Dr. David Suzuki Is NOT Sustainable

Tue, 2008-11-18 08:14 by tim
Suzuki Diaries Road-Trip Fails To Find Sustainability Please CBC: put our tax dollars to good use: Fire Dr David Suzuki and hire us a new environmental leader -- one who is competent enough to understand the following formula: Environmental Impact = Population X Per Capita Consumption Dr David Suzuki is an intellectual fraud because he seems to believe the correct formula is: "Environmental Impact = Per Capita Consumption" Dr David Suzuki deserves an ecological dunce cap. Dr David Suzuki fails "Sustainability 101" with a final mark of F-. I am tired of paying for Dr David Suzuki to fly around the world and present the Canadian public with cowardly and feckless environmental solutions. Dr David Suzuki is a repeat offender -- none of his solutions for Canada's environmental woes ever involve reversing, stopping or even reducing population growth. If you don't believe me, visit Dr David Suzuki's website and take his "Nature Challenge" where he will tell you how to improve Canada's envrionment. (1) While Dr David Suzuki will tell you to limit yourself to a 100-mile diet (no bananas or oranges), use public transportation, insulate your home to R2000, use CFL lights, etc, he will never tell you to have fewer children and protest immigration-driven-population growth. Apparently Dr David Suzuki (in his infinite green wisdom) does not believe that population growth and envrionmental degradation are directly correlated, and therefore there is no reason in his mind to publicly suggest voluntarily stopping Canada's population growth before nature stops it for us. Dr David Suzuki has never publicly suggested reducing immigration or pro-natal incentives. Yet if we do not, Canada's envrionment is guaranteed to get worse. The latest example of Dr David Suzuki's environmental illiteracy is " The Suzuki Diaries" aired on the November 16, 2008 CBC Nature of Things. The Suzuki Diaries was advertised as Dr David Suzuki's quest to find out how to live sustainably. In it, Dr David Suzuki brings along one of his 5 offspring in his youngest daughter, Sarika Suzuki to travel around the world via fossil-fuel power. (2) I am not surprised that someone with 5 offspring hasn't yet figured out how to live sustainably individually or as a society, but I watched most of this program anyway hoping that Dr David Suzuki would finally discover the elephant in the room that is human overpopulation. The premise of the show was that our environmental saviour, Saint Suzuki and his brilliant young daughter would show us a place that truly exemplifies a sustainable society. (3) Instead of travelling somewhere with intact biodiversity and a low human population, Dr David Suzuki decided to travel to Denmark, Germany, France and Spain w here he praised their industrial wind turbines, solar panels and the "green" buildings of their European concrete jungles. None of these countries are sustainable because their excessive overpopulation has wiped out their biodiversity and required them to be net importers of natural resources. At one point Dr David Suzuki enthusiastically exclaimed to his daughter Sarika when looking over an industrial solar panel monoculture "You see that? That's totally free energy!" I guess Dr David Suzuki neglected to notice the loss of farm land that this solar power facility occupies, the maintenance it requires, the battery banks that don't last forever, the transmission lines, the backup power for when the sun isn't shining, etc. Sorry, Dr David Suzuki, but there is no zero-impact energy. Dr David Suzuki hailed Denmark as a world leader for having a whopping 20% of its energy supplied by renewables. Dr David Suzuki then angrily ranted that Canada has no excuse for not c reating more renewable energy. What is the point of creating more renewable energy if it will never be enough due to Canada's huge immigration intake? I wonder if Dr David Suzuki would like an industrial wind turbine blocking his view of the ocean on his beach-front estate in Quadra Island, BC? Since Dr David Suzuki makes no complaints about Canada's bad environmental policy of bringing in a few hundred thousand immigrants annually, perhaps he wouldn't mind allowing them to build their homes in his backyard. Since Dr David Suzuki doesn't prescribe any need to protect Canada's shores by keeping out the hundreds of millions of projected climate change refugees does this mean he is willing to share his bathroom with them? Would someone kindly persuade Dr David Suzuki to read these four articles. Then we can see if Dr David Suzuki really cares about his children and grandchildren or just protecting his bloated ego from cries of hypocrisy. a) Immigration Equals Tarsands For Greenhouse Gases In Four Years b) Technological Advances Won't Save Us c) New Hydro Project Consumed In 29 Days Of Immigration To Ontario d) 18 Specific Ideas For Taking Action Against Overpopulation When will Dr David Suzuki acknowledge that the earth cannot sustain 6.7 billion people at any level of per capita consumption? Shame on Dr David Suzuki! Will his 5 children each have 5 children of their own, giving Dr David Suzuki 25 grandchildren? How sustainable would that be if we all had as many children as Dr David Suzuki? Dr David Suzuki is the antithesis of sustainability. Even though Dr David Suzuki is not sustainable himself -- he has fathered many children and consumed far more resources than the average Canadian -- I would respect him if he would at least prescribe to Canadians that we must stop our population growth first or we will never be sustainable! Instead Dr David Suzuki gives us his "Nature Challenge" from his David Suzuki Foundation. I called the David Suzuki Foundation and they refused to divulge the identity and salary of their highest paid employees. They also refused to divulge the identity and amount of their largest corporate donors. I called the Charities Directorate of Revenue Canada and they could only reveal the following: 2007 David Suzuki Foundation: Total amount in donations: $4,320,976Other charities gave them: $580,213 Other revenue: $2,068,047 (donations that a receipt was not given for) Salaries, wages, benefits and honoraria: $2,601,378 I explained to them that it is impossible to assess the integrity of a publicly subsidized tax-deductible charity unless I know: a) what their highest salaries were and who they were paid to b) what their largest donations were and who they came from They told me I would have to contact my MP to have legislation changed so that the David Suzuki Foundation and other NGOs would be forced to reveal this information. Brishen Hoff November 17, 2008 (1) (2) "Suzuki was married to Setsuko Joane Sunahara from 1958 to 1965, with three children (Tamiko, Laura, and Troy). He married Tara Elizabeth Cullis in 1972. They have two daughters: Sarika and Severn Cullis-Suzuki. Severn, born in 1979, has also done environmental work, including speaking at environmental conferences." (3)

