Younger generation may find progress easier

I was visiting the campus and we were getting ready to make a quick trip to the grocery store. My daughter - the middle one - reached up to the top of the refrigerator for the sturdy bags she always takes with her. Later, back at her apartment, with all the food put away, the bags were folded and returned to their spot on top of the fridge. I asked her if she ever forgot them - which sometimes happens to me - and has to get paper or plastic bags. “Not often” she said. “I usually plan ahead.” Ouch. A few days later I watched my youngest daughter automatically rinse a plastic bottle and drop it into the recycling bin. She didn’t stop to think about it. It was a routine action. My son, the minimalist, sold his car and now takes the bus or travels by bicycle unless he’s riding with a friend. When I asked how he would manage without a car of his own, he simply shrugged. “I don’t need it,” he said. “And I’d rather not get into the habit of just jumping into the car for every little trip.” Ouch again. My older daughter, who, like my son, has a home of her own, is careful to edit her possessions. She weighs each purchase carefully and she recycles fabrics and material to make bean bags and other items to be used by her patients. These were all little moments. Nothing big or dramatic or particularly impactful on their own. But what I realized, thinking about it later, is just how much farther ahead their generation is than so many of my generation were at that age. I remember when we had to make laws against littering because until we did, no one thought anything of simply throwing trash out of the car - the big, gas-guzzling, car - window. We had to invent recycling because, up until that time, the idea hadn’t really occurred to anyone that we were trashing our planet. We had to work at it and make it easy to do, so that even the laziest of us wouldn’t have an excuse. When I was a young adult the environmental movement was strong, but it was a struggle. The term “tree-hugger” was tossed at you if you made a lot of noise. But young adults the age of my children don’t know any other way. And that, when you think about it, is good and steady progress.