Below is a 2004 college commencement address made by Ray Anderson, Chairman of Board for Interface Inc., parent company of Interface Fabrics Group in Guilford. He is a nationally recognized leader in sustainable manufacturing and represents the best in corporate social and environmental responsibility.

We are proud to have this company in Piscataquis County.

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"Commencement Speech by Ray Anderson"

University of Southern Maine
May 15, 2004

President Pattenaude, Provost Wood, Members of the Boards of Trustees and Visitors, fellow honorees, graduates (Class of 2004), distinguished guests, alumni, administration, faculty, and students. Thank you for this high honor. I bring greetings from Atlanta. {I know my accent is strange . . . but you should hear yours!} I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be here, for three primary reasons: 1.) to get to talk to you graduates, 2.) to get to talk to your parents, and 3.) to get to talk to your grandparents. I am especially grateful that your commencement committee has seen fit to inject an environmental theme into this august occasion, and I am doubly honored they have invited me to be a part of these proceedings.

I graduated from college 48 years ago, Georgia Tech, Class of 1956. Since then, I have become a parent, and a grandparent. My grandchildren are these graduates’ peers. So, I am presumptuous enough to think I have something to say to all three groups - graduates, parents and grandparents. There’s an added bonus, too, I think, in the children of some of the graduates as well as other family members and friends who are here.

Forty-eight years . . . seems like a long time, doesn’t it? And it is, on a human scale. But that’s not the only scale that counts. Consider the scale of, say, evolutionary time. Think with me about Earth’s history, 4.5 billion years, on such a scale, in terms we can comprehend, say a one mile long time line. Would you like to take a walk with me along that mile and visit some key events as the history of Earth unfolds?

First, we must back up 35 yards from the starting line to witness the Earth’s formation, coalescing out of stardust, the solar nebula - the remnants of an exploded star that formed our solar system. Thirty-five yards equal 90 million years.

With Earth’s formation behind, and our 35 yard warm up done, now we are into our mile-long walk. The place is getting geologically organized around us. There is no life until 240 yard mark. There! Spontaneously, beginning with that first microscopic, single-celled, anaerobic, prokaryote bacterium, somewhere in the primordial ocean, life forms, and survives! And then begins to proliferate, eventually into mind-bending diversity, as species after species comes, and species go, and each, through its metabolic process, prepares the way for the next and the next, gradually sweetening the earth and, with the help of two other processes, sedimentation and sequestration, sends the toxicity of that early world’s hostile atmosphere down there into the Earth’s crust, to allow an evolving biosphere up here. Increasing diversity of life, decreasing toxicity. A positive, reinforcing process, a sweeter and sweeter Earth. It will go on until the end of the mile, except for six major interruptions.

At the 300 yard marker something miraculous happens. Photosynthesis begins in the microscopic algae, producing free oxygen. But for 600 yds. (1,530,000,000) years, the free oxygen is taken up by iron and other metals, until the 900 yd. marker (a bit over half way into our mile) when photosynthesis kicks into high gear, and free oxygen begins to build up in the atmosphere. At the 950 yd. mark(now well over half way), a new category of life evolves, the oxygen demanding eucaryote cell - the type of cell form that will eventually come to make up our bodies.

By the 1600 yard marker (160 yds. from the end of our mile, i.e., 160 yards "ago"), there finally is enough oxygen in the atmosphere and enough ozone in the stratosphere that amphibians can come safely onto land and survive, and enough chlorophyll has been produced that the forests and other vegetation have begun to form the coal deposits. Oil has been accumulating in the Earth’s crust for about 1200 yds. (over 3 billion years), poisons, e.g., methane, removed from the atmosphere and sequestered deep in the earth.

With 102 yards to go, we come upon disaster, really for the fourth time, but this is the worst - the greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history; 260 million years ago something cataclysmic happens (We don’t know what; perhaps an asteroid strikes.) and 96% of life on Earth disappears, vanquished into extinction. But life picks itself up, and the positive reinforcing process (greater diversity, diminishing toxicity) resumes.

At 98 yards ago, the giant reptiles appear. What a class of animals! Tough and hearty, they hang around for the next 73 yards (187 million years!). That is very long for a class of animals, much less a species. We should wish for a tiny fraction of their longevity for our species. At 78 yards to go, North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Australia split and begin to drift apart tectonically toward their present locations.

Alas, even the mighty dinosaurs finally must go, 25 yards from the end of our mile, most likely as that comet, or asteroid, strikes Earth in the region of present day Yucatan, and the toxicity so painstakingly put away by nature into Earth’s crust for 1495 yards explodes forth to encircle the planet, extinguishing 75% of life this time, including the tough, resilient kings of Earth, the mighty dinosaurs. If it can happen to them, it can happen to any creature that walks the earth.

