I wish I could tell you that we have been a good steward of the earth and have exemplified responsible citizenship and visionary leadership. At the very least, I wish I could tell you that we have learned from our mistakes and that, for the most part, today we are headed in the right direction. But that is just not the case….

The difficult truth is that I belong to a generation that has fundamentally failed you. It’s kind of like we are handing you the keys to a car we’ve completely wrecked and advising you on how best to care for it. Perhaps the most a commencement speaker can do under these circumstances is to apologize and hope that you can learn from our mistakes.