By David Suzuki

When I give speeches, one of my main messages is that the key to our remarkable success as a species is foresight – the ability to look ahead, to see where the dangers and opportunities lie, so that we can then act accordingly. It is one feature that distinguishes us from all other animals. It’s worked for us. In only a hundred thousand years, we went from being just another species on the plains of Africa to the dominant animal on the planet.

Today, with computers and scientists, our ability to look ahead is even more sophisticated. For more than 40 years, though, leading scientists of the world have warned us we are heading in a very dangerous direction, and that there are opportunities if we change direction.

We are facing a very critical point – you all know about climate change that is affecting glaciers and ice sheets especially in Canada; about toxic pollution everywhere in our air, water, and soil; about depletion of ocean fish; about species extinction. Scientists have been telling us this for quite a while, but the warnings about climate change have been especially strong and urgent for more than 20 years. Why don’t we pay attention? If we don’t listen to scientists, who do we pay attention to? CEOs of corporations? Economists? Religious leaders? We should be putting top scientists at the forefront, not muzzling them or altering their reports as George Bush has done for eight years.