A BBC Instruction Manual For Kids To Propagandize Their Parents

The day before yesterday, the BBC carried a piece titled “Earth Day: How to talk to your parents about climate change.”

The article begins addressing their target underaged readers:

You want to go vegan to help the planet, but you’re not paying for the shopping. You think trains are better than planes, but your dad books the summer holiday.

Young people are some of the world’s most powerful climate leaders and want rapid action to tackle the problem.

Big changes are difficult, especially when they involve other people. Where do you begin? For this year’s Earth Day, we spoke to people who have successfully had tricky climate chats at home. Here are their top tips:

The piece is broken into three sections targeting what they imply are evils of our times.

The first section focuses on “How to talk about going meat-free.”

The section begins by claiming that “eating less meat is one of the best ways to reduce our impact on the planet, say scientists.”

The piece introduces us to 17-year-old Ilse who has dyed her hair bright red, and her parents, Antonia and Sally.

The BBC claims that the family ate meat twice or even thrice a day, but when Ilse was 13, she “decided to do more about climate change and read that cutting out meat was a good start.”

Sally and Antonia were understandably skeptical about the plan initially. They were concerned about not getting enough protein and the fact that Ilse was too young to make that decision.

But they still complied with Ilse’s wishes and began with a one-day-a-week trial, they proceeded to scale up, and after a year, went totally meat-free.

Sally says that seeing the emotional impact of the topic on her daughter helped to persuade her it was the right thing for her family.

The BBC reveals that Ilse is part of ‘Teach the Parent’, a U.K.-based campaign that “encourages these conversations between generations.”

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