Are teens today apathetic

I was surprised when a couple of weeks ago I had to choose a persuasive essay topic for my English class from a list in a book that has been used for grade ten English for years, and my chosen topic had never been done .  When I told my teacher I had chosen the topic clear-cutting old growth forests I was surprised to find she was surprised, she told me no one had ever chosen that topic in her time at my high school. I told my friend that it had never been chosen and she explained it in two words "its boring", I was shocked here I thought young people were becoming more environmentally conscious and a wear. I would think that a topic like clear-cutting which is cutting down all trees in an area then burning the leftover twigs and destroying habitats of all animals in that area would have been chosen a least a couple times.Are teenagers today that unaware of the plaguing environmental issues? I wrote an essay prior to this one with a thesis of teenagers of today are no worse than any other generation, have I been proven wrong? We had a teenage generation full of hippies who promoted love ,were against war and were striving for a better world, why aren't we? Is it because then being a hippy was cool and now being in with all the new gadgets and social networking is the trend.Could it be that I am overestimating the hippy generation and they really were no better than us or could it be I am wrong an our generation is worse.The truth is I don't know but I do know is that it doesn't matter what the previous generation did its what our generation does today.