THAT YOUNGER GENERATION

Recent magazine articles have shown some interesting statistics about the millenials. Compared with their parents, young people are driving less and postponing having children for a longer time. Perhaps surprisingly, a smaller percentage of them see themselves as doing anything positive for the environment.

I beg to differ with their self-assessment. While they may be unconscious of their contribution, the constraints imposed by population growth and pollution controls have forced them to have a lifestyle differing from their parents’. By default, they are helping the environment in some ways.

As recently as 20 years ago, getting a driver’s license was an important rite of passage for every teenager. Being able to drive meant freedom! Having a driver’s license and a car, you could get away from home some of the time, go out with your friends, and explore the world without continual adult supervision.  Today, much exploration occurs online, and friends are in near-permanent communication on their cell phones and computers. Driving is much less necessary. Young people even seem to prefer public transportation if it is reasonably priced and convenient. The environmental benefits are obvious: Fewer resources are used for building and fueling cars, and fewer pollutants are being produced. The millenials can be very proud of this change, even if they see it as a personal choice or a necessary evil.

The millenials are staying single longer, too, and living with roommates or their parents for a longer time than we did. By postponing parenthood, which usually leads to having smaller families, they are helping control the population growth that is a major factor in environmental decline. By living in smaller apartments or homes, they are taking up less space on our crowded planet.

Unfortunately, the choices that many of us older people made years ago have resulted in the pollution and crowding that have led to the millenials’ need to be more conserving. We started driving cars as soon as possible, married young, had children in our early twenties, bought homes at the first opportunity and filled them with expensive appliances and furniture. We wasted resources and used fossil fuels with abandon. During the dot-com years, some of us built disgusting McMansions (in fact, some of us are still doing so). We literally ate “high on the hog,” consuming large quantities of the meat that has helped lead to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity; and that required huge investments in agriculture. Many young people today have chosen to become vegetarians rather than imitate us. In that respect as well as others, they are contributing far more to the environment than most of us did.

I do have some concerns about young people. For instance, their dependence on technology in place of direct contact with other people and places seems bad for their emotional health, even if it may benefit the planet. They seem narcissistic, though perhaps young people always seem that way to their elders. On balance, the millenials seem capable of managing Earth better than we did. I wish them well.