Check out the new website for Partners in Island Education (PIE)!  PIE supports quality education on Vinalhaven by providing funding and support for: the Vinalhaven School Enrichment Program, Smith Hokanson Memorial Hall, the PIE College Scholarship, Vinalhaven School Library and the Vinalhaven School Drama position.

Sam Rosen's Graduation Speech

June 14, 2008

Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming.

Before I start I would like to thank my family, friends, teachers and anyone who has helped me along the way, as well as dedicate this speech to my parents.

I have always been fascinated by the natural world. Growing up on Vinahaven, I remember long hours spent clambering around on the shore and exploring the woods, investigating tide pools and inspecting the contents of my first lobster traps. Lifting up a tangle of rockweed on the beach, I understood that the teeming life I found underneath had meaning in the greater scheme of nature, but I didn't know what that meaning was and I wanted to find out. I still do.

Curiosity isn’t unique to humans, but it is definitely a trait that has driven our evolution. Why is this? What if I did that? Then what will happen? Questioning things is part of every child’s growing up. The brain is pre-wired for learning, and never stops, though the ease and pace of learning tends to slow once the pathways are formed for efficient living in one’s habitat. If we are very comfortable in our lives, and don’t have to think too much in order to survive, then we can get lulled into complacency.

We on Vinalhaven are lucky to be surrounded by so much natural beauty and to live in a relatively clean and healthy environment. No wonder people want to live here or come here on their vacations. The droughts and hurricanes, pollution, overcrowding, hunger, war and disease – the basic struggle for existence that is going on in many parts of the world– seem far away and are difficult to imagine. But unless you have been living in complete isolation, you know that we are indeed in the midst of an environmental crisis and possibly at a tipping point. The steep rise in the price of fuel - and everything else as a result; the loss of fish stocks and the collapse of ground fishing in the Gulf of Maine; irregular weather patterns and the rise of local ocean temperatures are just a few faint local warning signs of much larger problems to come.

Like the rest of society, we have gotten used to a way of life in just a few generations that equates prosperity with consumption. We assume bigger is better, that things should be used liberally rather than sparingly, and be thrown out rather than reused. Entertainment is more and more something that is bought not made - and comes with a plug; food comes in packages from far away. Whether it is fossil fuels or fresh seafood, there is always more where that came from.

Our current prosperity is based on the idea that the earth is an eternally abundant resource to be exploited for our benefit. We humans just happen to be at the top of the food chain, and are so good at creating our own habitat we often forget that we are part of the natural world, and are dependent on it for our survival. Every form of life on the planet does all it can to exploit its habitat to the fullest, enabling it to thrive and reproduce; but unlike other forms of life, we humans now understand what happens when a species overpopulates or loses its habitat, exhausts its source of food and can no longer reproduce in sufficient numbers to maintain itself. First we call it stressed; then we call it endangered; then we call it extinct. But we also forget that it could happen to us. Well, not us right here, not right now; and that is a big part of the problem. Why should we care?

We should care because of our children - and our children’s children. And for the offspring of all creatures that make up the intricate, interdependent web of life. Every species is a piece in the puzzle; every action we take has consequences.  Our lives are convenient and comfortable – but this comes at a price – and we are just beginning to understand how great that price is. When we abuse our environment, we humans suffer along with everything else.

Our environment cradles us; it gives us life. To really respect and love nature for what it is, we need to spend time in it. There is no motivation to maintain the balance of life if you don’t appreciate its importance. We need to learn more about our environment and understand our impact on it – both positive and negative. In doing so, we may establish a more mindful, respectful relationship with nature. This is a central concept in environmental stewardship.

We are spending less and less time interacting directly with the natural environment; when children no longer grow up experiencing nature first hand by scrambling around on the shore or in the woods, but instead prefer to play inside where the electrical outlets are, we are losing our environmental stewards of the future. It is critical to educate children about the environment. If we don’t model a more respectful mindset toward nature; if we don’t take responsibility for our actions as citizens of the natural world; if we continue in our current wasteful and destructive lifestyle; our children will inherit an environmentally degraded planet without the will and knowledge to restore the balance.

This brings me back to curiosity and the idea of learning what we need to know to adapt and survive. Is it possible that we can learn a different way? Can we imagine alternatives? Are we curious enough to try?

Yes, we must. We have a responsibility to ourselves and to future generations. It involves the re-imagination and re-invention of our society in relation to nature, the changing of basic habits. It will take action on everyone’s part, no matter how small. It may be a slow process, but this a long-term investment with a critical payoff.

This isn’t a lecture, and I don’t have any answers. The way I see it, this can either be a reason to give up and go back to life as usual, or to take this opportunity to make a difference. Graduation is a time for reflection and aspirations. Thus, I feel that it is also a time to think about the role we will play in the future in response to environmental crisis.

I would like to close with a quote by Paul Hawken that I feel exemplifies the choice we have:

“The great thing about the dilemma that we are in is that we get to re-imagine  every single thing we do. In other words, there isn’t one single thing that we make or system that doesn’t require a complete remake and so there’s two ways of looking at that. One is oh my god what a big burden, the other way, which is the way that I prefer, is what a great time to be born, what a great time to be alive because this generation gets to essentially completely change this world.”