Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 16/01) - Youth in the North are concerned about the environment ... sort of.

The Arctic Energy Alliance (AEA) surveyed 775 students across the NWT in grades five to 12 about environmental issues such as climate change and protecting the environment.

While 92 per cent of youth say they want to protect the earth, less than half wanted to participate in school or community-based environmental projects. The most concerned students came from communities outside Yellowknife. These students were also less educated about the effects of climate change. They were also younger.

AEA representative Craig Yeo said that like older Canadians, youth do not link their own personal actions to effects on the environment. "The attitude is: 'Isn't this a terrible thing? Why don't they stop doing it?'"

He added that their reluctance to take action may result from the "cool factor."

But students aren't too cool to trust their educators. More than 60 percent said the best way to learn about global warming is through their teachers. Still, just 39 per cent recall hearing, seeing or reading anything about climate change in the past year.

Although 73 per cent of students can identify fossil fuel combustion as the main culprit, some tried to suggest that global warming will be okay or even good for the environment. Few NWT youth know anyone who controls their energy use or tries to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

The study seems to suggest a hole in the school curriculum. Until recently, it's been up to individual teachers to decide to address climate change in the classroom. But this will change with the new science curriculum, said David Murphy, President of the NWT Teacher's Association.

The Arctic Energy Alliance has been invited to the annual teacher orientation conference held in Inuvik this fall.