Education
We are accustomed to thinking of learning as good in and of itself. But as environmental educator
David Orr reminds us, our education up till now has in some ways created a monster. This essay is
adapted from his commencement address to the graduating class of 1990 at Arkansas College. It
prompted many in our office to wonder why such speeches are made at the end, rather than the
beginning, of the collegiate experience.
David Orr is the founder of the Meadowcreek Project, an environmental education center in Fox, AR,
and is currently on the faculty of Oberlin College in Ohio. Reprinted from Ocean Arks International's
excellent quarterly tabloid Annals of Earth, Vol. VIII, No. 2, 1990. Subscriptions $10/year from 10
Shanks Pond Road, Falmouth, MA 02540.
If today is a typical day on planet Earth, we will lose 116 square miles of rainforest, or about an acre a
second. We will lose another 72 square miles to encroaching deserts, as a result of human
annaabi.ee 
