I don't think I have ever seen David Suzuki nervous. Until now.
I mean, the Doc has spoken to audiences as large 13,500 and spent more years in front of a camera than Regis Philbin.That's why it was a little surprising to see him on the edge of his seat as we approached Toronto Stock Exchange and his early morning press conference with Sir Nicholas Stern. It was a good nervousness.
You see, Sir Nicholas Stern is one smart fellow. The former lead economist with the World Bank recently authored the Stern Review, aq 700-page report on the economics of climate change for the British government. Late last year, Sir Nicholas determined the economic costs of climate change and presented opportunities in moving to a low carbon economy. Today was his first stop in Canada.
Together, at the press conference, Stern and Suzuki offered a one-two punch of colossal proportions.
Sir Nicholas offered three responses to naysayers of climate change - either that they are absurd in denying the science of global warming, recklessly relying on human adaptation, or merely not concerned about the future, which was unethical. The man in the dark pinstriped suit offered some very convincing, economically based arguments.
Sir Nicholas, Dr. Suzuki and Thomas Homer-Dixon (Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trudeau_Centre_for_Peace_and_Conflict_Studies> at the University of Toronto <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Toronto> ) later sat down for a discussion on global warming at the U of T's Hart House. Talk about brain-power!
By the late evening, we made to Thunder Bay for a sold-out event at the Community Auditorium. Little Bear Drum, a First Nations drum and dance group, opened things up. Fantastic!
Bali Blog
Cory
Here on Van. Island there is no denying global warming. Trees are dying. Cedars, Arbutus many years old are all going fast. Recent storms have blown down many others. Rich Albertans are moving into places like Tofino and chopping down trees and putting in lawns. Without a wind block this causes neighbours trees to topple. The island is drying up. The Bear Mountain developers have destroyed entire mountains so rich folks can have golf courses. Without our rainforests it's over for us here on this most beautiful place in Canada.
Francien Verhoeven
Dear Mr.Suzuki,
I try to follow, with great interest, the happenings you encounter while on your bus-tour across the nation. Let me start off by saying that I respect you as a scientist and producer of some great progamming over the years. Your personality beamed into our family living room for years during the eighties. I remember it well: The Nature of Things. Every Wednesday night, we would sit down with our children and watch amazing shows about, as you so titled it yourself, the nature of things.
Having the opportunity to raise one's children on a farm is truly special and watching your shows about nature overall was a great addition to that way of life, and very much welcomed in our home.
I realize that most children do not have the opportunity to grow up on a farm where nature can be observed and experienced at such close range. As a matter of fact, I would say that most children now, grow up far removed from any real nature at all. That is regretable. That is a fact of life; we now live surrounded by a different nature of things.
My children are adults now, and we no longer run an active farm, and so that leaves me, together with much time, to sit around the edge of other ponds: ponds of reflection and ponds of reaction.
Sometimes the question: What came first, the chicken or the egg? swims to the surface. At times it's so clearly visible I want to fish it out of the water with bare hands, only to see it slip away and dive underneath the waves once again. I am sure you, as a biologist by training, must have had similar fishing expeditions; it makes one belief that age-old question, once held in the hand, could have the answer in the grasp itself; everything and nothing.