[Scott] On this special episode of "Energy Switch," we'll look at Young Americans' responses to our energy and climate survey and test your knowledge and opinions.

- I think our generation definitely recognizes the need to think longer term, and thinking longer term includes thinking about the energy transition as a whole.

- A lot of people believe that nothing I do really matters because we'll figure out something in the future.

It doesn't mean that we as humans, shouldn't be doing as much as we can to help stop any of that from happening by itself.

[Scott] Next on "Energy Switch," young America's climate and energy opinions.

[Narrator] Funding for "Energy Switch" was provided in part by, The University of Texas at Austin, leading research in energy and the environment for a better tomorrow.

What starts here changes the world.

[upbeat music] - I'm Scott Tinker, and I'm an energy scientist.

I work in the field, lead research, speak around the world, write articles, and make films about energy.

This show brings together leading experts on vital topics in energy and climate.

They may have different perspectives, but my goal is to learn, and illuminate, and bring diverging views together towards solutions.

Welcome to the "Energy Switch."

For our ongoing youth voice series, we created an energy and climate survey, and asked our two young guests to help administer it to hundreds of left, center and right-leaning peers across the country.

We shared some survey results with our guests and we'll reveal others on the show.

The resulting discussion provides a broad look at the energy and climate opinions and knowledge of young people in America, and we'll test yours too.

Joining me are Brittny Efendy.

She's now an analyst at McKenzie in Houston, but just finished her master's in finance and bachelor's in chemical engineering at Texas A&M.

Vidhur Senthil is a computer engineering undergraduate at USC who won the USC entrepreneurial competition as a freshman.

He's originally from Pittsburgh.

Next up, we'll test the energy and climate knowledge of young Americans and you.

I wanna welcome both of y'all to the show.

Glad you're here.

So we're just gonna dive right in.

What percentage of respondents thought about climate change every single day?

It turns out it was 60%.

What do you think that says?

- I think that the fact that younger people are willing to spend their brain power thinking about it, gives us a lot of hope in terms of finding solutions to move forward as the landscape is changing over time.

So, I think it's a good thing that we're thinking about it every day.

Could be a bad thing too, causing a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety but the awareness is there.

- What do you think about the 40% who don't think about it every day?

What does that say?

Do you think they might have other priorities?

- Maybe they're losing hope in society and hope in us being able to fix this in the future.

[Scott] That's interesting.

- So it's really important that I think we make sure that we tell it in a way that really gives us hope rather than fear.

- That's interesting, a good perspective.

Another question we wanted to know is how many thought that the government should take really strong action to reduce CO2 emissions?

It turns out about two outta three.

So what do you think that says about your generation?

- You can't solve climate change or work towards a solution for the energy transition just on your lonesome.

So at least two thirds of our generation recognize it's gonna take some sort of consensus and it needs to be a little bit driven from the government because they're able to bring together the different stakeholders.

- It's interesting how you said that, Brittny, the question about CO2 emissions, but you said energy transition.

- We're gonna be living until, who knows, like 2080-2090?

I think our generation definitely recognizes the need to think longer term and thinking longer term includes thinking about the energy transition as a whole.

[Scott] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- What are your thoughts on that?

- I wasn't surprised by this.

I think that a lot of people expect a lot of things from the government and people think that there's a lot the government can do, but it's like a really complicated topic because how can the government prioritize fighting these issues while making sure that there isn't an increase in costs for important goods and services like transportation and heating.

A lot of these issues are things that many people can't already afford.

So how do we balance that?

In making sure that we can do something about it in a way that helps everybody and not only the people that can actively afford it?

- Certainly a lot of people are thinking hard about how to distribute that cost.

Another question we asked was how many said they would alter their personal behavior to reduce emissions?

It turns out 75% said they would alter their personal behavior to do that.

- That number is pretty big, we don't agree on a lot of things as a generation, but the fact that more than half are willing to do something, I think is hopeful, right?

- That's a good point.

- I think that it's also really important to take any survey with personal choice with a grain of salt because I feel like, I mean I've definitely done this before.

I feel like I may put an answer that sounds a little bit better than something that I would actually do.

And I think for a question like this, it's really important to consider how do we actually help them achieve what they put down on paper.

- This is really thoughtful dialogue.

Well, let's kind of come down into it a little bit more.

So how many said, for example, they would keep their air conditioner one or two degrees warmer to save energy and emissions?

Well, it turns out about 50% said they would do one or two degrees.

Then we asked how many would do four degrees warmer in the summer?

Twenty-five percent, only one in four.

- I actually really like this question because when I moved into my dorm this year, I noticed that there are these cards right above the thermostat saying, please keep your AC at like this temperature.

