[GRRN] Youth Attitudes

RecycleWorlds (anderson@msn.fullfeed.com)
Thu, 8 Apr 1999 13:46:50 -0500


Following my posting of the article describing the latest UCLA study of
entering freshman attitudes, I've been asked to keep sex out of the
listserve and focus on environmental issues.

I hope people read to the bottom -- and meat -- of that article,
instead of stopping at the top where the editor -- as most editors do --
frontended one of what was hundreds of questions, that dealt with sex.

Because others might have stopped with the sex question and missed the
substance, let me highlight the critical kernel, the point that should
scare the bee-jees out of us, which is the reversal of attitudes in today's
entering class concerning making money versus self actualization compared
to the sixties and seventies. It was the fact that self actualization
became predominant over making money by an entire generation, including
most social classes as well, that led to the environmental awakening
sometimes crytalized in the first earth day.

Ultimately, recycling has succeeded not because it is being driven by
market forces -- certainly that's not the case with falling landfill
prices -- but by force of public opinion that led industry to cooperate in
a coordinated way that made it possible for our new industry to expand
beyond the scrappers that preceded us.

Big shifts like UCLA's study (which has been running annually for more
than 30 years) is picking up has the most portentious impacts on our
industry if it is accurately describing the current mood and is not turned
around by events in the future.

Peter
____________________________________
Peter Anderson
RecycleWorlds Consulting
4513 Vernon Blvd. Ste. 15
Madison, WI 53705-4964
Phone:(608) 231-1100/Fax: (608) 233-0011
E-mail:recycle@msn.fullfeed.com