From Paul Hawken's Commencement Address to the Class of 2009University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009
Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating... Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades... And here's the deal: Forget that this task is not possible in the time required...
If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore the this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse... You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day... This is the largest movement the world has ever seen...
Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers... This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know... And today tens of millions of people do this every day...
The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams... In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours... In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe...
So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body?... One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it... You can feel it. It is called life... Second question: who is in charge of your body?... Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature... What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past... Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss.
