David Suzuki, environmental activist. David Suzuki, force of nature. David Suzuki, one smart dude. Any of these descriptions would have worked as a headline on this post.
I had the distinct pleasure last night of listening to Suzuki, a 72-year-old award-winning scientist and human rights advocate from Vancouver, British Columbia, during a World Affairs Council of Oregon program. The third of four speakers in this year's International Speaker Series, Suzuki exuded an everyman vibe with his open-collar shirt, featuring an iconic salmon, khaki pants and black loafers; his wavy white hair, goatee and glasses; his humor, energy and arms-spread-wide passion for his topic: "The Climate Crisis."
From my second-row seat just to the speaker's right (thanks to The Oregonian for being a series sponsor), I had a great view of this remarkable man, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian who lived in an internment camp as a boy during WWII and yet went on to a distinguished career as a geneticist, author of 43 (43!) books, recipient of 20 honorary doctorates, and the host of several long-running and widely acclaimed series on science for PBS, The Discovery Channel, CBC Radio, among others.
While I respect where environmentalists are coming from, I'll admit that I often dismiss them as single-minded zealots who put trees and critters above the very real needs of people, especially in developing countries. Suzuki made me rethink my bias. During an hourlong speech, he eloquently made the case that: (1) we need to do a complete flip in putting the planet's health ahead of this "thing" we call the global economy; and (2) we need to seize the opportunity during this global economic crisis to make dramatic, lasting changes to lighten our carbon footprint, wean ourselves from fossil fuels, and create green jobs and green, renewable energy.
"When the economy is in trouble," he said, "we let nature pay the price." We let corporations off the hook by relaxing environmental regulations when we should instead be tightening them for the sake of cleaner air, water and soil for future generations. "This crisis," he said, "should be an enormous opportunity to get things right."
I can't do justice in this short space, but these were among his major points:
-- We've been living on our capital, not our interest, for too long. We need to ask: How much growth is enough? Are we happier with all this stuff? "We are altering the planet in ways never seen before in the planet's 3.9 billion years."
-- Humans evolved from their lowly status as naked apes not because of innate strength, speed or other physical attribute, but because our brain allowed us to develop foresight, the ability to imagine what the future would be like if we acted --or not.
-- As recently as 1900, most of humanity was engaged in farming, which meant people understood their dependence on the natural world. Now, most of us live in urban areas, disconnected from the places and processes that produce our food and oblivious to the environmental damage done to our forests, oceans and biosphere.
-- Mixing science and technology too often brings unintended consequences along with new insights into the laws of nature. DDT killed insects but it also decimated fish and birds (notably bald eagles) that ingested the deadly chemical, and taught scientists about "biomagnification," the process, in an ecosystem, in which a higher concentration of a substance in an organism is obtained higher up the food chain.
-- Life has flourished because of genetic and ecosystem diversity, yet we are trying to impose "a single monolithic structure called the global economy." Humans could stand to learn a thing or two by studying how nature has adapted to challenges over these past nearly 4 billion years.
-- To ensure our survival, we need to abandon the idea that growing the global economy takes precedence. It's taking care of nature that should be our bottom line. "We're animals, and we need clean air, clean water and clean food that comes from the earth."
-- As we seek to tranform our society through green jobs and green energy, we need to ask if development proposals move us toward or away from a shared vision of a locally sustainable economy and environment. "What do you want to see within a generation?"
Previous speakers, economist Paul Krugman and journalist Fareed Zakaria, evidently painted discouraging scenarios of the global economic crisis and international politics. Suzuki, at times, cited statistics that left the crowd seemingly stunned, pondering explosive population growth and the rate at which we have squandered our resources. Yet, he admonished us to keep working toward solutions and ignore the naysayers.
"I tell people to shut up and go away -- you've given up," he said, his voice rising. "We can't give up. The future I see for my grandchildren is what motivates me...I want to be able to say I did the best I could."
Read more about Suzuki on OregonLive.com.
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