Kindergartners would save the world, if we let them.

English: Beef (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are thousands of books on parenting and discipline, with techniques and tricks that range from time-outs to logical conversation. The ultimate goal remains the same. To teach our toddling dictators that the world is not theirs to plummet, toys are not rights but privileges, and we don’t bite our friends.  We spend a lot of time training toddlers that by the time they reach kindergarten they have the social and emotional skills required to function in school society.

I’m not sure what happens in the next 18 or so years, but apparently it isn’t good.

I listened to a report on NPR today that reported the solution to global warming is as simple as eating less meat. Apparently Americans consume an average of 200lbs of meat every year and that every aspect of meat production is an environmental disaster.  It made me wonder what it would take to get people to eat less meat. I quickly came to realization that there is not much we can do.  I picture a big man at a grill decrying the plea to eat less meat because, well, he likes it and he’s going to eat it. A lot of it.

If I tell a kindergartner that the meat in his lunch box is hurting the plants and the trees, he’ll most likely put it down.  If I tell him that meat is killing our world, he will probably cry and never eat meat again. He has been taught not to hurt his friends and, in his beautiful mind, the plants and trees are friends.  He has learned his lessons well and most assuredly ready to graduate to first grade.  Sadly, this young boy will probably grow up to be a grilling man, just like his dad. And eat meat. Lots of it.

What will it take to get people to eat less meat? A government nanny?

Maybe just a kindergartner in office.