And even though it may not be like the best for me, I think that it's really nice that my school gives us the chance to learn more about what the best temperature needs to be in order for us to be, the most sustainable we can, without having to like limit people the opportunity but also educate them about what's the right thing to do.

- Did it make you feel better with that sign knowing that everybody was seeing the same thing?

I mean that everybody was doing it?

- Yeah, that made me feel a lot better.

Okay, this is on every single door, so I feel like most people would abide by this, so I should as well.

- What are your thoughts on that, Brittny?

- I'm from Houston and we're hitting a hundred degrees for three months at a time and you're asking us to raise our thermostats.

I'm sure people would do it for a set period of time.

But if that's like the new norm, I don't know how many people will follow through.

I also wonder too, this is individual, but corporations and offices, I'm always freezing in the office.

- The coldest you will ever be in your life is inside a building in August in Houston.

- Exactly, exactly.

So I feel like if the consensus is we're gonna raise our thermostats, it should be broadly and not just houses and dorms trying to carry the weight of every single building.

- Everybody plays.

Well I've got a few questions that you don't know the answers to here.

- Yeah.

- We're kind of diving deeper into behaviors.

How many said environmental concerns significantly motivate their buying decisions for clothes and other good?

How many said that the environmental concerns motivate that?

- I think I put down around like 30 to 40%, if I'm being completely honest.

I understand why there's a lot of fast fashion, the trend of buying clothes and then throwing them out and then like the clothes ending up in the landfill.

I understand that, but for some reason I've never like really thought about that while buying clothes.

- If I were to respond now, I would probably say like more than 50, pushing 75%.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people said, if it's between T-shirt A, T-shirt B and you can clearly show that T-shirt B is produced in a sustainable way.

The quality is good that you can keep it for three, four years longer than T-shirt A, yeah I'd spend extra money on it.

- Well, it turns out the survey said 40%.

Another one was travel.

How many said the concerns of the environment would motivate the way they thought about travel?

- I personally think that the number would be a little lower, like on paper that sounds great, I can take transit, I can ride the bus, but we prioritize convenience.

Hopefully in the future with more public transportation available, that number hopefully increases.

- That's a neat answer.

- Just to tee off that really quickly.

I'm from Houston, living, working in Houston.

You can't do anything without a car in Houston, unless it's that two, three week period when you can maybe bike around because it's 80 instead of a 100.

I actually interpreted this question a little differently.

Instead of treating it as day-to-day travel and transportation, I was like, would it dictate my vacation choices or how far I would go to visit people?

And again, I don't think I would really change my behavior at all.

So I would be surprised if the percentage was more than 40.

- Well, you're both right.

It was 30% in the poll and probably for a lot of the reasons you've just described.

How about dietary?

Would we change what we eat and drink for environmental reasons?

How many said they would?

- I think this one's low too, because personally, like, I don't eat red meat, but then again, I know how people who do eat beef regularly would feel about them having to stop eating it all of a sudden just because of climate change or the environment.

Maybe going to the future, if there was an economic incentive to maybe not consume red meat, that would be maybe a time where we could hope to see this number go up.

But at the moment, I really don't feel like that number is that too high.

So maybe again, around 25 to 30%.

- Yeah interesting.

- Yeah, probably same.

I think it's also like, people are like, oh, it's one meal, if I don't eat it today, someone else will eat it if they're already in the system.

- So my diet won't have a big impact.

- Yeah, but then at the same time, that's a small individual choice.

[Scott] It is.

- So maybe... - You're both right, 30% said that.

Here's another one you don't know how the respondents replied.

How many said once they had a family, that they'd only own one car?

- I think I responded I would, but I just feasibly I don't think it would be possible, especially if I'm staying in Houston, Texas.

If we were both working jobs, my kid grows up and needs a car.

I don't think you can get away with only having one car.

I think people would to save money, but I don't think their, their main motivation would be sustainability.

- You know your peers and it turns out that only 25% said they would.

What does that say really about commitment?

I mean, because we go back to the original question, 75-80% said, you bet we would.

And then you get more granular.

How do I interpret that?

- I think that more things are based on the monetary benefit and hopefully we get to a point where the environmental benefit is on the same level as like the economic benefit.

[Scott] Gotcha.

[Brittny] I also think maybe that answer will change as we, as our cohort gets older and we pay off the student loans and we get to a more... a position where you can afford to make those choices without severely affecting your checking account.

But once we get to that point, I think that intention, that 75% number will come back and you'll see it in force.

- Yeah, interesting.

Here's some more questions that were, you know the answers to.

How many thought they'd live in a smaller house to save energy and emissions?

It turns out that, over half said they would live in a smaller house to do that, of your generation.

And, how many said they would have fewer kids based on environmental considerations?

Turns out about 40% said fewer kids.

These are life decisions, what do you think that says?

