By Ruth Kamnitzer
I never used to think much about school buses. Those big yellow diesel buses careening along, mornings and afternoons, September to June, were just part of the seasonal rhythms, as fall turned to winter and finally spring.
But for the past year, I’ve been leading an electric school bus campaign for a Canadian climate action group called For Our Kids. I’ve spent a lot of time reading about the health impacts of diesel school buses; the well established links between diesel exhaust and cancer, asthma, heart conditions and allergies, and suspected links with autism and other health impacts. I’ve been surprised by how many kilometers school buses clock up – in the US they are the largest form of mass transportation – and their cumulative carbon emissions. I’ve spoken with policy analysts and school bus operators who’ve pointed out the opportunities (predictable driving distances, publicly funded) and challenges (parking, charging) of switching to electric. And I’ve been excited about the recent funding announced in both the US and Canada which makes electric school buses – already cost effective in the long run – more affordable.
I’ve been doing this work as the climate crisis deepens around us. Searing heat, forest fires, floods, and then an uncannily balmy Halloween; I live in British Columbia, and over the past couple of years we’ve had plenty of visceral reminders that things are not right. We all feel it.
Now I find the sight of those diesel school buses irksome, because I know we have better alternatives. And I wonder what message those buses are sending to kids.
Last fall the largest study to date of climate anxiety in children and young adults was published in the Lancet. Researchers surveyed 10,000 youth aged 16-25 from 10 countries (including the USA but not Canada). The results were sobering. Fifty-nine percent of respondents were extremely worried, and 84% were at least moderately worried, about climate change. More than half felt sad, angry, helpless or guilty. The study also found that climate anxiety and distress was correlated with perceived inadequate government responses and feelings of betrayal. The respondents were worried, and – or because – they didn’t feel those in charge were doing enough.
Dr. Ellen Field, an associate professor at Lakehead University, was part of a team that replicated the Lancet study in Canada. They added seven additional questions to try to better understand what schools should be doing. The study is still under review before publication, but Field says one of the messages that came across was that students wanted to see climate being taught with a solutions orientation and a trauma informed pedagogy. Field says these findings have implications for schools. “Day in, day out, young people need to see adults, and the institutions they are part of taking climate seriously” Field says.
Field says that we need to reduce the dissonance that young people experience around climate, so that when they go to school and other institutions what they see being practiced matches the urgency they are hearing in the news and from other sources. “We pathologize climate anxiety but we need to be very mindful that it is a normal, rational response when you come to understand the urgency of the climate crisis,” Field says. “It’s not something that we just need therapy for. It’s something we need to address with action.”
Electric school buses can be a visual example of the kind of system level change we need to make, evidence to students (and communities) that the brighter low carbon future we need is indeed possible. For students who ride the bus to get to and from school, or for a field trip, electric buses are also a chance to participate in that future – to be part of the ‘solution’ instead of the problem. “If we can demonstrate to young people that the way that they are coming and going from school is not perpetuating the issue [of climate change], that’s something that school board leaders should be doing and be advocating for,” Field says.
Heather Baitz lives in Nanaimo, British Columbia and is the mother of two school aged children. Baitz knows first hand that action is an antidote to anxiety. After first understanding the severity of the climate crisis back in 2018, she took a leading role in a number of BC based climate action networks. Baitz is open with her children about climate change, but is mindful that they also need to see a path out of the crisis to avoid being overwhelmed. She’s proud that her daughter started a climate club at her school this year, and teachers have been hugely supportive. But Baitz says it’s also essential for students to see change happening at other levels. “I would totally agree that school buses are an amazing opportunity to take an action that is actually really impactful in reducing emissions and doing that in a way that’s visible to children to help them have some confidence that the adults are taking action,” she says.
Changing over all our school bus fleets to electric won’t be friction free. Electric buses still have a much higher up-front cost than diesel buses, though because running costs are lower, they can be more economical in the long run. With current funding levels, districts may still need to balance short term financial pain for long term gain. While many of the school bus transportation managers I’ve spoken to were enthusiastic about the new technology, others did have concerns. They pointed out that the current range of electric buses was still restrictive for rural districts, and that charging times made day-time field trips difficult. There were logistical issues that needed to be overcome; in some cases, bus yards would need to be built, electricity systems overhauled. One told me the buses were having mechanical issues, and when I told him that parents like me were willing to ride the bumps of electric school buses, he laughed and said ‘you have no idea how mad a parent can get if a bus breaks down’.
Our schools are places of learning. As Ravi Parmar, chairperson of the Sooke School District, one of the first in British Columbia to purchase electric school buses told me, the day is coming when all vehicles will need to be electric, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t start now – and he says public institutions like schools have a responsibility to be leaders.
At home, our family is ever mindful of environmental impacts of what we do, but with the place I live and my financial reality, for the most part I haven’t been able to participate in the structural shifts that are needed. We still have a gas furnace, and though we ride or walk for errands around town, we drive a gasoline vehicle for longer trips.
I’m glad that many of the everyday sustainable actions we take at home are reinforced at my daughter’s school – the recycling, printing on both sides of the paper, an appreciation of natural spaces. But I’d also like her to see those larger structural shifts, so that when she learns about the perils of climate change, she’s also partaking in the solutions. I’d love her to come home from a field trip and tell me they rode on a really cool electric bus, so clean and quiet it was like magic. I want her to feel, as marine biologist and policy analyst Ayana Elizabeth Johnson said, that it’s “a magnificent time to be alive in a moment that matters so much.”
Ruth Kamnitzer is an organizer with For Our Kids, a national network of community-based parent led groups working for climate action, where her work focuses on electric school bus adoption. She previously worked as an environmental educator, bringing training in the IB/PYP system to develop programs and educational materials that ask the ‘big questions’ and promote learning through action, and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Maisonneuve, Chatelaine, the Globe and Mail and other publications. She holds a MSc in Biodiversity Conservation and a BA in geography.