The First Generation to Know Better...

Unlike when my parents were in school, I was part of a generation that learned explicitly of the destructive nature of humans to the planet.  The problem of plastic creation and use was apparent even back then as well as things like clear cutting and acid rain.  I remember being completely distraught hearing about all the many ways we, as humans were cutting off the legs that we stand on...The Earth that we rely on.  When asked what we can do about this giant problem, our teachers gave us some tips like turning off lights and not letting the water run when we brush our teeth.  They may have wanted to give us small, concrete things that we could do to help in our tiny, grade four worlds, but we were the inheritors of these problems, we should have demanded more.  We were, and are, the first generation to know better.

The situation now seems dire, climate change is showing itself in every summer forest fire and every winter polar vortex, forests are disappearing and deserts are growing, spring and fall are a thing of the past, and all the while companies are making more extravagantly useless products that are harmful – Who approved the use of single use coffee pods??  AKA, why didn't the companies NEED approval to produce such a wasteful, single use product?

I was so proud when the Canadian government banned the manufacture, import and sale of products with micro plastics in 2017.  These products made me angry as a consumer.  I felt that they were a brazen attempt for companies to show us that they could literally feed us tiny plastic pellets in our toothpaste.  In my more hopeful thinking, I felt like that legislation opened up the door for us to take more of a stand on what companies were allowed to bring to market.  At more pessimistic times, that change took years longer than it should have and companies that produced these rage inducing products were never penalized financially.  These products sold and made the companies money.  Yes, they were taken off the shelves because they were unbelievably awful, but these companies are still out there, they didn't suffer from the ordeal.  And because these companies never suffered, what's to stop them from coming up with something else, more wasteful and more harmful to this beautiful place we call home?