Assignment 1

Dear Future Students of UIUC,
At the beginning of 2014, a month or so in, our class conducted a survey about the relative optimisms of students regarding environment well being. As a whole our class tended to be an optimistic bunch, certain that we would tackle the issues ahead of us and make the world better for future generations, for you essentially. However, as with all things the only true marker to progress is time, and as such this letter could either stand as a ridiculous irony, or a time capsule marking the beginning of a new era.
Regardless of the actual outcome, it would be very interesting to see how optimistic younger generations, because the correlation of optimism with youth was one of the stronger observation our, albeit unscientific, survey exhibited. Over seventy-five percent of people ages twenty to twenty-nine showed optimism, which steadily declined with age. For the thirty to thirty-nine much more pessimism was displayed, as well as neutrality (which was not witnessed at all in the early age bracket.) Forty year old participants were predominantly neutral, while those fifty or older were predominantly pessimistic. On a side note, it seems incredible to me that those generations born more “in the thick of it” and having to deal with more of the consequences tend to be optimistic than those who “escaped” most of the issues. Whether is speaks the to vigor of youth- an unwillingness to yield even in the face of great opposition- or to naivety one cannot know.
There were also other interesting trends, like women being more optimistic than their male counterparts in general. While I won’t speculate as to why on that, it is important to note that their were far more female participants in the study than male participants and perhaps they sample sizes were not large enough to be accurate. In terms of other factors, political and spiritual views made interesting statements as well. Although the majority of respondents aligned themselves with a more liberal outlook, liberals were in general more pessimistic than moderates, yet even with conservatives. It would be interesting to see with a larger sample if there was a trend for moderates to be the most optimistic. Likewise, another startling fact was that the most conceivably secular stance, liberalism, was also the most influenced by religion. While on the subject of religion, it was also recorded that the most religiously influenced age groups were fifty and forty, respectively, which correlated to the most pessimistic and most neutral groups, again respectively. Now it would be rash to say that religion causes pessimism- but with religion, especially those that believe in a rapture event or “end times,” it is conceivable to see how they might more easily believe in a general and unstoppable decline in the liveability of this planet. This is visible also in the fact that of people who said religion played a role a far larger amount said they had neutral outlooks compared to those with whom religion did not play a role.
Indeed one’s outlook could vastly shape how they interpret, and in turn, respond to the world, but I think the trends we witnessed for the younger generations give a message of hope and perseverance. Surely none of us caused these issues but we show a genuine desire to see them fixed. We are not people of shifting blame but of taking action, and such a mentality is one that is necessary if any of us are to see these issues truly solved.