David Suzuki
David Suzuki
David Takayoshi Suzuki, CC OBCis a Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist. Suzuki earned a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961, and was a professor in the genetics department at the University of British Columbia from 1963 until his retirement in 2001. Since the mid-1970s, Suzuki has been known for his television and radio series, documentaries and books about nature and the environment. He is best known as host of the popular and long-running CBC...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth24 March 1936
CityVancouver, Canada
CountryCanada
Our personal consumer choices have ecological, social, and spiritual consequences. It is time to re-examine some of our deeply held notions that underlie our lifestyles.
We no longer see the world as a single entity. We've moved to cities and we think the economy is what gives us our life, that if the economy is strong we can afford garbage collection and sewage disposal and fresh food and water and electricity. We go through life thinking that money is the key to having whatever we want, without regard to what it does to the rest of the world.
Rapid population growth and technological innovation, combined with our lack of understanding about how the natural systems of which we are a part work, have created a mess.
Scientists have been warning about global warming for decades. It's too late to stop it now, but we can lessen its severity and impacts.
The environment is so fundamental to our continued existence that it must transcend politics and become a central value of all members of society.
Treaties, agreements and organizations to help settle disputes may be necessary, but they often favor the interests of business over citizens.
My Prime Minister regards the economy as our highest priority and forgets that economics and ecology are derived from the same Greek word, oikos, meaning household or domain. Ecology is the study of home, while economics is its management. Ecologists try to define the conditions and principles that enable a species to survive and flourish. Yet in elevating the economy above those principles, we seem to think we are immune to the laws of nature. We have to put the ‘eco’ back into economics.
Each of us now has 2.27 kg (5 lbs) of plastic embedded in our bodies.
Conventional economics is a form of brain damage. Economics is so fundamentally disconnected from the real world, it is destructive.
Conserving energy and thus saving money, reducing consumption of unnecessary products and packaging and shifting to a clean-energy economy would likely hurt the bottom line of polluting industries, but would undoubtedly have positive effects for most of us.
Humans are now the most numerous mammal on the planet. There are more humans than rats or mice. Humans have a huge ecological footprint, magnified by their technology.
If we want to move towards a low-polluting, sustainable society, we need to get consumers to think about their purchases.
Water is our most precious resource, but we waste it, just as we waste other resources, including oil and gas.
If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.