I recently read Peter Beinart’s piece on The Daily Beast about the rise of the new new left in America and how Millennials (pretty much anyone under 30 at this point) are significantly more liberal than the rest of the country. It’s a long, well researched and cited as well as eye opening piece about my generation that I really recommend to anyone who A) Is a Millennial and is perhaps feeling a bit pessimistic or B) Not a millennial and thinks we’ll all grow out of it.

Beinart doesn’t touch on something major however that, at least for myself and others I know, that is a driving force in pushing me to the left; environmentalism. While he certainly references polls in which young people say they think corporations have too much control over their lives, he doesn’t mention that in virtually all polls (or at least all polls on the subject I can find) Millennials are significantly more likely to support or agree with environmentalist sentiments. This ranges from US Millennials more likely believing in climate change, as well as it being man made/influenced. Millennials more likely to support renewable energy research and implementation. The list goes on.

Many have stated that despite Millennials having strong feelings of environmentalism, they don’t do anything about it. This is skewed as Beinart points out, Millennials are in a recession right now and are probably trying to find work. Volunteers spend their time at organizations when they can, and I’m not convinced that Millennials have as much free time on their hands (or free money) as many would like to assume.

This apparent lack of activism can also be explained in a fundamental way which would support Beinart’s article, that being any real change of impact that has to be made in terms of protecting or benefiting the environment needs to arise from government. I worked with a fellow Millennial who described himself as a libertarian in all aspects, except that government is required to regulate business and protect the environment. My generation is not only more likely to think that environmentalism is good, but we also know from a lifetime of experience and observation (think of how many environmental disasters have happened since the early 1980s identified by the corporation responsible) that corporations are the biggest exploiters and biggest risk to the environment, and the only solution that seems viable is government intervention and regulation.

Of course, I’m not trying to claim that environmentalism has been the driving force of the “new new left” but it certainly has helped.