One of many reasons why there isn’t progress on environmental issues:

Study: Young people not so ‘green’ after all

CHICAGO (AP) — They have a reputation for being environmentally minded do-gooders. But an academic analysis of surveys spanning more than 40 years has found that today’s young Americans are less interested in the environment and in conserving resources — and often less civic-minded overall — than their elders were when they were young.

The findings go against the widespread belief that environmental issues have hit home with today’s young adults, known as Millennials, who have grown up amid climate change discussion and the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle.” The environment is often listed among top concerns of young voters.

[…]

Even so, those working in the environmental field — including some Millennials themselves — aren’t that surprised by the findings.

Emily Stokes, a 20-year-old geography student at Western Washington University, grew up in the Pacific Northwest. She thinks people there are more likely to take environmental issues more seriously because of the natural beauty that surrounds them.

“But I still find myself pretty frustrated a lot of the time,” said Stokes, who wants to go into marine resource management. “I just think our generation seems fairly narcissistic — and we seem to have the shortest attention span.”

[…]

Mark Potosnak, an environmental science professor at DePaul University in Chicago, has noticed an increase in skepticism — or confusion — about climate change among his students as the national debate has heightened. That leads to fatigue, he said.

[…]

A lot of young people also simply don’t spend that much time exploring nature, said Beth Christensen, a professor who heads the environmental studies professor at Adelphi University on New York’s Long Island.

When she attended Rutgers University in the 1980s, she said it was unusual to find a fellow student who hadn’t hiked and spent time in the woods.

“Now a lot of these students have very little experience with the unpaved world,” Christensen said.

[…]

Why?

Video game addiction? Internet? Cell phones?