Suzuki sounds off on climate change

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This article was published 02/10/2015 (3668 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

David Suzuki isn’t quite Pat Martin yet — not quite.

But the feisty scientist and legendary Canadian environmentalist got downright salty Thursday as he let fly at anyone and everyone who he believes has failed, through ignorance or wilfulness, to recognize and do anything about the “catastrophe” of climate change.

“I’ll raise shit wherever I can,” Suzuki said with a laugh from Vancouver.

On Prime Minister Stephen Harper: “When you spend five days in the Arctic and don’t even mention (climate change), what the hell is that?”

Citing the recent leaders debates, referring to Harper: “No one raised the fact he is lying when he says a carbon tax will destroy the economy.”

Dismissing the notion Volkswagen faking emission standards makes it a rogue automaker any different from other car giants: “Bullshit! That’s the way these people do business.”

Then, there was his recent unpleasant conversation with Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau: “If people thought that (calling Trudeau) a twerp is newsworthy… ” Suzuki said with a sigh.

You won’t find climate change in the mainstream media’s election coverage, said Suzuki: “The media are so cowed. I’m very disturbed… What the hell? Absolutely astounding.”

Suzuki was on the phone from Vancouver, being interviewed in the office of University of Winnipeg professor Ian Mauro, who proudly displayed handwritten letters he received from Suzuki as a grad student in 2002.

The U of W touts Mauro as the Connor McDavid of environmental academics, and it was the young researcher and documentary filmmaker who nominated Suzuki for the honorary degree he’ll receive at fall convocation Oct. 16.

Suzuki will also be at the Metropolitan Theatre the night before, delivering a lecture at 7 p.m. He’ll then speak in Brandon the evening of Oct. 16.

Suzuki said it will be his 29th honourary degree, but his first in Manitoba. He’s never received one from the University of Manitoba: “(It) is so tightly tied to agriculture, to Monsanto and that, that I’m not surprised.”

Suzuki does have some hope the Liberals and New Democrats will act on climate change after the Oct. 19 federal election and do something to start restoring Canada’s international reputation — if only because Canadians, and especially young people, demand it.

“We have to shut down the tarsands,” Suzuki declared. “For 10 years, we’ve had a prime minister whose goal is to make Canada an oil superpower.”

As close as his family is to Green Leader Elizabeth May, said Suzuki: “It’s a mistake to have a Green party. Everyone goes, ‘We don’t have to discuss the environment, because the Greens aren’t here.’ The environment is the basis of everything.”

Closing in on 80, Suzuki has hosted The Nature of Things on CBC television since 1979. (Said Mauro: “You’ve been doing The Nature of Things as long as I’ve been alive.”)

Suzuki has fingers crossed the NDP or Liberals will restore the CBC’s funding Harper’s government has cut. “Being on TV is a miracle. The Nature of Things is such a shell of what it was — we are in danger of disappearing,” grumbled Suzuki.

‘We have to shut down the tarsands. For 10 years, we’ve had a prime minister whose goal is to make Canada an oil superpower’

— David Suzuki

So if he’s speaking at your graduation, will it all be doom and gloom?

Not at all.

Suzuki will tell the grads university has opened their eyes to other ways of thought than their parents’ world has accepted.

“They start without an investment in the status quo,” he said. “My hope is all in the youth today. Youth now has been galvanized.”

He lamented professors such as Mauro probably don’t teach a lot of business students.

“That’s not part of a business education” in most universities, he said.

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“Ian is in a great position of influence. I am a big fan of Ian.”

Suzuki cited Mauro, author Naomi Klein and his daughters (one of whom has a PhD in marine biology) as typical of so many outstanding young people carrying on his work to save the planet from the rest of us.

“They’re all over the place — I’m feeling very good about disappearing,” said Suzuki.

But not quickly, and not quietly.

nick.martin@freepress.mb,ca