Greatest Canadian

Beginning April 5th, CBC asks:  Who is the greatest Canadian?

There are a lot of great Canadians though some of the faces thrown up on that television commercial are sorta laughable.  It baffles me why we continue to mistake fame for greatness. 

Ok, I'll play along.  I know of at least one great Canadian who by coincidence is also quite famous.  Last week he turned 68.  My vote for greatest Canadian is Dr. David Suzuki.  Do you have a better suggestion?

Can you believe that Suzuki is 68?  This guy defies aging.  He was interred in one of those Japanese prison camps in 1942!   And of course, he's become an award winning scientist, environmentalist, civil rights activist and broadcaster who's principled and defiant of authority.  What's great is that he seems so down-to-earth and approachable.  His motives are altruistic, his causes universal.  I loved to hear how, chuckling, he told of his first major discovery, a connection that led to his first real contribution to science, which dawned on him while he was about five beers into a good night.   This is Canadian.

Suzuki attacks conventional economic dogma and the empty consumerism it espouses. According to him, it is the logic of economics that poses the clearest danger to planetary survival because it tricks us into believing that the economy is the source of all that matters. Economic �common sense� tells us that we simply cannot afford to protect the environment. The environment, we are told, is an economic �externality.�  If the world is not saved....it won't be because Suzuki didn't try to warn us.

Nature draws the real bottom line

By Kirsten Leng

David Suzuki is nothing short of an icon. His biography reads like a list of every award and honor that can be conferred upon a Canadian. An internationally renowned geneticist, environmentalist, and civil rights activist, Suzuki is truly a renaissance man for the 21st century.

Suzuki was in Kingston last month as part of Queen�s University�s �Earth Week.� At 67, the man is still a firebrand. He captivated his audience from the outset with his passionate, down-to-earth, humourous style. His talk, entitled �The Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting the Real Bottom Line,� outlined the major threats facing life on earth and put forth practical ways individuals, governments and corporations could counter them. Although he claimed that he did not know the most pressing problem, he was adamant that humans were fundamentally culpable.

Conventional economic dogma and the empty consumerism it espouses were the foci of Suzuki�s talk. According to him, it is the logic of economics (which he likened to a form of brain damage) that poses the clearest danger to planetary survival because it tricks us into believing that the economy is the source of all that matters. Economic �common sense� tells us that we simply cannot afford to protect the environment. The environment, we are told, is an economic �externality.�

For Suzuki, this exclusion is incomprehensible. �How can we have an economy in which everything we use. . . comes from the earth, and yet consider nature an externality?� he asked.

He used the example of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to illustrate what he considers the economy�s �greatest insult�� the fact that environmental and social disasters are more valuable to the economy than peace, security, and sustainability.

�We let economists give us a measurement like the GDP,� said Suzuki, �[which] is such a ludicrous notion! Any exchange of money for goods and services adds to the GDP. So, in 1989, when the Exxon Valdez oil spill happened, the American GDP rose by $2 billion. What kind of a standard is that?�

Such �ludicrous� standards also support the axiom of infinite economic growth in a finite world. Suzuki argued that the economy can only expand as far as nature allows, as it is nature that sets the true �bottom line.� Sadly, we may already have crossed that line. Climate change, acid rain, chronic smog, and other phenomena remind us of the dire repercussions that environmental exploitation for economic gain has wrought.

The only way we have been able to survive thus far, according to Suzuki, is by living off the inheritance of future generations. He also noted that it would cost $33 trillion each year to replace the services now provided free by nature; presently, the combined global GDP is only $18 trillion per annum.

After alluding to the substitution of nature by technology, Suzuki suggested that any critical examination of economics requires a critical examination of science. He argued that scientists are just as guilty as economists in blinding us to impending environmental crises. For too long scientists viewed the earth as something that could be understood through the sum of its parts. This reductionist view fostered a definition of �progress� as removal from nature, and encouraged the business community to exploit scientific discoveries to circumvent natural constraints on economic growth. As a result, scientifically and technologically �advanced� societies no longer acknowledge or celebrate their connection to nature.

What we don�t realize, Suzuki illustrated, is that we humans are not an environmental �externality� � we are the environment, we are  the earth. Essentially animals, we are subordinate to the will of nature. Our anatomical processes demonstrate our interdependent relationship with the elements: we are constantly cycling the air around us through our respiratory system; we are composed primarily of water; we derive our energy from the sun; and we rely on the earth to nourish the plants that will later nourish us. Thus, what we do to the environment, we do to ourselves; it is at our peril that we forget this interconnection.

Luckily for us, Suzuki believes that there may still be time to change the bleak future facing us. He reminded us that economics is a human creation � a �value system posing as a science� � and that, as a human creation, we can control it. All we need is the will to do it.

However, Suzuki cautioned that we must not only change the economy; we must also change the way we live and think. We must change our value systems and dispel the notion that our self-worth is derived from our possessions. Socially, we must recognize that beyond material security, humans require love to grow emotionally and physically, and that the best way to provide love is to create caring communities where people can flourish. We must also recognize that we are spiritual creatures, and that recognition gives us a sense of humility.

Individually, there is much we can do. More importantly, Suzuki believes, our individual actions can have great political influence. He challenged the audience to take responsibility for the environment through the way they live by taking his �Nature Challenge.�

The Challenge consists of 10 simple lifestyle changes, and requires Canadians to commit to doing at least three of the 10. Suzuki pointed out that through our lifestyle ordinary people significantly affect four areas of nature: climate, air pollution, water pollution, and habitat degradation. By making adjustments to the way we eat, the houses in which we live, and the modes of transportation we choose, our actions can have a significant impact.

Suzuki contended that strength lies in numbers. The Nature Challenge, he said, �can have an effect if we recruit enough people to make the commitment. If we can get a million Canadians to sign on, every politician will have to sign on. It will be irresistible � That�s how you bring about change: when you�ve got enough people saying, �Damn it all, we�re going to do something,� and they make that commitment, I think that it�s a way of getting society to flop over.�

�If you want change, you�ve got to sell it to the people, convince them there�s a problem; you�ve got to show them there are alternatives, and you�ve got to get them to care enough to demand it. Once you have that, any politician on the Right or Left is going to jump on board.�

Suzuki ended his talk on a high note. By the end of his lecture, the mood in the audience had changed: it was charged with a sense of empowerment, of awareness, of motivation. These emotions are welcome in a time when most people feel powerless, deceived, and demoralized. It is quite a feat for one man to affect such dramatic change in people. Could it be that they just needed some good news for a change?

Check out David Suzuki�s Web site at www.davidsuzuki.org.