Earth’s Young Defenders : For Legions of Environmentally Aware Kids and Teen-Agers, It <i> Is</i> Easy Being Green

The young boy rests his freckled cheek on his mother’s shoulder and she kisses him on the forehead. It’s late and the public hearing room in the Long Beach hotel is chilly.

She gently nudges her sleepy son and together they climb to the podium and unfurl a banner declaring, “No Navy Bombing!” and “Save Our Oceans!”

But this 7-year-old isn’t here to lend support to his mother. He is here to make his own plea .

Meet the Young Environmentalists.

Sean Gearin--whose dolphin collage is the work of Mr. Sweeney’s second-grade class at Westlake Hills Elementary School--is among the growing roster of children taking up environmental causes. This particular night, amid adults with charts and statistics, he is opposing a Navy proposal to detonate explosives off the Channel Islands.

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From small, grass-roots school clubs to large national organizations with corporate sponsors, millions of children and teen-agers are recycling, reforesting, and protecting the whales and dolphins.

Although critics charge that global crises such as acid rain are being exaggerated to spur children to activism, supporters describe the phenomenon as historic.

“No one is manufacturing the concern children have for the Earth,” says Annie Brody, director of the Children’s Earth Fund in New York. “They care more deeply than any other generation.”

According to polls, this generation is not only more worried about the planet than their parents, but is also doing more about it.

Hollywood has even jumped on the bandwagon. In the hit 1993 movie “Free Willy,” it is a 12-year-old who mobilizes adults to save a whale from greedy aquarium owners. Earth Island Institute, whose (800) 4-WHALES hot line appeared at the end of the film, has received more than 300,000 calls from moviegoers--70% from children, they say.

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While research indicates that boys are interested in environmental issues, more girls are likely to join up and take active roles.

In 1989, 9-year-old Melissa Poe of Nashville, Tenn., wrote to then-President George Bush expressing her concern over pollution. When the White House responded with a form letter about drugs and staying in school, Poe realized that she couldn’t rely on anyone--including the President--to fight her battles.

She organized “Kids For A Clean Environment” (Kids FACE) and persuaded advertising agencies to place her letter to Bush on 250 billboards across the country. The group, sponsored by Wal-Mart, publishes a free bimonthly newsletter for its 200,000 members.

Poe also learned that there is strength in numbers. Last spring, Kids FACE teamed up with teen-agers from the Children’s Alliance for Protection of the Environment, Tree Musketeers and the Rim of the World School District to rebuild the Children’s Forest in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Working with Forest Service engineers, the coalition of 40 youngsters mapped out an interpretive trail. One boy designed an ant-shaped bench with a mouth roomy enough for a wheelchair. “What adult would have thought of that?” asks assistant recreation officer Frances Enkoji, who supervised the project.

Enkoji and her co-workers were touched by the participants’ commitment. “You think that kids are just out there playing video games. It was amazing how much these kids know and care. Recycling is awkward for us, but to them it is how life should be.”

In 1987, young Tara Church and her Brownie troop planted a sycamore on Imperial Avenue in El Segundo. Since then, her organization, Tree Musketeers, has planted hundreds of trees across the country. Last summer, the El Segundo High School sophomore organized the first National Youth Environmental Summit in Cincinnati.

Church’s mother, Gail, the group’s executive director, believes young people can teach their parents a great deal about teamwork.

“Children don’t have the feeling that they win when others lose,” she says. “The kids were . . . adept at leaving their own agendas at the door and putting their minds to organizing the summit.”

Indeed, one consequence of the burgeoning youth movement is its “trickle up” effect on grown-ups. In a classic role reversal, children are nagging their parents about buying environmentally responsible products and recycling.

“The older generations know that something needs to be done about the environment but feel that they don’t have the power,” says Roy Gamse, president of Earth Force in Arlington, Va. “Children haven’t yet learned about such limitations. Their confidence and optimism rubs off.”

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Last week, environmental groups filed a lawsuit to block the Navy from detonating underwater explosives near the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Later this month, a federal judge in Los Angeles will decide if the Navy can proceed with tests.

Sean Gearin and his school friends hope to attend the court proceedings.

Says his mother, Lori Zegar: “I remember when I was younger how good it felt going to the Santa Monica beach every morning and jumping into the cool ocean. Now I feel that my children can’t do the same because of the pollutants in the water. Sean and I want to change that.”