Street roots., January 22, 2016, Page 8, Image 8

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Page 8
Street Roots • Jan. 22-28, 2016
Bequeathing his values
Street Roots • Jan. 22-28, 2016
Scientist and, environmentalist David Suzuki describes the evolution o f
social attitudes and what he hopes to pass down to his grandchildren
environment The CEO of one of the largest
timber companies in British Colombia
hounded me and attacked me for my beliefs.
Once he’d retired, he began to finance my
foundation because he knew perfectly well
that he’d been wrong.
BY NORMAN RICKERT
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
avid Suzuki wants to share his values
with younger generations.
D
In his latest book, “Letters To My
Grandchildren,” the Canadian geneticist and
environmental activist recounts the most
memorable episodes of his life’s journey —
covering economics, ecology, politics and
citizenship — from the perspective of a
grandfather.
Suzuki, born in Vancouver, B.C., in 1936,
hosts the Canadian television program “The
Nature of Things” and heads a foundation that
bears his name. He is the author of several
publications and has received the UNESCO
Kalinga Prize for Popularization of Science
and the United Nations Environment Program
Medal.
L’l: Does Donald Trum p’s populist message
seem dangerous to you?
D.S.: You know, I love to hear that, because
Mr. Trump shows us the loony side of the
Republican Party. I hope that he wins the
Republican presidential nomination because
he might have to run against Bernie Sanders.
Bernie came from nowhere, but has struck a
sensitive chord with our neighbors to the
south, and he’s not trailing Hillary Clinton by
much in the polls. By American standards,
he’s a candidate of the extreme left, so a
Trump-Sanders race would make for a great
ideological debate.
L T tin é r a ir e (C a n a d ia n
daw
LETTERS TO
MY C R A N D C H ÍL D R ÍK ,
“Letters To My
Grandchildren,”
by David Suzuki
s t r e e t p a p e r ): Was it im portant
fo r you to leave som ething in
writing fo r yo u r descendants?
L’l: Do you th in k that the 2015 Paris climate
conference agreement is, as several media outlets
have called it, “the last-chance conference”?
D.S.: Yes, my grandparents
arrived in Canada between 1902
and 1904. They were very poor
and had no education, and came
to Canada in search of work.
They never learned English but
lived here until after the war.
MY mother and father were
j f «
D.S.: It is truly our last great chance. This
is the 21st conference of its kind, and the ,
previous ones, accomplished nothing. Two
recent events.give me hope.
The two biggest greenhouse gas emitters,
China and the United States, have begun to
discuss reduction goals seriously. That is a
significant step forward. Mr. Harper kept
saying that Canada couldn’t do anything about
global warming, that it was the responsibility
of the American government.
The other giant step forward was Pope
Francis’ encyclical, which called each of us to
commit to preserving our planet. I’m an
atheist, but I’ve read and reread Francis’
encyclical, and it makes me cry every time. I
wish I’d written it. The Pope accomplished
something tremendous: saving the planet is
for him a moral and ethical issue. We’re
talking about the future of our planet, our
children and grandchildren.
• They, l° ld rae’
You re Canadian, and here you
speak English. If you want to
learn a second language, learn
French.” I never learned Japanese, and thus
never had the chance to have a conversation
with my grandparents. When they died, I
realized that many of thè questions about my
family’s roots had gone unanswered. Now that
I’m nearing the end of my life, I don’t want to
die without passing on some important values
to my grandchildren.
C anadian academic, science broadcaster a n d environm ental activist D avid S u zuki.
L’l: You explain clearly that you experienced
racism as a child. Do you think that eugenics (a
set o f principles aim ing to improve the genetic
quality o f the hum an population) could once
again become a force in the West?
D.S.: I think that it could return today. At
the start of the 20th century, geneticists were
so excited by their discoveries about corn,
fruit flies and mice that they began to transfer
their observations to human beings. For
example, geneticists studied fruit flies and
established a link with alcoholism, but their
conclusions were premature. These people
weren’t crazy; they were geneticists who
established a link between their research and
the fact that welfare recipients are genetically
different. This has had many consequences,
such as the influence of eugenics in Alberta.
Hundreds of Albertans were sterilized in the
years up to 1960 based on the belief that they
had mental problems. You have to be careful
when you do scientific research; you can make
a minor discovery and exaggerate its impact.
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L’l: Speaking o f yo u r father, you noted, “The
very idea o f accepting welfare disgusted h im .”
