Network members Connie Flanagan and Wayne Osgood are analyzing data from Monitoring the Future, a large annual survey of high school students that tracks their opinions and attitudes on a range of topics. Laura Wray, a graduate student working with Flanagan and Osgood, published this op-ed in the Washington Post based on findings from their research.

An Inconvenient Truth about Youth
Laura Wray
Washington Post, op-ed, September 11, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/10/AR2006091001133.html

An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s recent movie on global warming, is now the fourth largest grossing documentary of all time. Yet, apparently it isn’t young adults who are paying the price of the ticket—or more important, taking the truth about the environment to heart. In fact, the inconvenient truth today is that youths’ willingness to conserve gas, heat, and energy has taken a precipitous plunge since the 1980s.

According to data from Monitoring the Future, a federally funded national survey on trends in the attitudes, values, and behaviors of high school seniors since 1976, there has been a clear decline in conservation behaviors among 18-year-olds over the past 27 years— although we are not yet sure whether these attitudes follow youth into adulthood. This decline, interestingly, is coupled with a rise in materialistic values.

In fact, trends in materialism and conservation are highly related: at times when youth place higher value on material goods, they are also much less likely to say they would conserve resources. And when youth place higher value on material goods, they are also much less likely to admit that resources will be scarce in the future.

Since the 1990s, the trends in materialism seem to have topped out at a steady, high level, while willingness to conserve continues to decline. These opposing values should raise a red flag about the consumer culture and its broad influence on youth.

Youth also consistently believe that government is more responsible for the environment than they are personally. Importantly, when they perceive that the government’s role in solving environmental problems is declining, so does their belief that they, personally, must do their part to save the environment.

Conservation is a collective responsibility. Likewise, in the minds of youth, their own actions to preserve the environment are inextricably linked to their perception of the government’s role in environmental conservation.

Indeed, environmental attitudes of youth seem to mirror the opinions of those in the White House at the time. The highest levels of conservation occurred in the mid- to late 1970s, at the same time that President Carter was publicly petitioning citizens to take individual responsibility in conserving resources. The steepest decline in conservation occurred during the Reagan administration, which has been widely criticized for its anti-environmental policies. Willingness to conserve enjoyed a slight surge around 1992-1993, when Clinton first took office, but this increase was short-lived (Al Gore must not have been speaking up too loudly about the environment back then).

The good news in these trends is that when government responds, so too do youth. If our country’s leaders follow the example of Al Gore and start to genuinely explore sustainable solutions, it is likely that young people will follow suit.

Political planners might also want to take note of the fact that when youth embrace conservation and pro-environmental attitudes, they are also more likely to engage in conventional politics, from writing to officials, to giving money to a political campaign, or working on a campaign.

Gore argues that in America, “political will is a renewable resource.” Perhaps one way to renew this resource is to start focusing more on young people and their understanding of, as well as contribution to, environmental problems.

Laura Wray is graduate student at Pennsylvania State University, working with members of the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood, Constance Flanagan and D. Wayne Osgood, in mapping the changing attitudes of young adults.