Oh, Dawn. I think the reason I have a copy of this book is because my mom bought it as a gift for me when I was going through my own "Budding Environmentalist" phase, wherein I subscribed to Ranger Rick (does anyone else remember that magazine? I loved it! and side note, I just learned it still exists!) and yelled at my dad every time he threw away the newspaper. And then I grew up, and realized environmentalist girl really wasn't me, and now I'm the kind of person who sometimes forgets/is too lazy to put her empty wine bottles in the blue bin instead of the black one, and is probably going to hell. See you there.
List of things that are going wrong with the environment at this very moment (1992), as written by Mrs. Gonzalez, "who is very cool and has long dark hair that she wears in a thick braid down the center of her back" (Ok, this is relevant how? Is this some sort of standard for being cool? Someone enlighten me!) and as read aloud to the rest of the class by Dawn the brown-noser:
- Acid Rain and Air Pollution
- Vanishing Animal Life
- Too Much Garbage
- Water Pollution
Yeah, acid rain has really come back to bite us in the butt, huh? This book is so old! Not that it wasn't/isn't a problem, but when was the last time you really heard anything about acid rain? I'm surprised there's no mention of the "Greenhouse Effect". No mention of Global Warming or Climate Change anywhere. So old-school! (And I'm going to say right now, since I'm going to be making fun of a lot in this book, that does not mean I intend to make light of environmental issues. I fully accept and support that these issues exist and need to be addressed politically, socially, and ethically. But can we all agree to do that while still making fun of Dawn for being such a crunchy granola hippy?)
