Lack of environmental awareness is a generational thing?

To answer that question, we have first to talk about environmental awareness: Environmentalenvironmental awareness is the understanding of our dependency and interconnection to our natural environment and the fragility of it, therefore, our fragility.

This lack of awareness of our natural environment’s importance is linked with our perception and beliefs of how the world and life work and what is essential.

Industrialization made us concentrate on time and money. In our current status quo, time is money, and money is the most valuable resource we have on earth. We extract and use our natural resources to satisfy our basic needs and our biggest desires- that job, that car, that meal, that party, without knowing the macrolevel impact. All that we know and own as humanity was built based on how our natural world works. We know that nature is wise, and we have tried to duplicate it and “optimize” its wisdom in our world.

We’ve now learned that we were wrong and that money and time are NOT the most important things, that we need to shift our economy to a green economy. Ensuring that our ecosystems are healthy is indeed an essential part of sustaining life on earth — and all of that that we love.

I always remember how I was very disconnected from nature back in 2014. I was born in one of the most vibrant and dynamic cities in the world, Mexico City. I learned how the world works from my family, parents, and school. The “world” told me that the way to be happy and fulfilled was to study hard, make a career, be successful, earn tons of money to buy things (the more things I could get that I didn’t need the more successful I was going to be), and be fulfilled.

I received a small insight into the other side of the story of how our world works through a documentary about plastic pollution. I learnt that the packaging of things we consume currently would last over 500 years, simply because nature can’t digest it. I didn’t need to challenge it. I knew it was wrong.

Millennials have been raised on a foundation of change and reformation. Having the privilege of the internet, we can choose content that helps us challenge our beliefs. But any generation can do that shift of their beliefs, we all have this capacity.

It is not about a generation thing, but about curiosity and bravery to flip the coin, challenge stuff we are doing that are normal and convenient, but not necessarily making the world a better place.

We are very disconnected from nature, and being mindful of our waste allows us to learn more about our natural world and with it about ourselves.

What do you think?

With love,

Erika