One way to kick-start youth vote: environment

During the Democratic primaries, about 50 college students in Iowa and New Hampshire dressed up like astronauts to promote the new "Apollo Alliance" project - a clean energy technology proposal put forward by the Sierra Club, the United Auto Workers, and the CEC.

Younger voters, especially Generation Y (born between 1975 and 1995), seem likely to connect on the environment, some pollsters say. They hold green views more strongly than their Generation X (1964-75) counterparts and are more likely to oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to Greenberg, Quinland, Rosner Research, which polls for the Democratic Party.

Protecting the environment ranks above encouraging economic growth for 58 percent of 18- to 30-year-olds and 62 percent were against drilling in the Arctic - easily the highest of any age group. Two-thirds of that group ranked environmental issues as a high (48 percent) or their highest priority (18 percent).

To others, however, using environment to get youths to the polls seems a long shot.

Environment issues rank high - but not at the very top of student concerns, some polls show. Tuition hikes, job prospects, terrorism, and the war on Iraq dominate the youth voters' list just as they do older voters. In one recent poll, the environment earned a 7.3 out of 10 rank, but ranked 15th in a recent poll of what students cared about, says Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at the University of Maryland.

"A lot of these kids are green - but there's not a depth of understanding there," he says. "For many of them, this just means they personally don't leave garbage on the ground."

Of course, public opinion can shift rapidly.

"What no one knows is whether there will be a trigger mechanism that spikes people's awareness of environment," says Cary Silvers, vice president of consumer trends for NOP World, a research company that conducts an annual Roper Green Gauge Report, which polls youth. "People can turn on a dime. These attitudes can shoot much, much higher, similar to terrorism, which went from nowhere to the nation's No. 1 concern."

Campaigning for the environment, irrespective of party, is Joshua Galanter, a junior majoring in political science, who plops down at a table in the middle of the University of Florida at Gainesville campus several times a week to register students to vote. He also asks them to fill out a short survey of their top three political interests. Invariably environment is on that short list, often right behind tuition and the war in Iraq, he says.

"For kids on this campus, environment is almost always one of their top issues," he says. "College students this time could be a force to be reckoned with."

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