But, life picks itself up again and resumes its "clean up, diversify and proliferate" process again, and mammals get a chance. With 23 yards to go, primates appear, and begin to evolve toward us. With five feet to go, Australopithecus arises, the branch off the main primate branch that leads eventually to us. Then what we’ve all been waiting for: we, homo sapiens, appear - with 7/10th of an inch to go.

For the next half inch or so, we will be hunters and gatherers, foraging for a living. But then, .15 in. (a bit more than 1/8 in.) ago we settle down to become farmers and then merchants, and eventually, industrialists and teachers and so forth. That was the Agricultural Revolution, beginning .15 in. ago. With .04 in. to go: Buddha. With .03 in. to go: Jesus of Nazareth. With .003 in. to go (the thickness of a human hair in a mile): the industrial revolution. With .0015 (15/10,000) in. to go, we discover oil and begin the great carbon blowout. Oil (sequestered poison), has now accumulated for 1360 yds. Today, as we speak, perhaps half of the accumulated total has been extracted and mostly burned for energy in the last .0015 in., increasing greenhouse gas concentration 32% and bringing on climate change- global warming- in just an instant of evolutionary time.

With .0006 (6/10,000) in. to go, we learn to split the atom, and life faces yet another threat, this one unprecedented over the entire mile.

So, a lot happens in the last 7/10 in. of our mile-long walk, since our appearance, as we have turned the Earth’s crust upside down and brought forth again into this biosphere - which nature spent practically the whole mile perfecting - the toxic hostility of the early world, not just oil, but metals and minerals in whose presence we could not have evolved. What’s more, we have introduced man made compounds to which our species was never exposed throughout its evolutionary journey - PCBs, DDT, CFCs - totally alien to all life. It should not surprise us to learn that 7 out of 10 members of the American Biological Association polled six years ago agreed that the third mass extinction in Earth’s recent history (the last 102 yds.) is underway now, as species are disappearing at a rate unknown on Earth in the last 65 million years since the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, 25 yds. back, disappearing at 1000-10000 times the normal rate.

But this one is different. All the other mass extinctions have been the results of natural disasters. But this one is the largely unconscious act of the highest form of intelligence yet to evolve, homo sapiens (self-named "wise man"), and the fruit of that intelligence, the industrial age - the last 3/1000 in. You might say we are "tripping on a hair" at the finish line and are perilously close to ruining the whole walk.

So, on that scale, 48 years is, oh, about .0005 (5/10,000) in., a bit less than the nuclear age. When I was your age there were fingers on the buttons in Washington and Moscow that could have blown everything to smithereens. You live in a post 911 world, and even without terrorism, it’s hard to say which is/was more dangerous. When you are my age, will the world be less or more dangerous? I’m pretty sure it won’t be a close call; it will be clear cut, one way or the other - way more dangerous or way less dangerous.

Do you know what I think will make the difference? That’s what I came a 1000 miles to talk about to you, your parents, and your grandparents, because all three generations have something to say about what kind of world your grandchildren will live in - 50 years from now, the class of 2054.

Your grandparents and I - our generation - represent, theoretically, the wisdom of our culture. Your parents are in their most productive years, in the midst of their drive to satisfy their lives’ ambitions, whatever those may be. You - well, you don’t yet know what you don’t know, but you’re about to be on the fast track yourselves, right behind your parents.

The wisdom of the culture, embodied in my generation, has changed in 50 years. To my grandparents, the common wisdom went like this: the earth is large, so large it’s an inexhaustible source of natural resources; we’ll never run out.

Today the emerging wisdom is: the earth is finite, not infinite; you can see if from space. That’s all there is. It has its limits as a source.

The common wisdom used to be: the earth is large, so large; it’s a limitless sink, able to assimilate our waste, no mater how much, no matter how poisonous. "The solution to pollution is dilution," the environmental protection people used to say.

Today the emerging wisdom is the earth is finite and therefore necessarily limited in its ability to be a sink, to absorb and assimilate our waste. Dilution is just a delaying action.

The common wisdom used to be: relevant time frames are, well, the life of a human being; more likely the working life of a human being. Sometimes shorter, like in business, just the next quarter; in politics, just the next election.

Today the emerging wisdom says relevant time frames are evolutionary in scale, and we must learn to think beyond ourselves and our brief time on Earth, and think of our species and all the 30 million others across evolutionary time. Earth has another mile to go the scientists tell us. Is, say, a whole inch too much to wish for our species? That’s 1000 more generations for just one whole inch for humankind in Earth’s two mile time line.

The common wisdom used to say Earth was made for man to conquer, to subjugate, to rule. Homo sapiens doesn’t really need the other species, except for food, fiber, fuel, and maybe shade on a hot summer day- all for himself.

The emerging wisdom says, no, it’s the other way around. Humankind was made for Earth, and the diversity of nature is crucially important in keeping the whole web of life - including us - going, sustainably, over evolutionary time. If you are religious in the Judeo/Christian tradition, God’s first commandment, implicit in Gen. 2:15, was, "Tend the Garden." It has been there all along, and it means what it says: take care of Earth.

