Nature Beckons

Paul Hawken's commencement address to the University of Portland class of 2009 is a call to action:

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, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

— Excerpt from Paul Hawken's commencement address.

Civilization's operating system, seized up by superstition, fear, ignorance and tribalism, seems destined to a harrowing ride toward extinction.

While there might not be subsistence-wage jobs for graduates, there is perhaps an existential mission. Hawken's speech is titled,

You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring

The plea to reboot comes from the motherboard of rational thinking, self-awareness, and introspection.

Hawken's message is inspired by the sublimities that surround us:

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 create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

— Excerpt from Paul Hawken's commencement address

Nature Beckons

Earth's abundance has obscured the realization that civilization has been motivated by self-interest and ruled by ignorance and fear. Nevertheless hope springs forth with each generation.

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. Hope 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.

— Closing from Paul Hawken's commencement

REFERENCES

• Commencement: Healing or Stealing? The unforgettable Commencement Address 2009, Paul Hawken, University of Portland.
• Best Environmental Commencement Speech Ever? by Paul Loeb, Huff Post Green, 2 July 2014.

Blue-Green Algae Blooms

Lake Erie algae

Warmer summer temperatures and ongoing phosphorus loading from agricultural nutrient runoff has led to a disruptive frequency of blue-green algae blooms in freshwater lakes.

This summer a cyanobacterial bloom in Lake Erie left 400,000 people without drinking water for two days.

America the Beautiful

Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.
― George Carlin

Water near Toledo intake
Photograph: Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP

Toxic Algae

The dominant organisms of the summer season algal blooms occurring in Lake Erie are microcystins.

Microcystis causes skin rashes. If ingested it causes vomiting and liver damage. Microcystis can be fatal if ingested by dogs or other animals.

Freshwater algae blooms create adverse conditions because they:

• deplete the dissolved oxygen content of water;
• contaminate drinking water making it impotable;
• threaten commercial and recreational fisheries; and
• degrade recreational swimming and fishing.

Algae bloom in the west end of Lake Erie
NASA’s Aqua satellite, 8/1/14.

We assume that everything's becoming more efficient, and in an immediate sense that's true; our lives are better in many ways. But that improvement has been gained through a massively inefficient use of natural resources.
― Paul Hawken

REFERENCES

• Aqua Project Science, NASA.
• Farming practices and climate change at root of Toledo water pollution, by Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, 3 August 2014.
• Record-setting algal bloom in Lake Erie caused by agricultural and meteorological trends consistent with expected future conditions, Michalak, A.M., et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 110 (16), 6448-6452, 2013.