An analysis of surveys going back over 40 years has shown that young people today are less interested in the environment and resources than older people, when they were young.
Many believe that the younger generation are more inclined to reduce, reuse and recycle, but the survey – conducted in the United States – shows that younger people today, just don’t care as much as their elders did.
One of the study’s authors, Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, said: “I am shocked. We have the perception that we’re getting through to people. But at least compared to previous eras, we’re not.”
Prof. Twenge and her colleagues found a decline, over the last four decades, in young people’s trust in others, their interest in government and the time they said they spent thinking about social problems. Steepest of all was a steady decline in concern about the environment, and taking personal action to save it.
Researchers found that, when surveyed decades ago, about a third of young baby boomers said it was important to become personally involved in programmes to clean up the environment. That figure is now down to a quarter.
Young people were also the least likely to say they’d made an effort to conserve electricity and fuel used to heat their homes.
However, others feel that young people today are overwhelmed at the fact that the state of the environment is constantly thrown in their faces. Mark Potosnak, an environmental science professor at DePaul University in Chicago, noticed an increase in scepticism – or confusion – about climate change among his students as the national debate has heightened. That leads to fatigue, he said.
“It’s not so much that they don’t think it’s important. They’re just worn out,” Potosnak said. “It’s like poverty in a foreign country. You see the picture so many times, you become inured to it.”
This might be the case, but whatever the argument put forward, the study still makes for very worrying reading. The world is heating up, there is no doubt. We are also draining fossil fuels at an alarming rate and we are not investing enough in renewable energy. All the while, energy and resource consumption is raging out of control – especially in developing giants such as Brazil, India and China.
Malta has made huge efforts in the recent past to educate people about climate change as well as conserving water and electricity. But have we done enough? The government puts out conflicting messages when it tries to educate children in schools about damage to the earth. Yet in the same breath, Marsa power station continues to belch fumes and we are talking about a power station running on very controversial heavy fuel oil.
Years ago, kids were brought up and told that the earth was in a bad way and it would be up to them to right the wrongs of their forefathers. Those kids are now adults, but it seems that somewhere, something has gone amiss. The situation is getting worse and rather than stemming the rampant tide of materialism and consumption, we have actually increased the flow.