By Еvan Osentоn
Renowned celebrity, geneticist, activist, author and host of CBC’s The Nature of Things David Suzuki is in Calgary Oct. 13-14 to speak at PanCanadian Wordfest. This is a man who should not be missed by anyone with a conscience.
The Gauntlet recently caught up with Suzuki, and in an engaging and feisty interview, the luminary spoke on such issues as SUV’s, Al Gore, and society’s curious obsession with material wealth and overconsumption. However, Suzuki’s primary concern is the environment, in particular, global warming–what he dubs “a slow-motion catastrophe, but one that is happening within our lifetimes.”
The thrust of Suzuki’s talks at Wordfest deal with the root of environmental problems, how his approach to addressing them is changing, and what can be done to help correct these problems before society collapses.
“I had always thought for many years that the basic issue is that human beings were taking too much out of the environment and putting back too much waste,” he says. “I had thought that the way to get over this is to regulate how much and what you remove from the environment; how much and what you put back into the environment, and then enforce the regulations. That had been my simple-minded way of looking at the issue.”
“But I began to realize, ‘How can you regulate something when you don’t even know what the effect will be?’”
Suzuki says people’s attitudes need to change, and adds that students in particular need to be extra-perceptive of environmental issues so they don’t repeat the older generation’s mistakes.
“We’re framing the whole environmental issue the wrong way,” he says. “We act as if the environment is out there and we are ‘in here’. My first great insight was that there is no separation–we are the environment. Whatever we allow to be done to the environment, we allow to be done to ourselves. The ancients, who say the world is created by the four building blocks of earth, air, wind and fire are absolutely right. We literally, not figuratively or metaphorically, are earth, air, fire and water. We are the earth through the food that we eat. Every bit of the energy that we need has ultimately come from the sun.”
Suzuki attacks current environmental policies and attitudes in Canada, adding that new attitudes will expose the fallacies of the current system.
“It’s no longer acceptable to say that you can use air, water or soil as a garbage dump because you’re pouring it straight into our bodies,” he says. “We just cannot go on doing it the way we have been. It’s absurd to think that somehow we can dilute away our toxic materials by using air, water and soil as a dumping ground.”
What needs to occur, says Suzuki, is a change in people’s ultimately-fatal preconceptions about the environment.
“What we have to do is recognize what delivers those things to us is biodiversity. That was the second great insight that I had. Without life you don’t have an atmosphere that’s breathable. Plants literally created the atmosphere that we depend on for our survival. It was life that began to remove greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere and store it in the earth either as wood or as limestone. Water that we drink is filtered through the roots of plants and through fungi and through soil micro-organisms. Life created the soil that we grow our food on. The diversity of life has made the very things that we depend on for our survival.”
Suzuki pulls no punches. When asked what he feels the future holds, he says he is optimistic, but realistic.
“What we’re doing is shattering diversity in what has been called the sixth mega-extinction crisis, except this one is not being caused by big asteroids; it’s being caused by human beings,” he says. “So, we’re tearing at the biodiversity of the earth that is responsible for giving us the things we need to survive; we are on a suicidal path. The first thing we have to do is get off this kick of destroying biodiversity, as you are in Alberta. You think of what you’re doing to the boreal forest in northern Alberta; its absolutely catastrophic. Look at Banff and Jasper, for Christ’s sake; here are the crown jewels in our national parks system, and what the hell have you got? You’ve got a goddamn city in the middle of the park and all the people in there demanding further growth. The greatest threat to wolves in Alberta is in Banff National Park, not outside the park.”
As far as offering solutions, Suzuki says that society should reject globalization, citing the damage the environment suffers as a result of the less strict environmental standards in third-world countries, not to mention human rights concerns.
“We’ve got to get a handle on ourselves,” he says. “If the National Post had its way, we would globalize everything, let the transnational corporations have their way everywhere and just trash the planet. The whole idea of globalization of our economies is absolutely devastating to local communities and local ecosystems. We think that steady growth is not only achievable, it’s necessary. We’re already using over 400 per cent more of everything than people did in 1900. When are people going to ask, How much do we need to be happy?”
He adds that environmental degradation can lead to greater problems within society.
“Look at the problems in local communities with violence, alienation, drug abuse, with robbery,” he says. “We have enormous problems in a period of the most unprecedented economic growth. What’s going on here? What is it that gives us satisfaction and joy and return? Is it about money? Is it about having more stuff? It’s all about our values and beliefs. I don’t know how this happened, but we have got caught up in this idea that the very definition of what we are and who we are is in terms of money.”
The future of the energy industry, says Suzuki, is in recognizing the viability of alternative energy sources, rather than dismissing them as inefficient and impractical.
“We are paying a ridiculously low amount for our gas. Ross Perot said it right–gas should be at $10 a gallon. We should have been raising the price of gasoline steadily. I don’t know why the oil industry should bellyache about this. They’ll make their money.
Not only that, but it will lead to enormous amounts of conservation and they’ll have their energy reserves for far longer.
“The guys who work for the oil companies, they not only work
with fossil fuels, they are fossils. They’re dinosaurs. All they know
is ‘dig a fucking hole in the ground and pump the stuff out and sell it.’ They’re in the energy sector and it shouldn’t matter (how energy is generated). The fastest growing sector in the energy sector is wind, at 30 per cent growth a year, and the second fastest is solar, growing at 17 per cent a year. Jesus! If you want to make money on your investment, wind and solar and where it’s at. But those dinosaurs in the oil patch don’t get it.”
“[There are] companies,” he continues, “that are reducing greenhouse gas emissions and making millions and millions of dollars. So it puts the lie to the argument that is coming out of the oilpatch that if we are serious about meeting our Kyoto targets, it’s going to be an economic disaster. That’s bullshit. Every shareholder in companies should be demanding of their ceo that energy conservation should be a major part of their program because you’re going to make millions of dollars, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create thousands of jobs in the process.”
On Oct. 13 at 7 p.m., Suzuki will give a 20 minute talk on The Sacred Balance, a summary of 35 years of involvement in genetic and environmental issues. His other talk is on Oct. 14 at noon and will focus on shattering the myth that global warming is a contemporary phenomenon.