“THE ENVIRONMENT SHOULD BE AN ACTIVE, LIVING EXPERIENCE”

Overbrook Environmental Education Center Executive Director and advocate Jerome Shabazz talks with ecoWURD Correspondent D.L. Chandler, guest host of Reality Check, about how crucial environmental education is, especially for young people.  

“We need our young people to look at the environment where they live,” says Shabazz as he describes Center’s work. “There is this overriding image of the environment being someone else’s problem. An image of it being just about the North Pole, the South Pole, the penguins and what they see on nature shows.”

“Instead, we want them focusing in on air quality and the air they breathe every day, the land that they walk on everyday, the food that they make, as well as making sure the water that they’re drinking doesn’t turn perishable. We want to make sure that the environment around them becomes a real active living experience.”

Is it on the state and city to inform and engage the public about environmental issues or is it up to the people?

“I think it’s a little bit of both. Particularly in Pennsylvania where we have a constitutional amendment that establishes environmental justice as a right. The reality is that you do have some top down or top to bottom responsibilities.  But it’s not such an unusual concept for us to be environmentalists.”