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Tim Murray (not verified)

Tue, 2008-11-18 13:11

Letter to Brishen Hoff: Brishen, that was the best hatchet job on Suzuki, the best analysis of the man, his organization, and his lifestyle that I have yet seen. A holistic critique. Not many people are prepared to take iconoclastic approaches, the kind we need to take toward these dangerous figures, these Pied Pipers, these modern Pharisees who lead the innocents astray with their smooth charm and stage presence, and academic civility. Why are we seduced by that rather than looking at the damage that they are doing? Suzuki, Rees et al are like flagmen with the highways department, sending drivers off down the wrong road to no where. They may be engaging, even driven by the right motives initially. But I would rather have no directions at all and use my own counsel than have these so called “environmentalists” direct traffic. I posted your piece in Australia but I put another bigger title on top of the title you had. I hope it is OK. I called it , are you ready, “Dr. David Suzuki is Not Sustainable” Tim PS I know, I know. There are people who are going to say. Lets keep on the good side of the icons. Lets prostrate ourselves before them like other supplicants. With enough bootlicking, we might gain some influence. Who then is going to tell the truth to power? Who is going to tell the truth to the people? Don’t the people hear enough hero-worship? The ordinary working class people of Quadra Island, the truckers, the tradesmen, the store clerks, the loggers, the fisherman, hate Suzuki’s guts. It is only the ruling clique, the Sierra-NDP-Greens, the artsy-fartsy people with college degrees who rely on the CBC to form their opinions and then genuflect before Him. They are the people who control the local media and the local community hall. Modifying or softening my pitch to suit them is not to my taste. The working class people are going to be the first to suffer the rebound effect of the boom economy that is soon to go bust. And in Suzuki they spot a hypocrite. One who preaches limits, but doesn’t live within them. To the rest: I think it is imperative for someone of Suzuki’s stature to “walk the talk”. I met Ralph Nader as a university student and I remember how impressed students were by his asceticism. As one TVO commentator so crudely put it, Suzuki is a preacher who preaches chastity while discreetly ducking into the whore house. Coast guard sailors and fishermen here are aware that he flies to the Queen Charlotte Islands to meet his native friends on hunting and fishing parties to over-fish and over-hunt, that is fish and hunt beyond the white man’s limits as a guest of the natives. This after appearing on television telling the rest of us to live within our limits. My limit includes having to buy a fishing licence. As Brishen points out, what could be more absurd that having to purchase a fishing licence, but not be required to have a licence to breed an excessive amount of children? True, Suzuki can’t undue his past. But why not go on television and apologize for it? The federal government apologized for the internment of Japanese Canadians during the war. Why can’t Suzuki get up and say: “ I am sorry that I was unaware of the damage that so many people would do to the atmosphere and the environment . I regret my irresponsibility, but not my children, whom of course I love etc etc.” Tim Quadra Island, BC Suzuki’s lair

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