A Commencement Address You'll Actually Want To Read - Wes Jackson At KU, 2013

[hatrack]

EDIT

A century and a half ago, only nine years before KU's first graduation, our nation was in the midst of a great civil war. The Declaration of Independence had declared that we are all created equal. That assertion has been called a high law of morality. On the other hand, our Constitution had one perilous flaw. Slavery was legal. America was both the land of the free and the land of the slave. To complicate matters, each side, as the poet Robert Penn Warren put it, "thought itself the legitimate heir of the American Revolution." With the higher law of morality up against legality, "the war came."

Now, a hundred and fifty years later another high law of morality confronts us, a moral law not practiced because of all of us who exercise our legal authority. That high law of morality in our time calls on us to protect our planet's ecosphere, that miraculous skin surrounding the earth within which we are embedded: our soils, our waters, our forests, our prairies, our oceans, our agricultural fields, and now our atmosphere. Yes, there are too many of us, but our consumption is rapacious. And so, the high calling to protect our ecosphere has little legal standing. It is legal to rip the tops off mountains, get the coal and burn it. It is legal to drill for oil and natural gas—from the Gulf to the Arctic—and burn it. It is legal to engage in fracking that threatens ground water to get natural gas and burn it. It is legal for all of us to purchase unnecessary products made with extracted materials and fossil energy. So, it is legal to bring on climate change, erratic weather and more. It is legal to be responsible for a loss of four-fifths as much sea ice as we had in 1980. It is legal to have our soils erode and toxic chemicals applied, legal to allow our rural communities to decline and watch so much of our cultural seed stock disappear.

We are now forced to address the legality of ecological exploitation if we are to achieve the high law of morality to protect our ecosphere.

The greatest challenge of our time is to reduce consumption of fossil energy and materials and still meet the bonafide human needs. We have to develop a culture that provides rewarding, satisfying lives and free ourselves of the moral/legal inconsistency. The challenge is huge. Corporate leaders have a "fiduciary responsibility to stockholders." Our retirement investments grow from the burning of fossil fuels. So, we are all in this together. This time, there is no North or South.

EDIT

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-05-31/the-serious-challenge-of-our-time

[Buzz Clik]

1. Wes Jackson is an interesting guy.

I've met him many times.

He walks to the walk.

[GliderGuider]

2. He speaks of "bonafide human needs". What are they?

1. Clean air
2. Clean food
3. Clean water
4. Some way to maintain body temperature
5. Some form of community

Everything else is a desire, not a need. Our wanton, uncontrolled desires are killing us, as well as destroying other species and damaging the biosphere beyond measure. Humans as a whole seem not to give a damn about anything beyond our own comfort and power. We are children.

So it goes.

[phantom power]

3. recommended