David Suzuki on Strombo: Full Interview

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: So what would you do if tomorrow you were told you're the enemy? Would you pack the bags and get out of your house? You're not Canadian enough? Your loyalty is suspect? Well, that is all part of David Suzuki's story. See, we know him as a scientist and as an activist and as a broadcaster. [00:00:17] Speaker 2: Each week we'll explore the mysteries of the natural world and exciting discoveries in science, medicine and technology. But when David was just six, his family, [00:00:26] Speaker 1: along with thousands of other Japanese Canadians, were forcibly moved from their home in BC. And they were set to live in what he calls a concentration camp in the BC interior. Now, despite the experience, David says he always saw himself as a Canadian and he would end up going on to devote his entire adult life to the protection of this country's environment. [00:00:43] Speaker 2: If we don't have clean air, clean water, clean soil that gives us our food and clean energy that comes from the sun, we don't survive. [00:00:51] Speaker 1: David was talking about climate change before people had even heard of Al Gore. And when people of this country voted for the greatest Canadian on CBC, Big David finished number five. Not without his critics, though. That's true. And those who think his environmental message is too partisan, too political. And for someone tied in with a registered charity, the David Suzuki Foundation, that just doesn't pass the muster for some. And last month, because of that criticism, David stepped down from the board of his foundation. How well that situation sits with him today? We'll find out about it. And about the new role that David sees for himself. Welcome to the show. Good doctor. David Suzuki. [00:01:26] Speaker ?: Good to be back. Good to be back. [00:01:28] Speaker 1: Good to be back. Good to be back. Good to be back. Welcome, sir. [00:01:37] David Suzuki: How are things? [00:01:38] Speaker 1: Good. Good to be back. Gosh, it's summer already. Isn't it nice? Yes. Very nice. I was hoping that the whole climate change thing would have come earlier. Apparently not. So, you resigned on the board. I did. I'm on the board of directors for the David Suzuki Foundation. Obviously, you're the guy. But you resigned. Why? [00:01:55] David Suzuki: Well, I resigned over six months ago now. Because, you know, at my age, this is the most important part of my life. One of the things I've found is as I get older, my testosterone levels drop. And, you know, I'm getting smarter. Because I'm not thinking about sex all the time. And I now see why my wife wins all our arguments. Because they're not clouded by all this other stuff, right? So, I feel, though, that at my age, no one can accuse me of wanting more fame or power or money. I can see with much greater clarity all the mistakes I've made in my life, what I've learned. And this is a time to pass on some of the nuggets of information I feel is important for future generations. So, I'm telling my fellow elders, get off the golf courses and start talking to young people. Start going over your life and sharing some of that knowledge of our elders. Now, why did you have to resign the board to do that? Because every time I start sharing my knowledge, I start criticizing government, politicians. You can't do that if you are a charity. And I keep saying, this is civil society. I'm a citizen. I have the right to express as an individual my rights. But then you have the right wing that say, oh, you see that? Suzuki, the foundation has my name. Suzuki is indulging in political activity. So, they keep calling for the loss of our charitable status. And I felt that I can't be muzzled any longer and I don't want to be an impediment to the foundation, which is the most important thing I've done. [00:03:35] Speaker 1: Have you seen how your conversation about the subject was wrong? Have you seen different ways where you can get it out? [00:03:41] David Suzuki: I think environmentalism has fundamentally failed. The entire thing. The movement has failed. Now, that is not to say we weren't unbelievably successful in the first years. This year, by the way, is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the environmental movement. Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962. And a lot has been achieved when you think, you know, when her book came out, there wasn't a single department of the environment on the planet. She put the environment on the map. And when you think of the laws that we have now to protect air and water and endangered species and millions of acres of land that have been protected in parks, environmental movement was very, very successful. The problem was, as we were fighting to stop clear-cut logging or building a dam here, polluting this river, we acted as if that battle was everything. We had to win this one. And we never educated people about why are we fighting. This is just a brush fire. It's that we're acting in an underlying way that's destructive of Mother Earth, of the very things that keep us alive. We never learned that lesson. That winning, stopping the logging here means we've got to log in a fundamentally different way. We've got to maintain the forest. We've got to protect the air, protect the water. And now what's happened is we're just being swept away with a tsunami of all of this noise that the economy is everything. [00:05:10] Speaker 1: We're talking about the anniversary of Silent Spring, but I wonder, not that long after this happened, I want to play a clip from you, of you back in the day. Check this out, David Suzuki. Uh-oh. This is from the archives. [00:05:21] Speaker 4: You hatch out as a maggot. And a maggot can now crawl around. It's got two dimensions, and it can ingest food at its will, and it defecates all over the environment. And some other smaller maggots can even eat your defecation and get some nourishment out of it. And the bigger you get, the more maggots you can crush with your weight. Most people in the world are content to stay as first or second level maggots. And they establish their own little area, and they crawl around there, and that's fine. And the guys that become 10th level maggots are really big wheels. [00:05:59] Speaker 1: 1972. [00:06:00] David Suzuki: But the point, it wasn't made there, that what we have to do is pupate and hatch out as a butterfly. So you're talking about people, even though you're talking about fruit flies and maggots. [00:06:11] Speaker 1: Yes, right. But could that be analogous to human beings? Yes, of course. That was the idea. Because all nature is connected. Right. What was your time like in Japan, recently back from there? Do you think the environmental message is being received there now? [00:06:24] David Suzuki: Well, I think the Japanese are at a very critical point. I really celebrated when they shut down the last nuclear plant. Because they are a country, they're a first world country, a developed country like us. And their economy has been static for 20 years. Why all this fear of a lack of growth? They haven't had growth for 20 years. When I land in Tokyo, it looks pretty good to me. People look pretty content and lots of busy people bustling around. People are working. So what's all this stuff about we've got to have more, we've got to have more? I mean, we can't keep growing forever. And they are at a cusp of making a major transition. You know, the stupidest thing is, Japan is the most seismically active country in the world. And they adopted this very complex technology to do what? To boil water. That's what nuclear technology does. It boils water and the steam drives turbines. Wait a minute now, you've got this seismically active country where you're going to have all kinds of earthquakes. And if you tap into the ground, they have over 10,000 hot springs in Japan. This boiling water underground. What the hell is all this nuclear stuff? So I think that they're at a cusp now of being able to make a major change in the direction they go. And that would be a huge example for the rest of the world. [00:07:50] Speaker 1: It was a huge disaster to have to get them to that. Do you think that other countries will learn from them without facing that? [00:07:55] David Suzuki: I hope we don't have to have more disasters. But we don't seem to be a very reactive animal. We've now had the warmest winter apparently on record in Canada. Are we still denying the reality of climate change? Inuit have been telling us for 20 years. So we get very comfortable and it's difficult to imagine change. What is the weirdest thing someone has said to you on the street? Well, I went to Occupy Montreal and someone came up and said, "You're responsible for killing 7 billion babies." I don't know where the hell that came from. That's a high number. That's a high number. They didn't say why? No, I walked away. But I first told them to F off. Well done. [00:08:44] Speaker 1: By the way, that's the best thing you've ever heard. Did you seriously just hold the f*ck up in your mouth? Yeah. Oh, I'd love that about you. His TV show, The Nature of Things, by the way. Congratulations. It'll be back for season 52. That's incredible. It'll be back. Season 52, December, Thursday day. David Suzuki. We'll be right back.