Babajide Oluwase has worked with a dozen environmentalists to sensitize different stakeholder groups about climate change using observable examples around as teaching tools. However, he continued to experience setbacks especially as it concerned stepping down this knowledge in ways that children would effectively understand and appreciate it. He knew he had to do something about getting the next generation involved in this cause.

In 2016, he wrote and published a book titled ?The Young Climate Heroes? targeting children to imbibe the culture of tree planting, environmental sanitation, and other environmental initiatives. Babajide uses story and comical illustration to simplify technical terms underlying climate change and global warming, to enable children easily understand and take action.

Remarkably, over 3, 000 students have been educated through this book. The book was recently endorsed by the United Nations Information Center in Lagos. In order to sustain the gains of the book, he is working with other eco-innovators to start a ?Green Heroes Club? in secondary schools. The aim is to identify and empower interested students and teachers to sustain and take charge of initiated environmental projects in schools visited across Nigeria.

In my opinion, Babajide?s action is one of the best ways to achieve a sustainable environment in communities by ?Catching Them Young?. The youth are the best people to drive a movement of achieving environmental sustainability and it will be more effective if they already developed the passion when they were children/teenagers. I recommend this method of creating environmental awareness should be ubiquitously adopted in other regions and countries. 

Acknowledgment: Babajide Oluwase contributed in this article.