How can we make dealing with environmental issues fun?

Question

We can still be serious about these issues.

But at the same time is there a way to make dealing with some of it enjoyable? People like doing fun stuff. If we could figure out how to include this element of fun perhaps more people would be willing to become involved.

Do you know of any ideas like this or have any ideas about how to do it?

Answer 1

well the marijuana plant produces higher than average oxigen, get everyone growing it

Answer 2

Depends on the age group you are targeting and the issues at hand. Planning a clean-up day at a specific spot? Talk to a school about involving the children.Contests are fun for kids.If its adults it is much more difficult to get them involved due to work and family pressures. Set a theme up, Example: Do a Clem Kadidillhopper day (remember Red Skelton) Everybody dresses up as a Hobo and you target a specific spot to be cleaned up. I'm sure a lot of heads will turn when people see all these Hobo's out cleaning up the enviroment. If its a display try not to make it to dry. Add some humor. Some kind of animal removing litter and putting it into a garbage bag lieing on the ground

Answer 3

What an absurd question, premised on the dumb notion that environment is some "issues" that require "dealing with".
Actually, many Americans are over-obsessed with the environment and under-concerned with graver threats to our civilization, like the fact that we are fighting Jihadist terrorists that want to take the world back to the 7th century. Consider the absurdity:

How can we make fight the global war on terror fun?

We KNOW it's not fun, because it is serious business. It's like work. It would be great to have a fun job, but if its not fun it still have to be done. If we dont win the GWOT, western civilization will collapse, freedom's lost, people die. Heck, people are dying in terrorist attacks today on a daily to weekly basis around the world, but especially in Muslim countries.

If some creature's habitat is impinged somewhat, not nice but BFD, life goes on.

Talking about making 'environmental issues fun' is just an admission that those issues are 'nice to have' and not life-or-death for our civilization. And attempts to make it sound life-or-death ring hollow, as Bjorn Lomborg's "Skeptical Environmental" proved when he showed that on many environmental fronts, things are going reasonably well (not losing so many species, environmental air and water qualitiy is better than a few decades ago, etc.)

Answer 4

When I lived in Nome, Alaska, students who wanted to participate on acedemic sports teams are told that they must participate in the community's annual clean up day. This was a great way to get them to participate with their friends in helping clean up the town.

This worked effectively because it was a small town. Many people got involved as well. The grocery store had a team, the local national gaurd post had a team. The idea was to collect the most trash. Each team was given standard sized bags, and was expected to get their trash to the local dump. The team with the most bags dropped off at the dump by the end of the day would win. The prize was usually simply having their teams picture on the front page of the Nome Nugget, the towns local newspaper.

There was of course, some cheating involved (people putting their own kitchen garbage into the special bags and loading it up with the rest of the trash they collect), but this was common, and it was also something that everyone could laugh about (who had the wackiest way to increase the amount of trash they collected).

Answer 5

Make it hip. I drive a Prius and for the first couple of years I was stopped and asked questions about it by folks interested. It was like driving a Ferrari. It was fun to get so much attention.

There are several of fun bumper stickers: "What Would Jesus Drive?", "Visualize Whirled Peas", and the classic for SUV drivers - "I'm Helping Global Warming - Ask Me How".

In all seriousness, conservation ideally is invisible. Right now the way our society is configured it is a lot of work but it doesn't have to be. It could be just the normal way things are done.

Answer 6

Two words: Captain. Planet.

Seriously. I used to watch that show all the time when I was younger, and I would go along with all the tips they would give at the end of each show just because it was a show I liked and a hero I admired.

If you get kids into enviro-friendly habits without them even realizing what they're doing is anything more than fun, you create adults who protect the environment without thinking of it as a chore, or too inconvienent to their lifestyle. They do it out of habit because they learned to when they were younger, and they learned to without even realizing. Changing the ways of adults is hard - they're set in their ways, and often reluctant to change them just for the sake of something they won't likely, in their lifetimes, see improve all that much. But children are malleable. You just have to disguise the issues as something they like - tv shows, video/computer games, etc.

Answer 7

That's an easy one. Stop making those material things that we think are fun, such as TV,video games,DVD and VCR players,boomboxes, fast cars,fast food,etc. Once one is forced to use ones imagination to make up a fun game like we use to do,(tag,jumping rope,Giant steps,Hopsctch,Marbles,checkers, cards, red light,Hide and Seek,Button button who's got the button, Have you got a match to light my pipe) and start doing more physical games, like croquet,badminton,running races, bicycle riding,sports that require only a ball and a net, or a ball and a bat. Plant a garden and grow your own food, nothing gives me more enjoyment than getting my hands dirty and end up with something as delicious as a garden tomato with no sprays on it, that you can pick off the vine and bite into like an apple. Yum. You have not only saved money on your grocery bill, you have extra food to share with a neighbor. Have town suppers;everyone brings food, socializes,eases each others sadness or lack of food or family. Have town hall dances with live bands, and town theaters. Getting rid of our material gadgets not only frees us of piles of cluttering waste , it frees our minds to soar, our bodies to work and our souls to interact. If that isn't fun , I don't know what is.

Answer 8

Who do you think you are Mr Rogers? There are people who think grinding there teeth even is fun. One idea and not my own is to use recycled tires for ash fault but as usual the unions won't allow it. Sad that this country is being controlled by the least intelligent vocal few.

Answer 9

All i will think of of excellent now's: Requiem for a Dream, Carandiru (Brazilian), Amores Perros (Mexican), Mar abierto (Spanish) and that action picture with Kevin 1st Baron Beaverbrook as a pedophile of something.

Answer 10

Make a video game like Sims2

Answer 11

I thought it was always fun to work outdoors; city people love t oget outside thier house and do almost any organized activity