Never had an “As you go out into the world” lecture when I left college. Perhaps I was’nt paying attention or maybe its just an American thing. Anyway here are the texts from two very different climate/peak oil activists.
The first is by Paul Hawken, one of the many talking heads who featured in our last Green Screen film, the 11th hour. Its an inspiring piece and starts off with:
“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…”
The second is by Sharon Atysk who offers a more depressing but perhaps down-to-earth assesment of whats ahead for many college graduates. Here’s how she starts off:
“Everything you have been taught to expect is wrong. Unfortunately, that isn’t a joke. You have been taken in by a host of assumptions that are not true, and if you walk out of here believing what you have been told and taught over the last four years, you will leave woefully unprepared. The consolation, I can offer you, however, is that while what you have been taught to expect is wrong, the things you have actually learned may be of more use than you think….”.