Generation Ec : Young Environmentalists Help Themselves by Ensuring There’s Enough Planet to Go Around

A lot of people will no doubt take note of the environment tomorrow, Earth Day No. 25. Some will give lip service to green causes; some will spend the day picking up trash at the beach.

But tomorrow’s focus on the environment will be just like many other days to a number of dedicated high schoolers around the county who think of the planet as something that--like homework and hygiene--requires regular attention if there’s to be a healthy future.

They skip afternoon movies to pull ice plant from a sandy bird sanctuary. They’ve convinced their families to replace old habits with prudent ones: separating trash, recycling grocery bags (paper and plastic), not leaving the water flowing when they brush their teeth or shave.

To these teens, Earth Day doesn’t happen just once a year.

“Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘Earth Day, Every Day’?” asks Jenny Tsang, a 16-year-old El Toro High junior. Her friends and family will vouch they have.

“They get bored or tease me about my preaching. I tell them all the time not to litter or how they need to cut the plastic rings on six-packs (so stray ones don’t strangle sea life). I think this is important. It worries me to think about the future and whether there will be anything left 25 years from now.”

Jenny talks in terms of “taking care” of the planet. It’s a charge she assumed at age 5, she says, when she learned where some of her food came from and turned vegetarian. Her family still hasn’t joined her in this particular cause, though.

Membership in Greenpeace and the Sierra Club followed. But it’s her campus group, Students for Environmental Action, that has prompted her into real action. The club cleans up beaches and plants trees at school; they extended Earth Day into a weeklong fair on campus that culminates today.

The group’s activities, however, are supplemental to Jenny’s personal efforts. For example, after a speaker from the Laguna Canyon Conservancy spoke to students about the conservancy’s preservation efforts, Jenny sought out the conservancy over winter break and volunteered her time stuffing envelopes and folding T-shirts.

“It just hit me close to home--literally. We grew up with this land nearby, took it for granted that it would always be here.”

Open land, she fiercely believes, is important for animals, birds and people. “Everything has been put on this earth for a reason. It’s part of a food cycle. When something’s missing, we may not be able to see the effects right away, but eventually we’ll feel it.”

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For some, it’s already too close for comfort. Years of development persistently encroaching on nature are too evident now, notes Corona del Mar freshman Sydney Head.

“We have to fix all the damage previous generations have caused--either by their ignorance or by accident,” he says. “But I think that everyone, no matter their age, can be involved in the environment. It’s everyone’s responsibility--not that everyone realizes that. But when they do someday, it’ll be a great world.”

Until then, the 14-year-old intends to spend his time teaching others about the natural world. Recycling and buying eco-friendly products are fine, he says, but preserving and protecting Mother Earth is key. He believes education will get us there.

Sydney’s outside classroom has been at the Environmental Nature Center in Newport Beach, a nonprofit park featuring redwoods, a Joshua tree, California poppies and a designated walk through the 2 1/2 acres.

About 10,000 youths visit the 23-year-old center annually, listening to lectures at the stream-side amphitheater or working in small groups at one of the picnic tables nestled here and there.

“The goal of ENC is to get kids to become environmentally conscious by teaching them about nature,” says Sydney, who two years ago became a junior naturalist. The title, held mostly by high school students, lets him assist instructors and pass on his own wisdom to younger kids.

So far he’s logged about 200 volunteer hours at the center. That doesn’t include the time he has contributed every year since kindergarten when his parents first enrolled him in the summer camp there.

The sound of the stream cascading down the rocks is meditative, he says, and a favorite of his. It echoes Sydney’s own mild manner; he prefers a non-confrontational, non-preachy approach to spreading his gospel so as not to come across as “the Green Police.”

The rhythmic flow also drowns out any sounds from the real world around the center--the traffic, the football field and students from adjacent Newport Harbor High.

“When they first come here, the kids don’t realize what an impact they have on the planet,” says Sydney, who has turned into a science buff because of his nature center experiences. At the center, youths do experiments such as tending a mini-landfill model built in a cup.

“Because of places like this,” he adds, “kids today are learning what their responsibilities are. They are more willing to realize that their individual efforts matter.”

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The individual can make all the difference, Marina High senior Leann Tchaikovsky has learned. If that sounds like a load of ‘60s hippie idealism, consider the 17-year-old’s past four years.

The Barney lunch pail she carries in lieu of wasteful brown bags is not the extent of it. Through her school environmental club, Leann became aware of the need to save the Bolsa Chica wetlands, only a couple of miles from the Huntington Beach home where she has grown up. By her junior year she was elected club president, rallying members on extracurricular jaunts to the tide pools in Dana Point or to Crystal Cove State Park to rid the land of non-endemic vegetation.

Getting her peers to join was not a problem, Leann says. Getting them to fit activities into their busy schedules, however, was.

“The good intentions are there,” she says. “Everyone likes the idea of saving the planet. But there’s so many things to do when you’re in high school and so little time.”

The apathy proved so frustrating, Leann recalls, that this year she decided she “could make more of an impact by doing things with or without the club.” She’s still a member, but she cleans up the wetlands now without club sanction.

But what originated as a loyalty to maintaining the wetlands has evolved into a passionate quest for all the environment.

The latest plan to build atop part of the wetlands doesn’t sit well with her, especially, she says, “the argument that it’s a matter of property rights.

“We have to consider what’s best in the long term. The wetlands have a lot of value in a ecological sense in this region. Things like that should be--have to be--protected. Building on it will only damage the ecosystem forever,” she says.

With that in mind, Leann encouraged her family members--she calls them “armchair activists”--to support the Bolsa Chica Land Trust. She also recently added a membership in the Sierra Club to her resume, hoping to find time for its trail maintenance program.

“Soon I’ll be able to do more,” she gushes.

On May 7 she turns voting age. The letters to her congressman and county supervisors will continue, of course, but now they’ll hear from her at the polls too, she says with a laugh.

What’s more, she goes forward armed with tips she soaked up through Youth and Government, a West Orange County YMCA program that she says illuminated for her “why government works and doesn’t.”

The bottom line, Leann says, is “it’s really up to us--the humans.”

Traveling convinced her of this. From hiking in the lush Swiss and Austrian hills to prowling the cities of Poland and Greece, she remembers with all her senses how “you can see the difference in the air,” almost taste it.

“You can see how pollutants have decayed and damaged these beautiful statues and buildings. You can’t swim in certain rivers because of toxic dumping. It really teaches you how people think about things and how it ends up reflecting on the land.”

The trend in environmentally safe products and the increased awareness all have to do with the loathsome fact that environmental problems are becoming much more real, she says.

“That’s why it’s everyone’s responsibility to help however you can. Keep it in your mind always, every day. Do whatever,” she says. “Just do something.”