than constantly printing and photocopying and we are probably would send an ‘e-vite’ rather than paper invitations.

Clearly the ways in which today’s youth are growing up are constantly changing and evolving; hopefully for good reason. In the case of the green lifestyle, this is a necessity that we can all teach each other. It’s great to see consumers turning down plastic bags at the grocery store and bringing their own, drinking filtered tap water in personal water bottles rather than plastic and purchasing greener products. However, I don’t want to scare you with more talk about global warming, climate change and the apocalypse, but there’s always room for improvement. So as youth, it’s our job to remind the generation before and after us about living green. When in doubt, remember the 3 R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle.

Photo from www.superstock.com

About the Author: nicole freeston

Nicole is a recent graduate from the Communications/Publishing program at Simon Fraser University. Her studies have taken her to the world of PR at Magnolia Communications and to the Peak Street Team where she promotes her love of folk and electronic music to the public. When she’s not playing Pokemon on her Nintendo DS, you can sometimes find her attempting to play guitar or slaving away on the Y57 website. She’s probably the most Asian halfer you’ll ever meet and owns way too much Hello Kitty. She hopes her experiences along with four and a half years of hardcore schooling will land her a spot working for the Vancouver Canucks, where she interned as a Website Reporter.

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