Who taught you about recycling? Did you make bird feeders from toilet paper rolls or maybe even art projects from old pop bottles? Did you learn that aluminum cans are one of the most recycled item so on the planet? Whoever taught you, in whatever way, be grateful for those that did. You were able to receive even a sliver of an education about what environmental impacts humans have created, and what we can do to help it.

So, your generation grew up learning to turn off the water when brushing your teeth, pick up the paper you see when you’re taking a walk, and not to take glass on the water. These are all things that once weren’t general knowledge, yet now they come so naturally.

What can we do, though, to protect our environment even further? We educate the next generation. We don’t stop at plastic straws, we venture well into the effects of single use plastics on our waterways and air. We share technology that revolutionizes the way that we deal with waste.

So, remember who taught you what you know. Who encouraged you to protect our environment, and what are you doing to carry on that advice? Don’t let it stop with you. So keep teaching and growing; one day we will reach the goals of environmental safety and soundness.

New videos, photos, and stories surface everyday that show humans doing some not so lovely things to our environment. What does the majority do about it, attack them with hurtful words rather than educate them on the consequences of their actions. What do the offenders learn from these actions? Absolutely nothing.

While now a days, water conservation, climate change, and protecting our environment are all taught in public schools, it has not always been this way. For those who didn’t learn this in school, it can be hard to accept later as an adult, therefore meaning they encourage their children to not accept these facts as well. So, what do we end up with? A skeptical generation of adults, and another being raised that way. Adults and children that may not really know or understand environment consequences, therefore being ignorant to what can come of their actions.

This all leads back to the educated, the ones that do know what is happening in the environment around them, and rightfully so, make it a point to protect it at all costs. This knowledge, though, can sometimes effect how they treat those who don’t have it. When videos of young, most likely uneducated children, are posted on Facebook, instead of being taught by those who know better, they are instead being dehumanized and taken down because of the color of their skin. What does this have to do with the environment whatsoever? Absolutely nothing.

Those who are privileged enough to be taught environmental protection, accepting of those facts, and willing to protect it, should also house the empathy it takes for those that may not know these facts, those that deserved to be educated rather than dehumanized.