Are global warming and deforestation too scary for Sesame Street?

[sabelmouse]

Scaring kids might not be the best approach, but we shouldn't avoid talking about 'scary' subjects with children altogether

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children's television program Sesame Street

A red muppet visits Oscar the Grouch, inside his garbage can, in a scene from the children's television program Sesame Street. Photograph: CTW/Getty Images

During the four decades since its inception, Sesame Street has introduced some pretty challenging subjects to its young audience – death, AIDS, adoption. It has even recently talked about the impact of the ongoing recession on family life.

But there's one topic that will not be raised, according to Rosemarie Truglio, vice president of research and education at Sesame Workshop, the New York-based charity that produces Sesame Street – and that's global warming. It's just "too scary" for kids, apparently.

At a press conference earlier this week to announce the launch of a two-year, environmental "curriculum" on the show called My World is Green and Growing, Truglio said:

Global warming and deforestation – those are really adult concepts, and it's just too scary for children … The place we're coming from is, 'Let's love and care for the Earth, because it's so beautiful, and we appreciate its awe and wonder, and we're going to respect it … When you love something, you want to take care of it.

As I wrote earlier this year, I've long been intrigued to know what the right age is to start introducing the difficult subject of climate change to children. Sesame Street is aimed at three- to five-year-olds and, personally, I think Truglio has got it about right. With children at such a tender age, it's probably best to start off by getting them interested in the natural world around them and to elicit a basic sense of respect, rather than wade in straight away with the heavy stuff about greenhouse gases and the like.

But I also think we need to be wary about believing that some subjects are just "too scary" to tell children about. My reasoning for not introducing climate change to children is more based on the fact that it is conceptually quite a complex subject to take in – for most adults, let alone three-year-olds.

And as Frank Carson says: "It's the way you tell 'em!"

Last month, more than 200 complaints were filed with the Advertising Standards Authority after the Department of Energy and Climate Change produced an Act on C02 advert which suggested that pets might drown as a result of climate change. Scaring people might not always be the best way to convince people of your argument – as many environmentalists are belatedly now recognising – but that shouldn't mean, therefore, that we avoid talking about "scary" subjects with children altogether.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/nov/11...

[sabelmouse]

[danman]

The second video is exactly the decadent , humanity hating unprogressive attitude that i hate so much.
you should read some articles here http://www.spiked-online.com/
I was pointed to the site once and even though i do not agree with everything, it has an intelligent perspective

[sabelmouse]

thank you for the link. i shall peruse it at my leisure.

about the second video. humanhating. you make it sound as if we humans are a struggeling minority abused and maligned by all other species when it is the other way around and we ought to learn some respect for the rest of the world, flora, fauna as well as all those many humans that are being opressed and exploited by those of us who are more " developed.


Much of the cheap meat and dairy produce sold in supermarkets across Europe is arriving as a result of serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in one of Latin America's most impoverished countries.

In this film, produced by the Ecologist Film Unit in conjunction with coalition of pressure groups including Friends of the Earth, Food and Water Watch and Via Campesina, documents the experiences of some of those caught up in Paraguay's growing conflict over soy farming.

It also reveals, for the first time, how intensive animal farming across the EU, including the UK, is fuelling the problem.

[sabelmouse]

this is what i think of as decadent

2. Marked by or providing unrestrained gratification; self-indulgent.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decadence

[sabelmouse]

certainly agree with this

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/debates/fof_article/7568/