One Utah

Last night, I had the opportunity to hear Jane Goodall speak at Abravanel Hall. She began by offering her own chimpanzee morning greeting, an intriguingly delicate, mournful cry of greeting to the day. She read an account of a 19th century explorer who was charged with shooting specimens that was a stark reminder of the ability of humans to ignore the consequences of their own insights. I’ll paraphrase: I saw the mother chimp tenderly reach out of her baby trapped in the tree and then I shot her.

Goodall spent a lot of time talking about a program of the Jane Goodall Institute called Roots and Shoots - which engages young persons around the globe in specific activities to help people, animals and the environment. She also talked about the connection between educating and empowering women is beneficial - near Gombi a program she helped birth has resulted in fewer births but more live children, as well as connecting local Tanzanian coffee growers with a market, instituting enviromentally friendly growing methods, increasing economic stability for the region and environmental protection. Near the end of her speech, she said that in talking with indigenous persons from the around the world, she gets the impression that they are seeing a new era in the way we humans live on the earth begin. She believes this as well. There is always reason for hope, no matter the vastness of the problem, there is always reason to hope. No matter what the problem, there are always people working, often for little or no money to help fix it.

Ms. Goodall asked us to think about how we are making our decisions. Are we trying to decide based on what will come this week or next, or next quarter or are we asking how our great grandchildren will be affected by it. Yes, she said, we love our children but are we making the right decisions for them. She referred to the old saying that we are borrowing the earth from our children, and pointed out that if you borrow, you expect to repay - we can never repay what we are doing now and we are in fact stealing from our children. I was also struck by the point she made that chimps are our closest relatives in the animal world - that we alone of the primate have spoken and written language and that has given us an advantage - but it has brought with it a strange blindness. We speak, we see, we plan, we coordinate great works, but we also coordinate great evils - organized killing, murder, genocide, rape of the earth, destruction of other species. We alone of all the animals build great buildings and create art. We alone of all animals engage in genocide and build weapons of mass destruction. The ability to speak gives us the ability to whisper words of love and spread hate, lies, bigotry and fear. Speech brings with it the responsibility to not be silent, to refuse to be silent in the face of the destruction we are wreaking on this fragile earth.

Jane Goodall is a very intelligent woman, dedicated, committed, informed, clearly insightful. I hope we hear her message.

This entry was posted Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 7:27 am and is filed under Environment, Equality. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.