Award winner DAVID SUZUKI, Canada (Honorary Award)

Posted on by October 13, 2009 by Karin Styrenius

David Suzuki, the 2009 Right Livelihood Award Winner “…for his lifetime advocacy of the socially responsible use of
science, and for his massive contribution to raising awareness
about the perils of climate change and building public support for
policies to address it.”

David Suzuki is one of the most brilliant scientists, and communicators about
science, of his generation. Through his books and broadcasts, which have touched
millions of people around the world, he has stressed the dangers, as well as the
benefits, of scientific research and technological development. He has campaigned
tirelessly for social responsibility in science. For the past 20 years, he has been
informing the world about the grave threat to humanity of climate change and
about how it can be reduced.

Life and career choices
David Suzuki was born in Canada in 1936 to parents of Japanese descent. Following the
Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, the family was interned, and later, after the war,
settled in Ontario. With a PhD in zoology from the University of Chicago, Suzuki went to
the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1963, where he became Professor of
Zoology six years later, specialising in genetics.
During his scientific work, Suzuki became more and more concerned about both the
relationship between science and society, and the impacts of human activities on the
natural world. He says: “After a great deal of soul-searching I concluded that all scientific
insight has the potential to be applied for good or bad and the only way to minimise the
misapplication of science is an informed public.” While continuing his university
professorships until 2001, Suzuki gave up his laboratory research in the late 70s to
become one of the most important communicators on natural science in the world and “an
environmental icon” as the 2005 Right Livelihood Award Recipient Tony Clarke has
described him.
From 1979 until today, Suzuki has been the anchorman of “The Nature of Things with
David Suzuki”, a prime time science programme on Canadian television, which has been
sold to more than 80 countries. He has produced numerous other TV shows and series,
and has written 43 books, whereof 17 for children.

The David Suzuki Foundation
In 1988, Suzuki’s 5-part radio series about the global ecosystem crisis, It’s a Matter of
Survival, produced letters from 16,000 listeners asking what could be done. Suzuki’s
response was to set up, in 1990, with his wife, Dr. Tara Cullis, the David Suzuki
Foundation (DSF). Since its inception, DSF has become a nationally recognized and
trusted voice on issues of the environment, one that is increasingly asked to speak on
matters of critical importance.

In 2008, the David Suzuki Foundation reviewed its progress over the first two decades of
its existence, and decided to focus its future efforts on five key areas.
1. Reconnecting with nature – Helping Canadians to become aware of their profound
interdependence with nature.
2. Protecting natural systems – Working to ensure that systems are in place to protect
the diversity and resilience of Canada’s marine, freshwater, terrestrial and atmospheric
ecosystems.
3. Transforming the economy – Encouraging a transition of Canada’s economy towards
increased well-being, fairness and quality of life, while recognizing the finite limits of
nature.
4. Living neighbourhoods – Empowering citizens to live healthier, more fulfilled and
just lives.
5. Protecting our climate – Holding Canada to account for doing its fair share to avoid
dangerous climate change.
In 2009, the David Suzuki Foundation had 58 staff members and an annual budget of
nearly CND 7 million, which comes from numerous foundations, and tens of thousands
of individual supporters.

Climate change
For many years, Suzuki has been at the forefront of the climate debate, informing the
public about the extreme urgency to act, which follows from the best scientific evidence
in the field. Suzuki has called Canadian Prime Minister Harper an “outlaw”, because he is
not following the Kyoto protocol although Canada has ratified it. At a speech in 2009 at
McGill University, he said: “When you have politicians who are advised by scientists
how bad climate change is going to hit, and by economists how bad it is for the economy,
and they still do not take action, that is an intergenerational crime, which should be
prosecuted”. Together with a group of engineers, Suzuki is now working on a study to
see if and how Canada can get its energy entirely from renewable sources.

Suzuki on biotech
In his own discipline of genetics, Suzuki has played a crucial role in informing and
warning the public about the weak and risky scientific basis of many of today’s
commercial applications of genetic engineering. With science writer, Peter Knudtson, he
wrote of his concerns in Genethics: The Ethics of Engineering Life. In an article
Biotechnology: Panacea or Hype?, he writes: “Every scientist should understand that in
any young, revolutionary discipline, most of the current ideas in the area are tentative and
will fail to stand up to scrutiny over time. In other words, the bulk of the latest notions are
wrong. The rush to exploit new products will be based on inaccurate hypotheses and
questionable benefits and could be downright dangerous. The discipline is far from
mature enough to leave the lab or find a niche in the market. The problem is that those
pushing its benefits stand to gain enormously from it.”
Suzuki’s role in Canadian society
An important aspect of Suzuki’s and DSF’s work is his relationship with Canada’s First
Nations. He used many of his broadcasts to campaign for their rights of decision over
their ancestral resources, and has been formally adopted by three tribes, and made an
honorary chieftain of one.
In a 2009 poll on ‘Who does Canada Trust Most?’ in the Canadian Readers’ Digest,
Suzuki was ranked no. 1. Suzuki holds a large number of honorary doctorates and has
received Canada’s highest honour, Companion to the Order of Canada.

Quote
“Conventional economics is inevitably destructive and unsustainable because it ignores
nature’s services as ‘externalities’. But nature maintains the biosphere as a healthy place
for animals like us. Growth is just a description of the state of a system, yet economists
equate growth with progress as if growth is the very purpose of economics. So we fail to
ask ‘how much is enough?’, ‘what is an economy for?’, ‘am I happier with all this stuff?’.
Steady growth forever is impossible in a finite world and our world is defined by the
biosphere, the zone of air, water and land where all life exists. Endless growth within the
biosphere is like the goal of cancer within our body. We need to internalize the services
of nature in an ecological economics system and work towards ‘steady state economics’.”