sust-mar: Suzuki bleak

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 14:02:19 -0400 (AST)
From: "David M. Wimberly" <ag487@chebucto.ns.ca>
To: Sustainable-Maritimes <sust-mar@chebucto.ns.ca>
Precedence: bulk
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It is time to get really serious about this.  Suzuki was not this bleak
when I discussed this general topic at the G-7/P-7 Conferences here a few
years ago.



        Monday, January 11, 1999 
	 The Halifax Herald Limited
                                      
   Tim Krochak/Herald Photo 
   David Suzuki, host of CBC television's, The Nature of Things, in Point
   Pleasant Park while on a book tour stop in Halifax.
   
Suzuki recycles columns for book

   By Dennis Bueckert / The Canadian Press
   
   Ottawa - David Suzuki skips the subtleties in explaining how his
   career as a newspaper columnist ended a few years ago.
   
   "They (the editors) canned me," he says. "They said, 'Look, this is a
   science page and you're ending up spending all your time writing about
   the environment.'
   
   "But I think the major problem with me was I kept dumping on their own
   columnists."
   
   He tells the story casually, as if getting fired is a trivial matter.
   Now he has recycled his columns in a new book, Earth Time.
   
   The essays are spliced together for an impact they didn't have as
   separate pieces, but the themes are familiar to anyone who has
   followed Suzuki's work.
   
   Scientists have a moral obligation to make their findings
   comprehensible to ordinary people.
   
   Science can quickly identify the benefits of new technology but
   usually can't identify its long-term consequences.
   
   Scientific knowledge is like a jigsaw puzzle: no one can put all the
   pieces together. Massive resource consumption is putting the planet on
   a collision course with nature, but there is still time to avert
   disaster.
   
   The columns have been edited in telling ways - the barbs directed at
   his fellow journalists have been removed.
   
   But the basic tone of pending apocalypse remains intact.
   
   "I have been to four conferences in the United States on biodiversity
   this year and they are terrifying," Suzuki says.
   
   "I sat in Washington at a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences
   and people were saying, 'Well, if 90 per cent of all species go
   extinct over the next 100 years, do you think humans could survive?'
   
   "This is what they're talking about. It's a crisis, it's
   inconceivable. And the problem is these damn scientists end up talking
   to each other. They know how bad it is but they haven't a clue how the
   hell to get the message out."
   
   Suzuki says environmentalists have themselves to blame for losing
   public support over the past decade.
   
   "We made a massive error in being so concerned with saving seals and
   whales, and protecting wilderness, and stopping logging, that we
   forgot that each of these battles had enormous repercussions for
   people.
   
   "We got caught up in this adversarial thing. We've got to come back
   together and say, look, we live on the same planet. We've got to put
   people back into the equation."
   
   Now at an age when many people start taking stock of their
   accomplishments, Suzuki's appraisal is bleak.
   
   "I feel like a total failure. Certainly I don't see any fundamental
   impact that I've had."
   
   That doesn't mean he's about to quit.
   
   He continues to host The Nature of Things, one of the longest-running
   programs in CBC history.The David Suzuki Foundation which he founded
   with his wife, Tara Cullis, has a $1.5-million annual budget funded
   almost entirely from small donations.
   
   He predicts public sentiment will swing back toward the green agenda
   as evidence accumulates.
   
   "I don't feel lonely. I know I'm not going to save the world, but if
   you add together millions of people and tens of thousands of
   organizations maybe that adds up to something.
   
   "I don't think there's any question that we're going to see a massive
   shift back to environmental issues."
   
                                      
                                  [3] Back
     _________________________________________________________________
   
                Copyright © 1999 The Halifax Herald Limited
     _________________________________________________________________

References

   0. http://www.herald.ns.ca/cgi-bin/home/altdisplaystory?1999/01/11+143.raw+altEntertainment
   1. http://www.herald.ns.ca/cgi-bin/home/altsecfront?1999/01/11+altEntertainment#143.raw
   2. http://www.herald.ns.ca/cgi-bin/home/altdisplayphoto?1999/01/11+143.raw+1006+altEntertainment
   3. http://www.herald.ns.ca/cgi-bin/home/altsecfront?1999/01/11+altEntertainment#143.raw



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