Photo courtesy of Brian Liloia
Imagine lighting a fire that not only cooks your breakfast but heats your entire home for the rest of the day. A quaint concept in energy efficiency? No, it is a modern-day reality for some American children. In a Nick News piece titled “A Kid Off the Grid,” kids featured are engaging in everyday activities that set the bar for sustainable living in the 21st century. Kids at the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri are developing responsible habits and skills in sustainable consumption by composting their own waste and monitoring their energy usage via voltage meters connected to a solar panel system. They engage in communal living by meeting at the community house for recreation and participating in ride-shares on biodiesel-powered vehicles.
Sounds cool? That depends on who you ask. Are children willing to swap a flush toilet for a waterless toilet that is really just a bucket? Will they still feel like walking when they come of age and are able to express their independence and freedom by driving? A Daily Show “Back in Black” Earth Day segment asks just that while bringing to light the media’s dubious attempt to promote sustainable consumption. Lewis Black provides a couple of examples where the message of being green doesn’t quite fit with the messenger. One is a DVD featuring Sesame Street’s Elmo on Being Green, which has an added cardboard sleeve to a plastic DVD case. Another example is the voice of actor Wilmer Valderrama portraying the animated cartoon Handy Manny promoting renewable energy. Elsewhere, Valderrama enthusiastically describes his three cars. Sustainable consumption has become trendy but not to the point of promoting exemplary behavior within the industry.
For kids, nothing hits closer to home than setting the example within the home. Ed Begley Jr. and his daughter take Nick News viewers through a tour of their eco-conscious home, showing their rooftop solar panels, their solar oven, and electric vehicle. And as if to say that not only celebrity children can engage in greener living, a girl in high-rise dense New York City discusses the green roof on her building while a boy in auto-heavy Oakland, California walks to school. As Nick News points out, kids anywhere from ecovillages to inner cities can do their part in consuming more sustainably.
Nickelodeon’s news piece isn’t only telling children that they have the power to lower humanity’s impact on the planet, but shows them that children have already begun to do so. Whether it’s the kids or adults who are taking the lead, the take-home message is to act. Perhaps, by taking that to heart, the effects of practicing what we preach could, according to one child, “ripple outwards.” And a good place for that to happen would be with Nickelodeon itself, currently exposing kids to at least 14 ads on Nick’s homepage (some for toys and some for fast food). Mixed messages are the last thing kids need.
Photo courtesy of Brian Liloia