The common wisdom used to be: technology is omnipotent, especially teamed with human intelligence. What do you mean, intelligence? Why, you know, left brained intelligence: practical, objective, realistic, pragmatic, numbers driven, results oriented, unemotional, Board Room thinking. These will get the job done, thank you very much.

The emerging wisdom says, hey, wait a minute! What about right brained thinking, the caring, nurturing, artistic, subjective, emotional side? Isn’t that at least as important as the left side, perhaps a good bit more important, since it represents the human spirit? If something doesn’t feel right, chances are it’s not right, no matter what the numbers say.

And what about technology? Isn’t technology part of the problem, considering its dominant characteristics: extractive, linear, take make waste, fossil fuel driven, abusive to the biosphere, wasteful, and focused on labor productivity.

The emerging wisdom says technology must be part of the solution and fundamentally change, to become renewable (not extractive), cyclical (not linear), solar and hydrogen driven (not fossil fuel), benign, waste free, and focused on the productivity of all resources, not just labor.

The common wisdom used to be: trust the market to be an honest broker and allocator of resources - the "invisible hand" of the market.

The emerging wisdom says, maybe the invisible hand is not so honest, if it is blind to the externalities. How can prices be right if all the costs are not counted? Does the price of a pack of cigarettes, established by the market in its wisdom, reflect its costs? Of course not, not close, considering the societal costs that the market has externalized. Does the price of a barrel of oil reflect its cost? Not close, considering the cost of the military, the Gulf War, 9/11, the Iraqi War, and global warming that the market has externalized.

One more: The common wisdom used to say, business exists to make a profit.

The emerging wisdom says, no, business makes a profit to exist. It must exist for some higher purpose. What CEO really wants to stand before his maker and talk about shareholder value?

There’s much more to the emerging wisdom that is superceding the common wisdom of my grandparents’ day, but I hope you get the drift. We really are beginning to think differently about our relationship to Earth, as we seek to save Earth (and us and our grandchildren) from ourselves.

I cannot say the new wisdom has permeated our culture yet, but it is taking hold, and that is very important, because our culture’s wisdom represents the paradigm - the mind-set, the view of reality, the mental model of how things are- that underlies our entire system, especially the industrial and economic systems that basically shape our lives. So, to the grandparents, my generations, I say grasp this new wisdom, and shout it from the roof tops. The fate of your grandchildren and their grandchildren depends on the view of reality that will be held by . . . your children, the parents of these graduates, and by the graduates themselves.

To the parents, the striving parents, I would say, quoting scripture again: "In all thy getting, get thee wisdom." In large measure, our striving is not yet fully guided by the new wisdom. When our factories and businesses take and take and take from the earth to make, sell, and use products (stuff) in linear, take make waste processes that are driven by fossil fuel for energy and pollute every step of the way, we are ignoring the finiteness of Earth as a source and as a sink. At least that’s the way it was with my factories before the new wisdom began to sink in with me ten years ago at age 60. Then we began to change the way we ran our factories- including those here in Maine- to acknowledge and embrace the new reality of a finite Earth. What a difference it has made, not only in the pride of our employees and in peace of mind, but in our economic results as well!

Parents, you hold the balance - you and your generation. You must continue to redesign the industrial and economic system to accept and live within the limits of nature, and change the ways we have just accepted throughout the industrial age - the last .003 in. of evolutionary time - the most destructive and consuming in Earth’s entire 4.5 billion year existence? If my generation and yours do not change the system, these graduates will most likely be the last generation that can. That’s not just me talking; that’s the Union of Concerned Scientists, including more than 100 Nobel laureates, who told us in 1992 in an open letter to humanity that we had one to a few decades to bring our civilization into harmony and balance with Earth’s limits.

Which brings us back to you, graduating class of 2004. As your folks do their share of absorbing the new wisdom and living accordingly, you will live to see a much safer Earth, provided of course, you carry on yourselves in creating a kinder, gentler society, in ever greater harmony with Earth. As both generations succeed, I can tell you with a high degree of confidence, that when one of you is standing here 50 years from now, you will be talking to the class of 2054 with pride about how you turned it around in your day and kept from messing up God’s world beyond repair, for all the Creatures that share Spaceship Earth.

I think the world of 2054 will be better, safer, and healthier than the world of 2004, because so many of you "get it" already. I had not a clue 50 years ago. You have more than a clue; you do know what you know about the need to walk lightly on Earth during your own personal life’s journey. You have the power. Go and do it. You have the power. Change the system from the inside, for the better. Congratulations for reaching this milestone. It’s a big one! You have the power. Godspeed the rest of the way.

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University of Southern Maine
©Ray C. Anderson
5/15/04

For a biography on Mr. Anderson, click here.