How do we Create an Economy that Nourishes the Natural World – which keeps us Alive? Dr. David Suzuki
February 24, 2019 Leave a comment
The Canadian scientist Dr. David Suzuki says that the primary driver of this climate catastrophe and mass extinction that we face has been the economy. It’s urgent that humanity act now – go all out to maintain the temperature of our heating earth. It is how we will be defined as a species. He has the academic understanding as well as emotional connection to the natural world that has built his tremendous breadth of understanding and clarity in expressing these truths. Why it’s time to think about human extinction | Dr David Suzuki”
Does your MP Representative Recognize you Environmental Rights
The economy – the corporate agenda – is driving us on the path that we’re on.
Why its time to think about human extinction Dr David Suzuki
Suzuki has a wide breadth of understanding of many subjects. He was raised in an environment in which he had a very close relationship to the natural world. He learned to love and respect all different species and to recognize our integral connection to all of nature. His understanding of the importance of protecting the natural world fed his lifelong environmental activism and lead to the co-founding of the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, to “to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that does sustain us.
A genetic scientist, his academic background and expertise on the various subjects lends to his eloquence. Dr. David Suzuki has an enlightened manner. He smiles continuously as he speaks about these subjects, without contempt or anger in his voice or eyes. He is penetratingly clear and concise about what is important in life and what it is that all human beings should be aware of, educated in and what we need to do.
There are some things we can’t change – gravity, speed of light – other things like capitalism, the market, the economy, are human inventions that we can change.
Clean air is sacred – we can’t go 3 minutes without air. If the air is polluted, we become ill. Humans have a responsibility to protect this.
Clean water is sacred – we can’t go for 4 to 6 days without water. Our bodies are 60 to 70 % water. If the water is dirty, we become ill.
Clean soil (earth and fire) is sacred – we can’t go without food for 4 to 6 weeks, or we will die.
Every bit of the food we eat was once alive. All of the energy that our bodies use is derived from sunlight that has been captured and converted through photosynthesis. All the plants take in carbon out of the air and put oxygen back.
I feel that this should be mandatory viewing, However, I’m not the secretary of education nor am I living in a dictatorship which could mandate this. Suzuki mentions that we need to maintain a thread of hope. He recalls how President John F. Kennedy stated that America will put someone on the moon within a decade, in response to the successful Soviet space projects. At the time, the USA didn’t know how they would do this, but had the intention. We need to embrace this intention now. Who we vote in to office, as well as educating the voting public, is essential. What we buy and how we live is also critical.
Listening to this man could be a mind-bending and emotionally awakening experience. Suzuki understands and articulates why human beings should recognize our place and responsibility.
We are the only animals on the planet capable of destroying it, and perhaps the only ones who do not recognize that as we negatively impact our balance with nature, we will destroy ourselves.
This balance concerns human over-population, chemical pollution and damage to our air, water and soil, the destruction of life within an entire food chain in our biosphere, plastic pollution and the adverse effect of releasing carbon dioxide and methane into our atmosphere – warming the planet – and the destruction of habitats of creatures on land, sea and air, driving them to extinction. This includes the human beings.
He mentions Rachel Carson as a huge influence with the publication of her book in 1962, “Silent Spring“.
Rachel Carson wrote in Silent Spring about the deadly effects of the use of powerful chemicals in pesticides, specifically DDT. “Carson was a former marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Utilizing her many sources in federal science and in private research, she spent over six years documenting her analysis that humans were misusing powerful, persistent, chemical pesticides before knowing the full extent of their potential harm to the whole biota.”
Her book introduced the world for the first time the recognition that these chemicals are harmful, and the need for humans to be cautions, to educate ourselves and to act responsibly as stewards of the living earth. “Unlike most pesticides whose effectiveness is limited to destroying one or two types of insects, DDT was capable of killing hundreds of different kinds at once.” Because she specifically talked about the effects of DDT which was produced by powerful agricultural chemical corporations like Monsanto, with strong ties to the government, she was immediately attacked and discredited by several major media outlets.”The Deafening Criticism Against Silent Spring” mentions that she “wrote this before the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Love Canal, Three Mile Island, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the West Virginia chemical spill, and numerous other environmental disasters brought about by apparent corporate malfeasance.”
Yet her book published in 1962 spoke such a momentous truth that it was widely read. It lead to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and the banning of DDT in 1972.
The multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto was the first to manufacture DDT. They have produced a slew of very harmful chemicals since. Monsanto, a seed company as well, was recently bought by Bayer. They probably realized that it was to their advantage to have their name less public and publicized since they’ve been involved in numerous law suits. In fact, I just listened to Vandana Shiva interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now who said just that, Monsanto wished to hide its name. Vandana Shiva: We Must Fight Back Against the 1 Percent to Stop the Sixth Mass Extinction
Monsanto’s Dirty Dozen: The 12 Most Awful Products Made By Monsanto.”
Like everything else, the agrochemical companies have also consolidated their power. The Biggest Pesticide Companies in the World.
On the 50th anniversary of its publication, this article was published in the Smithsonian. “Crazy Lies Haters Threw at Rachel Carson“.
Suzuki talks of the impact of the eco philosopher and writer Clive Hamilton, his non-fiction book “Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change” written in 2010. Hamilton is an Australian academic who explores the reasons for climate change denial and its implications. Hamilton argues that questioning unfettered growth, challenges the conception of progress according to the mentality of the people who align themselves with the approach of the status quo market. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/16/requiem-for-a-species-clive-hamilton
Suzuki mentions that we can’t change the laws of nature, however we can change our human institutions. It is economics that is driving the warming of our environment, specifically through industries that are polluting and warming the atmosphere.
I had learned about Dr. David Suzuki several years ago, and was so tremendously impressed with what he expresses that I wrote a blog about him in 2016.
I learned of his daughter Severn Suzuki’s concern for the natural world and precocious eloquence in her presentation for the Rio climate summit in 1962. Not surprising, given the household she was raised in. I put together this blog about her also in 2016.
Servern Suzuki Rio 1992
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Carol Keiter the blogger 2019-02-22.
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