Speech at My Alma Mater

A stab at lighthearted predictions of doom

The folks at Westhill High School in Stamford, Connecticut were kind enough to invite me to speak at the 2013 graduation. I found the speakers at my graduations to be unmemorable. I didn't want the same with the first one I was to deliver. I also decided I wanted to speak about climate change. But I didn't want to be too serious and bleak. It's graduation, after all.

I got a lot of advice: from my wife Manoush Zomorodi; my sister-in-law Gitta Zomorodi; my cousins Arielle Davies and Jay Robin; and three work colleagues: Bob Hardt, Elizabeth Kaledin and Kristen Shaughnessy.

Feedback from you all is welcome. Additionally, feel free to give me tips on how to make this posting, and future postings, nicer than this looks. I'm trying to be more tech savvy.

Here is the news coverage from the graduation:

Article in The Stamford Advocate

Here's the Speech

Class of 20-13, Congratulations!

Let me begin with a secret: 19 years since I graduated, and my only nightmares are about high school. Here’s the dream: I go through an entire semester without attending a single class, and now it’s finals. Oddly, they always take place in Finch, never Raynor.

Getting through Westhill isn’t easy. You and I know that.

This class in particular has had to weather some very adult problems. It no doubt brought you heartache. It also drew you closer.

You should be proud of your class....and you should be proud of yourselves.

You also surely know that it’s others who got you here. The administration, the staff, and the teachers, who educate at the same level, if not greater, than the ones I encountered in college and grad school.

And then there are those in the stands. They’re not just paying for a nice meal later. They got you out of bed before the ungodly hour Westhill starts. When you had homework to do, they amputated your cellphones from your hands. They counseled you when grades went bad, and relationships went worse. They stressed for years so that they could see you all dressed up in those purple gowns.

So let’s get up and thank whoever is celebrating you here today. I’ll join you. (Applause)....

Ok.  Now it’s time to talk about your future.

A few days ago, I called Ms. Tobin. I needed some information about this class. Here’s what she said: impressive group of kids. They take care of each other.

And they care about what’s going on in the world. I even discovered that you won the state’s prestigious recycle bowl award.

So I knew that you are the perfect group of people to talk with about what’s been on my mind.

Something crazy is happening since I graduated. We have found out something that I couldn’t have imagined when I was sitting where you are in 1994.

In the last hundred years, Earth's average temperature has risen almost a degree and a half. In the next hundred, it will rise almost eight times that.

Let’s make it local: In New York City, it’s usually 90 degrees or more about 18 days a year. By the 2050s, it could reach 57 days a year. That’s as hot as Birmingham, Alabama is now.

20-12 was the hottest year on record in the U-S. Those here during last year’s graduation probably believe it.

People have consumed more resources in the last 50 years than in all previous human history put together.

Depressing enough for you? Don’t let it be. You have the chance to be heroes. To be agents of change. Let me explain.

We are sitting here on June 20th, and not sooner, because you missed a couple of days of school from Hurricane Sandy.

It’s one of the bigger stories I’ve reported on. And climate change, and what we do, or don’t do about it, will be the biggest story of the next few decades....of your generation.

A few weeks ago, I covered a speech by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It was in Brooklyn, not far from where I live, at this big warehouse in an area where battleships were built during the Second World War. It’s called the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

During Sandy, the floor of this warehouse was under four feet of water. It’s been fixed up, and in his speech the mayor repeated what scientists have been saying for a long time. Storms like Sandy are nothing. And it’s not just storms we need to worry about. It’s droughts. It’s perpetually rising tides. Or if you prefer, it’s just weird weather. And we are causing it.

These are the facts. No matter what people may say, they are the facts. We must not let those who deny facts get away with it. I do it in my job. But you don’t have to be a journalist to hold people accountable if they don’t speak the truth.

Bloomberg’s big speech wasn’t about doom and gloom. It was about how New York should prepare. His plan would change this city’s look. It’s like something out of the movie Oblivion. Or Star Trek, any Star Trek, in theaters now or when I was a kid and you all were just, I don’t know... DNA material.

Picture this: Sidewalks would be made of something different, a more permeable material. To walk from the Coney Island boardwalk to the water, you’d probably have to bypass big sand dunes, that will keep back the ocean. Off Staten Island, there would be many new islands - man made islands, to break the waves. When floods threatened, steel gates would be deployed on the West Side and East Side of Manhattan; blocking views, and also blocking deadly water surges.

It will cost billions. I predict governments around the world will soon follow. Think of all the jobs that will be created....jobs, finally, for you!

These protections are crucial. The seas are rising. The earth’s population is growing.

Here’s my worry, though. While we may need them, barriers and dunes will distract us from a more important mission -- reversing or at least drastically slowing the climate change and pollution that got us into this mess to begin with. We can’t build seagates everywhere.

Here’s where you guys come in. You have the power to be the agents of change. You have the will and the intelligence to be the visionaries and leaders we need.

We have to use things that can be used again. Burn gases that don’t linger in the atmosphere. Maybe even use less of things, sacrifice a bit. Biking has become really cool in New York. Bike! Or invent something -- like a good solar charger for recyclable cellphones, so you can have hours of guilt-free tweeting.

We really have no choice in this matter, not unless we want to give future generations a worse world than the one we inherited.

This struggle is no less important than the other battles waged and won by the generations before us. By those who built those ships at the Brooklyn Navy yard.

This is a matter of human survival. Earth can be a very nice place. Rivers. Parks. Mountains. The beach at Shipan. City Limits Diner.

You guys get this. You not only won that award... you marked it with a pep rally in the gym. It’s on youtube. 19 years ago, our environmental club was like 12 Teva-wearing vegetarians who preached recycling and got laughed at.

Thankfully, times have change. Continue to covert your enthusiasm into results, or at least try as hard as you can.

So that’s my big call to action. No big deal, right? Go to college, get your first full-time job, start a family, save the earth. No pressure!

Well, let me try to help with some advice that has worked for me since I wore that purple gown:

The harder you work, the luckier you get.

Shake people’s hand with a firm grip and look them in the eye.

Be politely tenacious. This works well in journalism and everything else.

Save your rejection letters. I have a thick folder of them. They will galvanize you to prove your naysayers wrong.

Don’t worry about mistakes. Learn from them. Even learn to love them.

Finally, take care of yourselves. And continue to take care of each other.

Be the agents of change.

My profound thanks to this school and for those teachers who lessons two decades ago stay with me still.

I do have the occasional nightmare, yes. But the vast majority of time, Westhill only brings me great memories.

Thank you, Class of 20-13. And good luck.