oil and food crisis… what about young europeans?

Survey # 3 – Oil and Food Crisis

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Survey # 3

Oil and Food crisis … what about Young Europeans?

Main Results Report

September 2008



Aim of the study

Our third 2008 survey aimed at researching how young Europeans are facing or are willing to face the incumbent Oil crisis, the latter being coupled by a wide Cereals crisis of whom

most developing countries are suffering. Since these two problems are evidently strongly linked by causes and consequences, we tried to make our Young thinkers express their

opinions and possible solutions about both events.

The survey

Our survey was launched on July 1st and was closed on July 30th . The questionnaire was launched on line, placed on our web portal (www.thinkyoung.eu) and

spread via e-mail among our community.

The sample

The sample of respondents is composed by over 100 respondents, equally distributed among men and women, coming from 21 over 27 EU countries reached by our

e-mail sending (Andorra, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Netherland, Poland, Portugal, Republic of

Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey). Only 14% of respondents are not living in their birth country, having moved abroad for various

reasons.

Age distribution is showed by the graph reported below, showing an interesting concentration between 18 and 30 years old, being individuals of these ages the

main target of our Think tank.

Figure 1: age distribution of the sample; years

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Main results of the Survey

1. Level of information and interest about the topic

As the graphs below evidently show, the level of information and interest is sensibly high among the individuals of our sample: Oil and Food crisis has been chosen

by almost half of the sample as the most interesting among five current hot topics about EU and world political, social and economic issues.

Moreover, 78% of the sample declares to be fairly or well informed specifically about Oil and food crisis and 98% of respondents declare to hope that solving

actions will be soon taken or to actively trying to solve both problems.

Figure 2: most interesting current topics

Figure 3: interest and action taking about Oil and food crisis

bution



49 %

Looking at the sources of information about the two topics, respondents seem to be more widely and well informed about the oil crisis, whilst cereals crisis is an

issue emerged in their lives more after the last FAO meeting. This may be clearly related to the higher impact of the increasing cost of oil and fuel in the everyday

life of all Europeans, where the lowering supply of cereals is mostly concentrated in developing countries.

Figure 4: sources of information about Oil crisis

Figure 5: sources of information about Food crisis



2. Causes of the crisis

About events and actions that are believed as causes of both crisis, in the two cases the human impact is considered as the most relevant influential factor;

indeed, the main cause of the cereals crisis (substitution of cereals fields for bio fuel production) is strongly related to the Oil issue. This confirms our hypothesis

of the perception of a narrow relation between the two events, maybe stressed by the current media coverage of the FAO meeting agenda.

3. Possible solutions to the crisis – influence over personal life

Analyzing the possible effects of the crisis and possible actions taken by our respondents, we found a large amount of individuals actually doing something in order

to inform and spread information about both crisis, and a smaller amount of respondents trying to reduce the consumption of cereals or traditional sources of

energy.

Figure 6: main causes of the Food crisis

Figure 7: main causes of the Oil crisis



Looking at the use of private transportation, as the most evident source of energy costs in our lives, among those having a car, it can be noticed a change in habits

towards the use of public transportations, alternative or not polluting vehicles.

Anyway, it can be noticed in the graph below that only a small amount of respondents declare to have deeply changed their consumption habits in buying energy

during the last few months.

Figure 8: means of contributing to the solution of the crisis

Figure 9: changes to life for reducing oil problems



The Oil crisis peak is generally seen as the relevant moment of decision if reducing consumption, but the largest part of respondents declares that they would

consume much less than they do at the moment at current energy prices.

Figure 10: changes in consumption habits because of increasing energy costs

Conclusions

A general observation of our Survey can be found in the high level of sensitivity towards Oil and Food crisis problems, which are actually affecting everyday lives of

young Europeans. The graph below shows how the feelings towards these events can be various but all sufficiently spread among our sample, except for the

Nuclear energy solution - despite the current energy politics followed by some EU countries nowadays. It can be relevant to note that among respondents to the

following question, the largest part is represented by individuals aged more than 26 years old, as these are more conscious of the problems.



The high level of sensitivity to the crisis consequences, is finally shown by the following graph, were respondents largely declare to agree with a national or EU

intervention, at an individual and institutional level; in this case too, older individuals are more influential to the results than younger ones.

Figure 12: how should Europe, largest importer of energy, solve the problem

Figure 11: general feelings and opinions about Oil and food crisis



Contacts

For receiving more information about this Survey and about Think Young researches and activities, please, contact us at:

Think Young – the Think tank made in EUth

http://www.thinkyoung.eu

[email protected]

http://www.thinkyoung.eu/

oil and food crisis… what about young europeans?

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