The Unforgettable Commencement Address to the
Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009
By Paul Hawken

When I was invited to give this speech, I was
asked if I could give a simple short talk that
was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate,
lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." Boy, no pressure there.

But let's 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 one
peer-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 don't poison the water,
soil, or air, and don't let the earth get
overcrowded, and don't 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 didn't
bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you
what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS
HIRING. The earth couldn't 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 here's the deal:
Forget that this task of planet-saving is not
possible in the time required. Don't 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 aren't pessimistic, you
don't understand data. But if you meet the people
who are working to restore this earth and the
lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you
haven't 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 humanity's
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 Oliver's 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 can't 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 didn't 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 couldn't ask for a better boss. The most
unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not
the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it
doesn't make sense to be hopeful. This is your
century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

--
Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary
environmental activist, and author of many books,
most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest
Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No
One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an
honorary doctorate of humane letters by
University president Father Bill Beauchamp,
C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb
speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for
her help making that moment possible.

"Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money can not be eaten." Cree Indian Prophecy

"The Earth is our mother. What befalls the earth befalls the children of the Earth." Chief Seattle

"This is the true joy of living. This being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. This being thoroughly used up before being thrown on the scrap heap. This being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod, full of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." G. B. Shaw

"The traditional Hopi people know that the Earth is a living, growing person. And all things on it are her children." Yumi Horikoshi

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." - Albert Einstein