It's Not Trendy to Care About the Environment

Many things that are "movements" or considered "trendy" in the States are very common ways of life in other countries. 

Here, people that care about the environment are "conservationalists," and "tree-huggers," "hippies," or "environmentalists." In other parts around the world, they conserve just as a way of life. No large movement was necessary to get people to turn off lights or running water when they weren't using it, nobody went around teaching recycling. Everyone recycles, conserves, and uses what they need. 

When we make things "trendy," we isolate groups of people who don't feel that they can be trendy or don't know if they want to be trendy. By labeling people and things, certain groups do not naturally fall or do not choose to be a part of these groups. 

Conserving energy and water and being good to the earth shouldn't be a trend or a movement--it should just be the way we live. We need to teach this not as something you do if you're "elitist," but something you do if you live on the planet. 

This should be imperative to all people, just like eating and sleeping. It should be second-nature, you respect other people, you respect the earth you live on. Instead, it seems to be more of a suggestion and a certain demographic of Americans is on board, while mass chunks of the population is not. Recycling and conserving is something that anyone of any age, socioeconomic status, location, race, or creed can do. I suppose we have marketed being "green" to a young, trendy, college-educated demographic, and thus by doing so, isolated older generations, and people of different socioeconomic statuses. Because of this, many people consider environmentalism (and other important "movements") a passing trend, and not something they need to worry about. 

Does anyone have suggestions as to how to change this way of thinking? How do we make caring for the planet more accessible to all? 

--megan