Prior to the 2008 push of the youth vote, the general take on youth population was pretty dower. Young people have been stereotyped as not having much of an outlook on things and fairly unaware of the world around them.

Many of them are actually fear the world is going to end.

Not the biblical Apocalypse or anything like that, where the world literally explodes into a ball of fire, but more so the human induced destruction of the world slowly, and piece by piece.

But with the progressively worsening state of our economy and environment the state of the world has climbed the list of concerns of young people today.

A study done by Opinion Research polled 500 American preteens. One out of three, from ages 6-11 believed the Earth would not be around when they grew up, and half of those surveyed believed Earth would be a less than comfortable place to live.

Wow. I think my faith in humanity just got an extra boost.

The interesting thing about these statistics is that the results varied on the ethnic group and location of the teens.

59% of teens in urban areas were more worried about the current state of the planet than those living in the suburbs.

75% of African American and 65% of Hispanic teens also had higher anxieties about our giant floating globe.

Following major events in previous years like Hurricane Katrina, it is really no surprise that 50% of those polled said that hurricanes and tornadoes were natural disasters that they were frightened of the most.

So many of my friends who are aware of the world and its current state have such a negative take on things that they think the world is unsalvageable. But news like this makes everything a little less depressing. The next generation of young people who will be the ones to take over things might actually make more of an impact that the current generation poised to become the future leaders of the free world.

However, time will be the judge of that.
—Eming Piansay