- I probably would want a smaller house anyway.

It's more affordable, you don't have to spend as much time taking care of it.

And I don't doubt that a good number of our generation answered it that way as well.

Regarding the kids one though, that one's interesting because that's like a life change, right?

If people want children and want like a significant, more than one child, more than two children, I think it would be very hard for a sustainability argument to change their mind.

- In terms of like having children, I feel like that is a really complicated issue.

- And the pool kind of agreed with that.

- One side note that I've heard on the topic of children is being less willing to have children because of the fear of what climate change... what the world will look like in the future if climate change continues.

- What's driving that, from your perspective?

- We grew up with the rhetoric that if we don't cut emissions, I think like net zero by 2050, then the earth is going to overheat and climate patterns are going to change a lot and it's just going to spell the end of humanity.

So for some people my age, we're scared.

You know, and it's like, do you want to... For me it's like, do I wanna bring someone to this world if I'm not sure that I can provide something better?

- How do you see that Vidhur?

- I personally think that's really like sad and depressing.

I think you brought this up, like that rhetoric that currently exists.

Especially nowadays how media portrays climate change.

I think that it's really important that we show everything that we have achieved in terms of becoming more sustainable.

For example, we have decreased the amount of death that occur due to environmental disasters significantly in the last 50 years.

But that's never mentioned.

What we mention is how many people will die because of environmental disasters that haven't even happened yet.

So even though the threat exists, it's really important that we mention all aspects of it, rather than just the negative one.

- I think a ton of that is driven by social media too.

We came up as social media was coming up, and negative topics get more clicks than positive news, unfortunately.

- How does the fear continue to translate across almost 50 years when a lot of what is said would happened, hasn't?

- I think that, I'm really glad you brought that up, because in the early 1900s there was a lot of predictions that we just won't have enough food to sustain our growing population.

But around the 1960s, '70s with the introduction of industrial fertilizers, we were able to completely shatter any of those bad predictions that were made.

So I feel like this is where a lot of people have the techno centric ideology where they believe that nothing I do really matters because we'll figure out something in the future.

[Scott] Oh, yeah.

- But just because we have that hope, it doesn't mean that we as humans shouldn't be doing as much as we can currently to help stop any of that from happening by itself.

[Scott] Right.

- I wanna sidebar a little bit about the technology portion of it.

I did chemical engineering at Texas A & M. And there was a huge mindset at my school, and I'm sure this is in universities across the U.S. and the world, where, if you are going into an energy-focused career, it's like you're selling out.

I have some friends who work in the petroleum industry, things like that.

Great people.

And people give them a lot of flack.

We need the brightest minds in there.

We shouldn't be telling people that if you work in energy, you're a bad person.

Because I definitely went into my major with that mindset and I avoided anything with the oil super majors.

And now looking back on it, I'm like, I wish someone had told me that they need me.

- Absolutely, that's a good point.

Well, speaking of the oil and gas industry.

We asked this question, has U.S. oil consumption per person increased or decreased in the last 20 years?

U.S. oil consumption, has it gone up or down?

Turns out four out of five, 80% thought it had increased and only 20% thought it had decreased.

And in fact, it's decreased by more than 20%.

How can we communicate the actual data better?

- This is so bad, but when you tell me, our oil consumption has gone down, inherently, my gut reaction is like, no it hasn't.

[Scott] [laughing] No, it hasn't.

[Vidhur] [laughs] You're lying.

[Scott] [laughs] Right.

- The prevailing notion, if all we're hearing on social media is this negative doomsday speak related to climate change, when you have facts that run counterintuitive to that overarching rhetoric, you're just like, is this real?

[Scott] You don't even believe it.

Well, here's some kind of quick ones and you don't know the answers to these.

What percentage of respondents were in favor of expanding solar and wind power?

- I would say... - I would guess high.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Pretty high.

- How high?

- Eighty percent?

- I would guess more than 50, more than 70.

- I think the only way people would've like maybe put down a lower answer is if they would've thought the question to say more, replacing current energy with solar and wind.

I feel like then we would see people maybe decrease their, likelihood of thinking that would happen.

But if we're just adding to the power grid I don't see why a lot of people wouldn't think so.

- Turns out 90% were in favor of it, so a very high number.

- I think even the solar and wind companies know they're not trying to replace fossil fuel and core energy production.

- But I think that's, again, where knowledge is being scattered because I feel like how we are portrayed to it by social media is, we need to stop all natural gas, coal.

We just need to completely move away from those and then replace that with solar and wind.

And I think that's where a lot of people are like, "That's not possible, we don't want solar and wind."

It kind of hurts the momentum we gain from trying to implement solar and wind because people think that it's a replacement rather than an addition.

- Like augment it almost.

- Yeah, exactly.

