Youth Workshops

Youth in University

Workshops with youth in university took place in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Participants were between 18 and 24 years of age. Here are their thoughts on environmental issues:

• Youth are knowledgeable on the issue of climate change and understand the science behind it, but find it difficult to make climate change personal. The concept of climate change is often difficult to grasp, and youth may not know what they can do in terms of personal actions.
  
  
• Governments should play a larger role in helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. The government needs to provide people with incentives to make it worth their while to become more environmentally friendly such as cheaper bus fares, more bike lanes and places to have your bike, tax breaks and better public transportation systems. The government also needs to stop providing subsidies which indirectly contribute to climate change. They need to focus on the major contributors to climate change such as the companies.
  
  
• Campaigns must be easy, accessible and convenient for youth to participate.
  
  
• It is hard to change people's habits once they are older, so eco-friendly behavior must be formed at an early age.
  
  
• Young people need to be able to take simple but concrete actions in their daily lives.
  
  
• The preservation of options and choices is very important.
  
  
• There needs to be more emphasis on the impacts of climate change in the media, schools, etc.
  
  
• People need to be aware of their consumer choices and how their choice impacts on the environment.
  
  
• Regionalize issues to focus on what can happen regionally and in one's own community.
  
  
• Alternative media reaches youth.
  
  
• Public awareness on climate change should not focus on specifically on climate change but instead on some of the individual causes and effects of climate change.
  
  
• More awareness of the issue needs to be focussed at adults because they are the ones with the money and power.
  
  
• Corporations and companies need to be part of the solution otherwise the strategy will be useless.
  
  
• More integration between the economy and the environment is needed.

Here are their ideas about what can be done to reach out to youth and get them interested in climate change:

• Provide mechanisms to allow youth to be involved in the decision making such as through providing more opportunities for youth to participate in international conferences and high level meetings.
  
  
• Build more partnerships among youth organizations and reach out to other potential partners who deal with similar issues.
  
  
• Support a Youth Climate Change Knowledge Network of youth based organizations that are working on this issue. This could include a 'Youth Climate Newspaper' on line and in print.
  
  
• Create an internship program for youth dealing with climate change.
  
  
• Create climate change scholarships and research awards.
  
  
• Have mandatory environmental classes.
  
  
• Provide positive incentives for eco-friendly behavior such as tax breaks and less expensive public transport.
  
  
• Build bus lanes.
  
  
• Focus campaigns on the choices youth make.
  
  
• Have corporations sponsor events and programs to be more environmentally friendly within their company.
  
  
• Add green spaces to the city.
  
  
• Have panels and broadcasts on CBC radio program, which would include speakers like David Suzuki.
  
  
• Build partnerships with business.
  
  
• Produce more information materials on climate change illustrating its global and local dimensions, its origins, personal impacts and how environmental degradation effects the economy and our way of life. Encourage widespread dissemination of information on environmental issues to continue to raise awareness among youth.

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