For 1.5 million lucky people in the United States,  the month of May is pretty damn sweet.  On college and university campuses from coast to coast, May means Commencement.  With a Capital C.  It’s a memorable day for all: loved ones gather, snapshots are taken, fond friendships are sealed, and whole chapters of our lives close and open on this critical milestone.  It’s a day to reflect on our past and our future, and perhaps more importantly, to wear crazy square hats and a big black dress.

At the nation’s premier institutions, Commencement can be quite the star-studded event.  Each May, celebrities descend on the ivory towers and give a speech to provide graduates with a little boost as they venture out of their collegiate bubbles and into the big scary world.  The Class of 2008 brought two heavyweights to the floor. Gracing Wesleyan’s campus in place of Senator Ted Kennedy was the one, the only, the inimitable hopemonger from Illinois…Barack Obama!  And at Duke University, Barabara Kingsolver unleashed her jaw-dropping eloquence on an audience that included her graduating daughter.

Both of their speeches gave some serious air-time to climate.  Obama’s semi-predictable patter was subtly elegant, and enough to make you excited about him totally owning that bully pulpit in ‘09.

But it was Kingsolver whose words rang truest for me.  Her potent speech, “How to Be Hopeful,” takes on many of the big things: Wisdom, Happiness, Love, Economics, Community, Climate.  Please, go read it. But only click through when you have time to absorb it–it’s not really the kind of thing you want to skim.

Speech teasers and an open call for inspiration after the jump…

Obama and the as-yet-unannounced Clean Energy Service Corps:

At a time when our ice caps are melting and our oceans are rising, we need you to help lead a green revolution. We still have time to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change if we get serious about investing in renewable sources of energy, and if we get a generation of volunteers to work on renewable energy projects, and teach folks about conservation, and help clean up polluted areas; if we send talented engineers and scientists abroad to help developing countries promote clean energy.

Kingsolver on…the big picture:

How can we get from here to there, without burning up our ship? That will be central question of your adult life: to escape the wild rumpus of carbon-fuel dependency, in the nick of time. You’ll make rules that were previously unthinkable, imposing limits on what we can use and possess. You will radically reconsider the power relationship between humans and our habitat…

The arc of history is longer than human vision. It bends. We abolished slavery, we granted universal suffrage. We have done hard things before. And every time it took a terrible fight between people who could not imagine changing the rules, and those who said, “We already did. We have made the world new.” The hardest part will be to convince yourself of the possibilities, and hang on. If you run out of hope at the end of the day, to rise in the morning and put it on again with your shoes. Hope is the only reason you won’t give in, burn what’s left of the ship and go down with it.  The ship of your natural life and your children’s only shot.

This is the kind of thing that  gives me the sort of personal fuel that I suspect will last for quite some time–it’s a perfect antidote to burnout.  Which brings me to a question that I’ve been curious about: what have you read recently that’s blown your mind and kept you fighting the good fight? It’s May, after all–which means Commencement, and it also means I’ve got to get my summer reading list together.  Let me know in the comments…