Renowned University of Alberta ecologist David Schindler said in a speech Friday that children are our best hope for slowing climate change.
Speaking at the Trails To Sustainability conference on environmental education near Calgary, Schindler said,
"By the time people who are six to 12 years old now are grown up, we're going to see a different political landscape and a different environmental one."
A world-renowned expert on climate change and fresh-water ecology, Schindler was the 2001 winner of the NSERC Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, Canada's highest scientific honor. Schindler also noted,
"We're all pretty set in our ways and I think looking at people who really don't get it – who leave their cars idling while they're in the grocery store for an hour in the winter and things like that – we're not going to reach those folks. We can reach their kids."
Schindler, who also teaches environmental decision making at the University of Alberta, also said that while today's generation and their elected leaders have refused to deal with looming water shortages and global warming issues, unavoidable change is coming.