I know that many of our Jewish students, and other students as well, have found the atmosphere intolerable in recent weeks. Many have left campus, an… - Minouche Shafik

It is going to take time to heal, but I know we can do that together. I hope that we can use the weeks ahead to restore calm, allow students to complete their academic work, and honor their achievements at Commencement.

But before doing that, let me start with a story from the past. Over 3000 years ago a different kind of climate change caused by volcanic eruptions and changing weather patterns resulted in persistent droughts that caused famines and political unrest in ancient Egypt. The pharaohs of the Ptolemaic dynasty such as Cleopatra went to great lengths to adapt – transferring grain from productive regions to drought plagued areas, opening up grain stores, crossbreeding cattle to develop more heat resistant animals, and providing tax relief. These foresighted efforts managed to prolong the Egyptian empire for a half century longer but ultimately one of the greatest empires the world has ever known collapsed because of the effects of climate change. The difference between then and now is that we are the cause of today’s climate change, and we have the means to stop it by changing our economy.

Technology because it has changed jobs and lots of people haven’t benefited. They have been left behind. They don’t have the skills and they are not in the right place, with the result that their prospects are poor. And the way our whole social contract was predicated on women looking after the young and the old for free – now there are more women going to university than men, globally, not just in the UK, and they are employed, and the cost of them not working is really high, so you want them to work. Yet we haven’t found a way to adjust – a way to look after the young and old without women providing free labour.