Dr. David Suzuki

Most of us know Dr. David Suzuki from watching him host the television program, "The Nature of Things" for as long as we can remember. He is one of the the best speakers I have ever heard. He sounds like a strong minister delivering a message he is passionate about and indeed he is one of sorts; he has been "Ministering" about the environment for a very long time. If we weren't then, we are certainly listening more intently now to what he has to say.

David Suzuki is a very powerful yet down-to-earth speaker with a great sense of humour. He is a vegetarian who eats fish and when asked about chicken, he quoted someone as saying, "Chickens are just low-flying vegetables"! Guess he eats some the odd time!

Suzuki had many analogies for the terrifying stats and repeatedly made references that it is all "humans" who did this by "buying" into the greed and ever-increasing desire for acquiring "stuff" and that the economists/politicians condone this. (He was appalled when Bush's response to 9/11 was that he told everyone to get shopping to get the economy going.)

He said the increase in living space /human is just a gross misuse of energy and now we have something like one washroom per person in houses. To paraphrase, David said something like, "I grew up with 4 sisters in a 1000 sq. foot house with just one washroom and he can't remember ever pissing his pants waiting to get in to use it!"

David Suzuki did make us realize the folly of our collective greed and how things have changed in just one generation and you can see it is directly related to the situation now with energy resources and the state of our land, water, and air.

Now I feel guilty! We really have to at least buy a smaller, more fuel efficient SUV next time. (presently we own one car, a '98 Nissan Pathfinder) We only need the space for a few weeks a year and for that, we can devise some other way to take all we have to for trips. Our building is large, but to our credit, we have used it for both living space and an occupational office.

He drove home the fact that we have the brain power that initially made us different from every other species, to give us foresight to see what's ahead and adapt, but we all have to make some very important decisions about the environment now.

Suzuki went on to say that the window of time is very small and our resources; land, air and water, are fixed ... they never grow ... so our use of them must not grow either. Boosting our economy in order to fill our "need and greed for more stuff", simply can not happen and have our earth continue to sustain life.

I'd love to know what it will really be like 30 or 40 years from now. He said to ask our elders about how they lived and learn from it. They passed that world on to us and look what we are handing our kids..it's unrecognizable. David said he can't even take his grandson to the same place fishing as his grandfather took him because there are no fish there.

I liked how he was encouraging and optimistic, but I'm not sure we can do what is needed. Our present way of life is just so deeply ingrained. We are too used to our "stuff".

Check the site: www.davidsuzuki.org and sign up to join the Nature Challenge

These are the 10 basic things he outlines there that we can do for a good start:

1. Reduce home energy use by 10%

2. Choose an energy-efficient home and appliances

3. Replace dangerous pesticides with alternatives

4. Eat meat-free meals one day a week

5. Buy locally grown and produced food

6. Choose a fuel-efficient vehicle

7. Walk, bike, carpool or take transit

8. Choose a home close to work or school

9. Support car-free alternatives

10. Learn more and share with others