From his perspective, accepting welfare signified
a lack o f pride a n d character, a n d that a person
was lazy. There are street paper vendors who
support themselves in p a rt with welfare and
w ant to overcome those prejudices. W hat would
you like to say to them?
physician disagreed with that opinion. For
example, if I told you that there was a 40
percent chance that fetuses would later
develop alcoholism and drug addiction and 80
percent of them would receive welfare, we
could then decide that we’d save a lot of
money by resorting to abortions. That line of
reasoning is truly dangerous.
D.S.: Those were the values of that time.
Canada was racist when my grandparents
arrived. They knew that they would have to
work even harder than other people to be able
to survive here. Those were the values they
passed on to us. There simply was no welfare
at the start of the 20th century. The president
of the Canadian Medical Association, who was
from Newfoundland, had stated that welfare
recipients should be sterilized because of
their genes. That leads us back to the risk of
affirming that these people are different. What
I find completely appalling is that no other
L’l: You say in yo u r book, “We strive to fu lfill
our desires, a n d not o ur needs.” Could yo u tell
us more about this theme?
as welfare. I believe in a society in which we
share with the poorest people. I believe in
establishing a guaranteed income for all
citizens. But what I siee is that these values
are crumbling.
To Stephen Harper (Canadian conservative
politician and formers Canadian prime
minister), welfare recipients are a burden on
the economy; welfare is expensive, and
recipients don’t play by the ru les.... This line
of reasoning is just biillshit.
L’l: You say that young people today have a
D.S.: My parents lived through the Great
Depression, and they taught us what they had
learned: Live within your means, save, share,
don’t be stingy, help your neighbors. One
thing that they repeated to us constantly was
to work hard in order to earn money to meet
our fundamental needs. But we shouldn’t
chase money in order to become important.
I’m proud that our society has programs such
very different attitude than their elders d id a t the
sam e age. Do you think that hum an beings are
beginning to change their behavior?
D.S.: When I was young, the environment
was a low national priority, and there simply
was no minister of the environment. Unlike
today, ecology was irrelevant. The
environment was just a question of resources
to be exploited. If it was possible to cut down
a forest or drill a well, no one asked any
questions; the project just went ahead. We
could pollute the air or water without any
difficulty because no one understood the
consequences of overexploiting resources.
Young people today are aware of these
issues. They know that current management
of the environment poses a serious threat to
their future well-being.
L’l: Have you already thought about entering
politics?
D.S.: I’ve already had opportunities to run
for office, but I’m too old for that now. I think
I have a specific role now, a bit like the elderly
members of a community. They are no longer
interested in the lure of gain or profit, and like
them, I have nothing left to lose. At my age, I
no longer feel the desire to play that game.
Retired CEOs should speak out about the
L’l: H ow can we, as citizens, change our
behavior to achieve progress?
D.S.: The ball is now in the court of civil
society. Real change should come from the
ground up. Quebec has, in this sense, set an
example to follow. I’m always stunned that
here in Montreal, protests can mobilize
hundreds of thousands of people, as during
the Maple Spring of 2012. Protest on that
scale didn’t occur in other provinces. That’s
the kind of involvement that we need.
We can see that politicians elected to serve
the people don’t serve them. It’s therefore
our responsibility to hold them accountable
and make them listen to our proposals instead
of the proposals of multinational corporations.
Translated fro m French in to E n g lish by
Stephen Volante / Translators W ithout
Borders. Courtesy o fI N S P News Service www.
IN S P .n g o / L ’Itinéraire - C anada
INSPIRATIONAL
EXAMPLES
Bhutan is a tiny nation
surrounded by China
and India whose people
have for 200 years
resisted the
encroachment of their
neighbors into their
territory. The Bhutanese
people remained hidden
by acting as if they were
invisible. Eventually,
however, the Bhutanese
King decided to open his nation up to
the world. When someone asked him
at a conference what his country's
GDP was. the king answered, "I have
no idea, but we measure Gross
National Happiness instead."
If you go to Ecuador or
Bolivia, their constitutions
include the concept ot
Pachamama, or Mother
Earth These provisions
provide the Earth with a
constitutional right to be
protected. A construction
company that sent a
truck to dump sand and
gravel in a sacred river,
for example, faced
prosecution and had to
clean up the river.
"1 hope that (Donald
Trump} wins the
Republican
presidential
nomination because
he might have to run
against Bernie
Sanders....
A Trump-Sanders
race would mahe
lo r a great
ideological debate/'
DAVID SUZUKI