Wisconsin's own Jon Becker is like many of his baby boomer brethren, in that he wants to inspire a new age and generation of young people to fight global issues such as climate change and water shortage.
According to the Capital Times, Becker is launching a Kickstarter campaign to promote his business, Earth/Art Resources, Inc, that will focus on using classical music to spark millennials into taking more of an interest in environmental issues. Becker and London's EMI/Abbey Road Studios are working with two Wisconsin composers, John Harmon and Edward Joseph Collins. Each has written symphonies in response to Earth Day, founded in 1970 by the late, great Democratic senator, Gaylord Nelson.
According to Becker, "millennials are biking, using less energy and having fewer kids, but they don't show up at planning meetings or put their voices on the table." Perhaps even more baffling to boomers like Becker is that many younger Americans today are embracing mass transit and choosing to live in cities, but they don't necessarily see themselves as green. According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, only 32 percent of millennials identify themselves as environmental, while almost half of the adults at ages considered "senior/dependents" or older consider themselves as environmentally conscious.
Classicalites, you would be remiss not to view Becker's endeavors with a certain amount of skepticism. "One problem I see is that we are not using CDs anymore, we use digital files," said Garrett Lee, a local community organizer and entrepreneur in Madison, Wisconsin. Not to mention the fact that Becker is using the proceeds from his crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of his album and other costs incurred.
But what about millennials, themselves? How do they feel? In a sentence: "Stop calling us envrionmentalists." Many like Stanford student Lisa Curtis feel the term has been "sort of corrupted and politicized." While other millennials, which Pew Research Center defines as those born after 1980, believe that "it's starting to be used more in a derogatory way...oh, you're such an environmentalist. You're not in touch with the real world."
Stanford University professor of environmental communication Thomas Hayden agrees that his students are shying away from the term. However, contary to popular belief, his students are some of the most fervent, young and motivated environmentalists in America. Some of them were even able to convince Stanford to divest all portions of its 19 billion dollar endowment that were attached to the coal industry--which, by far, is the still the most widely used energy source in America.
Perhaps even more interesting is that, in an article and survey conducted by NPR, previous polls have found people under 30 were more likely than older Americans to favor developing alternative forms of energy. Millennials are also more likely than other generations to believe that humans are responsible for climate change.
So, Classicalites, how do millennials reconcile--despite the efforts of Jon Becker--what just appears to be semantics? Simple. Just keep doing what they're doing. Change the name, but stay in the game!
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