From Mike

Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich."

>

> Commencement Address to the Class of 2009

> Paul Hawken

>

> University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

>

> When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a

> simple short talk that was ³direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate,

> lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.² Boy, no pressure there.

>

> But let¹s begin with the startling part. Hey, 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. Kind of a mind-boggling situation ­ but not

> onepeer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute

> that statement.

>

> Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the

> programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

>

> This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to

> have misplaced them. Important rules like don¹t poison the water,

> soil, or air, and don¹t let the earth get overcrowded, and don¹t touch

> the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that

> spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue

> that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per

> hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really

> good food ­ but all that is changing.

>

> There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will

> receive, and in case you didn¹t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can

> tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The

> earth couldn¹t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school.

> It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and

> that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And

> here¹s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not

> possible in the time required. Don¹t be put off by people who know

> what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it

> was impossible only after you are done.

>

> When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my

> answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is

> happening on earth and aren¹t pessimistic, you don¹t understand data.

> But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and

> the lives of the poor, and you aren¹t optimistic, you haven¹t got a

> pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing

> to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore

> some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet

> Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot

> with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary

> power, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description.

> Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action

> is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses,

> companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

>

> 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:

> climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger,

> conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the

> world has ever seen.

>

> Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it

> strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it

> works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one

> knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and

> meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea,

> not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants,

> businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government

> workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers,

> weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders,

> grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United

> States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the

> Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

>

> There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and

> the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is

> true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may

> befall us; it resides in humanity¹s willingness to restore, redress,

> reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. "One day you

> finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around

> you kept shouting their bad advice," is Mary Oliver¹s description of

> moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to

> the living world.

>

> Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the

> evening news is usually about the death 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. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance

> except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely

> unknown ­ Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood ­ and

> their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of

> four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what

> human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was

> greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the

> abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and

> activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive

> England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of

> people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from

> whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today

> tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world

> of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and

> non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and

> environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope

> and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

>

> The living world is not "out there" somewhere, but in your heart. What

> do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life

> creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no

> better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of

> abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned

> people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed

> regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the

> only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We

> have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in

> real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money

> to bail out a bank but you can¹t print life to bail out a planet. At

> present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and

> calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an

> economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We

> can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the

> future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And

> whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold

> suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way

> to be rich.

>

> The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago,

> and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally

> you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by

> Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our

> fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is

> to become two cells. 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. Each

> human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes

> between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human

> body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one

> with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has

> undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the

> universe ­ exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science

> would discover that each living creature was a "little universe,

> formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute

> and as numerous as the stars of heaven."

>

> So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body?

> Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on

> simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore

> it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who

> is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully

> not a political party. 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.

>

> Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came

> out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of

> course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be

> ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the

> stars come out every night, and we watch television.

>

> This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and

> the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened,

> not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as

> complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done

> great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring

> creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging,

> stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations

> before you failed. They didn¹t stay up all night. They got distracted

> and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your

> existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn¹t ask for

> a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic,

> not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn¹t make

> sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your

> life depends on it.