Dr. David Suzuki from Vancouver, British Columbia, is a world famous broadcaster, geneticist, and environmentalist. He is known for his various television and radio programs that educate both children and adults in a way that easy to understand, relate, and act upon. You probably grew up watching The Nature of Things. Now at the age of 79, Dr. Suzuki came to the University of Windsor as a “grandfather and an elder” to give students a talk about the upcoming elections, the state of our Canadian environment, and where we stand concerning our global ecological aid. You can read more about that here. I had the honour of sitting down with Dr. Suzuki and asking him 3 questions that I hope will help any young activist or simple civilian in our fight to help save our perishing planet.
How did you know that the environment and bringing awareness to the environment, especially to youth, was a passion of yours?
Well, because I have grandchildren. What I see is government after government failing to take into consideration what really – the consequences of what they’re doing or not doing for my children and now my grandchildren. So any parent, or grandparent, should be vitally concerned about what governments are doing. Because they’re ignoring the future. You know when they try to calculate what is the economic cost of climate change on future generations? they discount the impact. They’ll say “O.K. well it’ll lead to increased costs on the current generation and increase wear and tear, so it’s going to cost ‘this much’ per person”. But then when they get to the next generation they say “Oh, there’ll be advances in technology and we’ll have done this and that”. So the cost or the impact on them will be less. So what we’re doing is leaving this HUGE thing called climate change, and we’re acting as if it’s going to be cheaper and cheaper for future generations. This is crazy!
What would you tell a student that was feeling overwhelmed or discouraged with making an impact?
Well I think the feel good there are with other who are working. Of course, every movement begins with a few people. I think that finding others who have similar interests is really the thing that gives you the energy. When you go it alone – this is why I formed the David Suzuki Foundation, I didn’t want to name it after me, but it was others that insisted. My wife and I had been fighting alone so long, and you know people were criticizing us; the forest industries [and] the loggers were after us. My wife was constantly worried that our children will be hurt in some way. But when we found there were others around when we formed an organization and people came and they donated money and they came and volunteered their hours, MAN did that ever – we just suddenly felt so much stronger. University is a perfect place to find other kids around that are interested, that can be educated to become part of the movement. I think it’s very – this is an exciting place for these kinds of things to happen.
What is the most important thing that you believe [our] generation should know for a healthy and prosperous future?
Well I think that the economy is not the be all and end all. The economy should be there to help us have a better life, and that the environment is the critical issue to our health and happiness. I think young people – and here’s where someone asked me last night “What can teachers do?” I think teachers, especially in the primary schools are very very effective at educating. Kids are very – you don’t see them littering, or well maybe some of them do, but I think kids that are coming through the schools today are MUCH better educated than we are. Certainly in my generation or the ‘boomers’.
Dr. David Suzuki was both kind and humble during my talk with him and his talk to his audience. As he bluntly stated, this upcoming election has no impact on him. He is at his end. His goal and legacy now will be to help shape future generations to care more for the environment by discontinuing putting so much need into money, but instead to start putting it into nature. Without money, it’s unsure exactly when you will die. Without air, water, or food you will die in 3 minutes, 3 days, or 3 years. I encourage you now to consider the words of Dr. Suzuki when you decide to join the fight to make a difference, and that starts on October 19th, 2015, A.K.A federal election day.