Materialism up, Conservationism down (verse, Article, Zen, Roman)

[coberst]

Materialism up, Conservationism Down

Laura Wray: “An inconvenient truth about youth”
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/22569.html

Laura Wray wrote an article recently that appeared in more than one newspaper regarding the apparent tendency of youth to regard the importance of conservation inversely to their regard for material possessions. The more materialistic the youth the less inclined is that youth for conservation of natural resources.

Since the 1990s materialism has risen in our youth while conservation has diminished. Youth constantly regard government to be responsible for conservation but not them personally. Evidence indicates that the attitude of our youth tend to mirror the attitudes of the White House.

Conservationism was most highly regarded during Carter’s administration and it declined significantly during the Reagan administration. It picked up somewhat during the Clinton administration. The good news is that when governments respond positively to conservation so does youth. The bad news is that when the White House responds negatively to conservation so do the youth.

[Random]

The human race is currently going through a severely reactive period of materialism and worldliness, and our natural resources will suffer as a result. That the shifting political view holds the youth in sway is disturbing. Who will save us from ourselves, I wonder?

[coberst]

Quotes from article:

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

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 President Jimmy Carter was publicly petitioning citizens to take individual responsibility for conserving resources. The steepest decline in conservation occurred during the Reagan administration, which has been widely criticized for its environmental policies. Willingness to conserve enjoyed a slight surge around 1992-93, when Bill 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.)

Laura Wray is a graduate student and Constance Flanagan a professor of youth civic development at Pennsylvania State University. They work with the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood in mapping the attitudes of young adults.