I'm not entirely sure what the major idea behind environmental cartoons is. I mean sure, you could just write it off as "to teach kids about protecting the environment" and be done with it, but I think that's oversimplifying things a bit. I mean obviously, environmental cartoons are preachy and stupid and no one would ever want to watch them unless they had a tire iron lodged in their skull, but there's one thing about them that fascinates me. It's the idea that somehow children will be able to save the environment, and be encouraged to do so. I mean sure, you can tell them to turn off the lights when they leave the room all they want, but that really isn't the major problem, now is it?
There were several episodes of Captain Planet* that tried to teach kids about oil spills. Now, here's the problem with that. What. In the flipping hell. Are children. Going to do. About. OIL SPILLS? Sure, you might say that they're "aware" of the problem, but that doesn't really make much of a difference, now does it? What ideal are you supporting here? Oil spills are bad? Yeah, I'm pretty sure most of us who are old enough to know what they are and have working brains figured that one out awhile ago.
The truth is, children really don't care about this crap, and trying to force it down their throats when they're eight years old will likely lead to them resenting the hell out of you. It's basically making them feel guilty about something they have absolutely no control over.
Leave the kids alone and maybe try educating the adults instead.
*Explaining exactly what Captain Planet was will make my brain hurt, so if you're not familiar with it, check YouTube. Although don't let anyone see you or anything. That'd be pretty damn embarrassing. Honestly, I could go on for hours about the astoundingly embarrassing things happening in that show.
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