Bernardod wrote a very interesting entry on the virtual water footprint of products and how many consumers are unaware of them: http://www.science-parliament.eu/forums/2010-water-footprint-and-virtual... Do you have ideas how the responsible consumer can be created?
How to create responsible consumers?
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new/renewed subject of civical formation
Hello!
Firstly, I want to thank Bianca for having made "a good review" of my comment and having created a link to the comment (above).
As we saw, the solution is to create a responsible consumer, which is aware that his CONSUMERISM PREJUDICES NOT JUST HIS WALLET, BUT SOCIAL EQUALITY (mind the child workers in Asian countries who make sneakers) AND THE ENVIRONMENT worldwide.
The damage of buying in the Environment is indirect, so few people even think of it.
When you buy something, that something needed water, energy and raw materials to be made. Also it may have needed a lot of gas if it was transported from a long distance, so many CO2 emitted.
If consumers understood this, I think many would change their behaviour.
We should raise youngsters FROM AN EARLY AGE to avoid buying what they don't need (as if we introduce this concepts earlier they'll have more likelywood of being applied later) and, as children grow, we should CONTINUOUSLY HAVE A MANDATORY SUBJECT ON THESE ISSUES in public education systems - p.e. in a Civical Formation subject.
In these school subject, which would exist from the 1st grade until the last pre-college grade, we would have subjects to form those students not only to their future jobs, but as people. So, there would be texts to be read, talk and discuss about issues such as the relationship with others, religion, healthy life habits, happiness,... and among them the Environment and consumerism.
Important, I think, is that the subject would have mandatory themes and perhaps mandatory texts to read and that it has a strong community factor.
In the first years, there would be simple indications of what to do; as students progress, it would be deeper themes, arguments and behaviours.
Two things, which are connected, are key to all of this: POLITICAL AND SOCIAL WILL AND TEACHER FORMATION.
People can't be affraid that it would be instrumentalised. If ot would, then we would stop that and rethink the subject.
Of course, you can't just put a teacher in a room with 25 students: he must be prepared, and classrooms should be small.
Visit: the link above and http://www.science-parliament.eu/forums/2010-water-my-responsibility/124...