- How many were in favor of expanding power lines?

- I think also pretty high, 70 to 80%.

- I wouldn't be surprised if it's lower though, than just-- [Scott] Yeah, on the power lines.

- Yeah, like solar and wind has a very positive connotation versus power lines, electricity.

I think my gut reaction would be like, do you really need more?

But then if you really think about it, it's like, power generation is on the coasts or where wind is plentiful and you gotta move it to where the big cities are and things like that.

So you need to invest.

- It turns out 80% we're in favor of it and latest studies show if you're really gonna truly penetrate solar and wind deeply into the grid, you're gonna have to more than triple the number of power lines.

How many said they'd like to see more nuclear power?

- This one is interesting because I think our generation would say yes.

And from what I understand, that's very different than my parents or my grandparents and their opinions about nuclear energy.

Because I think we probably just haven't lived through some of the catastrophes that have happened in the past and also kind of trust the newer technology that's come out as another alternative to fossil fuels.

- Also going off that, I think that in like terms of nuclear, nuclear is like one of the best alternatives.

But what has happened is with some of the accidents that we've seen in the past, a lot of fossil fuel companies that are direct competitors to energy to make it sound like this is bad, this is gonna happen if we ever implement it in the future.

- Yeah.

Turns out, you're both right, 90% are okay with it.

And you're right, I was trained to be scared of nuclear.

- I think that gives you a little hope about overall broadly changing the rhetoric around fossil fuels is because like if nuclear was able to do it with our generation where we're like, we're willing to explore this as a solution, even though it might be dangerous, but we see the benefits, right.

If we can do that same change too, we still need to have fossil fuels to augment the energy transition.

I think it's proof that it's possible.

It's just, do we want to do that?

- Right.

How many are in favor of expanding carbon capture and storage?

- I think it's also high number.

I feel like the only place where we would see a drop off is where people would be like, maybe we shouldn't do this, because it kind of gives companies a way out of actually just escaping the problems they're causing and then putting it on someone else.

But other than that, I think overall it's just a great opportunity for us to take out emissions in a way that is sustainable.

- Yeah.

- I would assume it's a high number.

because even though it won't fully solve all our problems if we can get the technology to be very efficient, very cost effective.

I don't think anyone would really object.

- You guys are right again, 90% were in favor of it.

So.

Well look, a minority had confidence in government, about 40%.

Because that's double the old skeptical folks like me, my generation, it's only 20%.

Did that surprise you?

- How I interpret that statistic is young people don't trust the government, but the broader population as a whole trusts it even less.

You know, so, we should not take that as a win.

For young people, we want to be able to trust the people in power to do what is right.

And when we start hearing conflicting information, really aggressive partisan politics, you get very skeptical that the people in power are doing the right things.

- It turns out four percent of your generation said they would likely run for an office, four percent.

But that's double the broad population, which is two percent.

Are we gonna see your generation become more politically engaged do you think?

Or kind of fall back into the norms of the broader public?

- I've definitely seen younger people start to make inroads in local politics, state level politics, even national to an extent.

- How do you balance, the youth and energy and vision potential with enough experience to be able to make thoughtful decisions based on what you know?

- It really just increases the responsibility and the level of work we need to do to make sure we're more educated in a way that is purely like unbiased.

- The term is agency, right?

You have to allow people our age... you have to trust that we have the agency to learn and want to do our best.

Because the fact of the matter is that the decisions that we make about climate within the next couple of years, decades are going to change and impact the trajectory of how we are.

So I don't think you have the luxury of opting out of this conversation.

- Well, I'll tell you what, after this dialogue, I am very confident and hopeful in both of your agency.

- Oh, gosh.

- Well look, I wanna thank you both, I really enjoyed our visit today.

- Thank you.

- It was nice to see you and appreciate your being here.

Scott Tinker, "Energy Switch" with a remarkable conversation with two students and the survey that was taken nationally.

Our hundreds of student respondents were almost equally divided.

Left, center and right.

Two thirds think about climate change every day.

Three quarters said they'd alter their personal behavior to reduce emissions and energy use.

However, when the survey dug deeper into reducing shopping, travel, air conditioning, house size, or even family size, the numbers were lower, averaging around 40%.

Ninety percent were in favor of expanding solar and wind, but also nuclear, carbon capture and power lines.

In questions about oil and gas, respondents were considerably more negative than the actual data.

Forty percent had trust in government, twice that of their elders and four percent would seek political office.

Again, twice older generations.

These young people and certainly our guests, seem more objective, less partisan, and more current on energy and climate than many of their older counterparts... which makes me hopeful for the future they will lead.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] Funding for "Energy Switch" was provided in part by The University of Texas at Austin, leading research in energy and the environment for a better tomorrow.

What starts here changes the world.