My Speech

I have a calculus final tomorrow. And for the next twenty-four-ish hours, that’s what I’m going to be thinking about. Which is okay, I think. Learning and school and grades, they’re important. Calculus is important; even if none of us are ever going to need to take a second derivative or remember the integral of a trig function, it’s still kind of a beautiful thing to learn just for the sake of learning. And I’m okay with that. We should all be okay with that. But after this final is over, after the end of the AP test and this year and all the other math classes I ever take, I’ll have to have other things to think about. Maybe it’ll be taxes or a semi-mediocre career or my marriage or a hundred other things. But really, under all my everyday kind of shallow worries, I hope there’s something more meaningful. I need a reason to be better, some ever-present motivation to persevere and to think and to just really care about something. Everybody needs a cause. The Earth, the wellbeing of the world, that’s something to care about. And fighting for it, that’s something to be passionate about.
There’s a philosophy, I suppose, called “Gaea” that the Earth is just one giant living thing, breathing and living and dying together. That makes humanity a lot like an organ…maybe the heart. We have our place in the world, just like any other species on the planet; we have a way we’re supposed to work, a function, a purpose. Right now, we’re diseased. The world has heart disease. If I had heart disease, I would be really bitter, and angry, I would regret not doing anything to prevent something avoidable. I would wish that I’d have gone jogging or eaten healthier or done tons of other simple things. Right now, we have that chance, except on a scale 6.8 billion times bigger. We’re responsible for pollution and climate change and the destruction of natural habitats, but we’re also the ones who can end those things, who can “cure” the world. And it would be really…unfair if we didn’t try.
You [Mr. Logsdon] probably winced a little when I said that. Because you’re right, Mr. Logsdon. Life isn’t fair. The world and Gaea and all of our lives, they’re never going to be fair. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people and lots of normal things happen in between. But if you take a step back….who cares? People are never going to stop trying to make the world better, fairer, just because there may or may not be a universal sense of justice. That can’t ever be a reason to accept a problem we can fix, to settle. We are never going to sit back and let awful things happen, just because imperfection is unavoidable, undeniable.
So, no, it’s not fair that people use resources without considering their consequences. It’s not fair that thousands and thousands of acres or natural wildlife have been destroyed for developments and farming. It’s not fair that polar ice caps are melting and that we have incredibly inefficient energy and that for every person who has close to everything, who can sit in an English class and worry about a calculus final, there is someone who can’t, who doesn’t have that kind of luxury. There’s always going to be some kind of problem. But this is our problem. We’re the ones on top- unfairness has worked out so we’re the lucky ones. And we can’t let that go.
So what do we do? I’m definitely guilty of doing nothing. I ride to school in a car and I hardly ever bike anywhere and I eat apples imported from Brazil. I don’t always recycle. But, if you think about it, it might not be that difficult. We could try carpooling, and using energy-efficient lights, and turning of the shower when we shampoo our hair. We could turn off lights when we leave a room and shop at the farmers’ market and ride bikes. If we’re buying a car, look into a hybrid, and if the opportunity presents itself install energy-efficient heating and air-conditioning systems.
That really isn’t enough, though. Are we really going to change the world by recycling old homework assignments and changing our light bulbs? Are we going to combat global warming and save the rainforest by carpooling? No. No we are not. It’s most important, I think, to have an opinion. To care. If everybody needs a cause, a reason, make this yours. Learn about it, and read about it, and educate yourselves. Become vocal. Write letters to people in power. Become a person in power. And talk to everyone else about it. Try, really, to really make a difference.
…I think that’s about it. I should go study for calculus.