By Mary O’KEEFE

Harrison Ford and Howard G. Buffett were given honorary doctorates at Arizona State University on May 11. So yes, Dr. Henry (Indiana) Jones is actually now Dr. Ford. The two men both gave speeches, each coming from their perspectives of life, and as I listened to these two men I thought how lucky were these graduating college students to receive their shared wisdom. 

In the press and social media, Ford is getting the majority of the attention – as he should – it was an amazing speech; however, so was Buffett’s, though in a different way. Buffett, who is the son of legendary investor Warren Buffett, spoke on how to feed one’s soul. I must admit this speech rang  true to me – maybe because it was said with a midwestern voice reflecting the midwestern values with which I was raised. He spoke of helping others and helping your community. He told the students that when they wake in the morning to think about what they can do that day that they could be proud of, what their neighbors, friends and family would be proud of – if they found out. And then when they go to bed at night to think about someone they had helped or something they had done to make life better for someone besides themselves. 

Ford has been an advocate for the environment for years and has been working with Conservation International for over three decades. His speech at ASU was very focused on the environment. 

He told the students that passion and purpose are not the same thing.

“Passion brings you joy. Purpose brings you meaning. Passion gets you out of bed in the morning, but purpose allows you to sleep at night,” he said. 

He spoke about Conservation International and shared its message, “Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature to survive.”

“A healthy natural world provides free services to mankind that we cannot provide for ourselves: oxygen in the air we breathe; pollinators for our crops; fresh water and carbon capture from our forest, wetlands and ocean; medicines, present and future, from the rainforest,” Harrison said.

He added that humanity has a mandate to protect 30% of the world’s land and sea by 2030 to prevent mass extinction, to slow the warming of our planet.

“Still, despite new science, new policies, we are still losing nature to profiteering, corruption, conflict, including land that is already protected on paper,” he said.

He told those in the audience that a “cultural change” is what was needed. He also spoke of honoring, protecting and respecting Indigenous peoples. 

“These communities have long understood that the trees, the mountain, water, soil are not commodities. They are relatives to be cherished for following generations to embrace and protect. We can all play a role by embracing that wisdom in our day-to-day lives, by loving the planet, by honoring nature’s authority, her generosity, the bounty she affords us, the justice of her example, because the world you’re stepping into, the world my generation left you, is a real mess,” he said.

Then he left the graduates with a positive challenge. 

“Build something that didn’t exist yesterday. Stand up for someone who can’t stand up for themselves. Bring people together who weren’t talking before. That’s leadership. That’s what moves the needle. Your generation has far more power than you may realize. And if you harness that power, if you find your leadership, your issues, your voice, the world will not be able to ignore you. You will have to be accommodated. Believe me, I know that’s true. Don’t wait. When opportunity presents, recognize it. This is your time. Own it,” he said. 

This encouragement is important at a time when the science of our environment is being ignored, and far from respecting the protected land the present administration is planning on selling federal public land to development. 

“Nearly 500 separate areas deemed worthy of protection by the Bureau of Land Management or Congress, including dozens of national monuments and protected waterways, fall within the Interior Department’s target to sell roughly 400,000 acres to local governments and private developers,” according to biologicaldiversity.org.

According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) website, “Lands identified as excess to the federal government’s needs or as more suited to private ownership are sometimes offered for sale. The BLM does not offer much land for sale because its congressional mandate, enacted in 1976, is to generally retain public lands in public ownership. However, the BLM does occasionally sell parcels of public land where our land use planningfinds it to be appropriate and in the public interest.” 

However, on May 11 the Trump Administration finalized its “rescission of the Public Lands Rule.” This eliminated modern safeguards for America’s public lands through a process that limited public participation. 

“The decision advances a broader effort to weaken public land while prioritizing industries, despite strong public support for conserving public lands and ensuring continued access,” according to Sierra Club. 

More than 130,000 comments were submitted during the comment period for the rescission rule with 98% of commenters urging the Administration to maintain the Public Lands Rule. 

“The Public Lands Rule ensures conservation, wildlife habitat, clean water, cultural resources and Indigenous Knowledge would be fully considered alongside development across more than 250 million acres of public land. Rescinding the rule strips the agency of critical tools needed to manage land health and respond to growing climate and ecological challenges, while also harming local communities built on recreational tourism [that] rely on healthy landscapes,” according to Sierra Club.

If only someone warned us that the path we were on – ignoring the land and the climate – would lead us to such a state of peril we are now in. 

Oh wait…

Theodore Roosevelt was President from 1901 to 1909; he was the 26th President. He was an outdoorsman and I think he would have loved Harrison’s speech and would have been saddened that the U.S. did not heed his warnings, did not pay attention to his observations as a conservationist. By the end of his term, President Roosevelt had protected more than 150 million acres of wild lands in the name of conservation and the American people. 

He knew in the early 1900s that the rich resources we have in the U.S. were limited. 

“We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.” – President Theodore Roosevelt

Our weather lately – and for the near future – will start each day with a marine layer. This is expected to continue with a deep marine layer today and Friday. In fact, there may be a bit of a reverse marine layer going on with the beaches being sunnier than our area. This marine layer does keep us cooler though with temperatures in the low to mid 70s. The marine layer will lessen and on Tuesday and Wednesday a warming trend will begin with temperatures in the mid to high 80s, according to NOAA.