Love him or hate him, David Suzuki is a cultural icon of the environmental movement on the West Coast. Recently I saw his Carbon Manifesto video on Youtube, and it affected me. Suzuki lays out an argument that says we have forgotten that we rely on this planet for food, shelter, water and life; that we have trashed it in our pursuit of oil and cheap goods. He is speaking out for his grandchildren because they are the ones who will witness the planet change, but I am worried for myself and those who are in my generation. I am 26 years old, and with each new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that comes out the evidence shows that I and my generation will witness catastrophic climate conditions.
Hurricane Katrina, the recent tornado super-cell in the U.S. Midwest and Typhoon Haiyan are what are going to become the climate norm if we do not band together and do something. As more information is produced on climate change, Canada's own scientists are silenced on the subject by our current Conservative government, unable to speak out on climate issues or anything that interferes with the oil and gas companies' bottom lines.
Our government has become complicit with the neoliberal agenda of economic growth with no limit and has no regard for the consequences that this growth is having on the environment. David Suzuki is calling out his own generation as having lived large on the exploitation of cheap oil and states that the party is now over.
You may be saying to yourself that there is opposition to these statements, that climate science is a scam or that there is dissent amongst scientists about the validity of these claims. Scientists are not in disagreement. Over 95 per cent of scientists agree that climate change is happening and is caused by humans.
What I am asking you is if there is a chance that climate change is happening and that we are the cause, is it worth it to gamble on it not being true? At worst we spend billions of dollars on making our cities resilient to climate disaster and we didn't need to. At worst we end up cleaning our air of pollutants and managing our resources better for future generations. And if it is true, if devastating climate change and its effects are coming, wouldn't it be better to be prepared than to be caught out in the open and unprotected because oil and gas corporations and the governments that are in their pockets led us to believe that it was all a lie?
David Suzuki is throwing down the gauntlet and challenging the Canadian government and their reckless pursuit of tar-sands oil extraction. He accuses us, the people, of letting the government get away with it. As far back as 2009 Guardian writer and environmentalist George Monbiot has called out Canada as a corrupt petro-state. If we as a people are going to do our part to help limit the damage to our planet and Canada's reputation we need to call a referendum on the Northern Gateway Pipeline, on the Trans-Mountain Pipeline expansion and reckless resource extraction all over Canada. We need to protect our delicate ecosystems and diversity, our forests and oceans.
Political activism needs to be joined with environmental activism in order to take back our rights as a nation to protect the environment that we depend on for life. Climate change may be felt first in the poorer nations of our planet such as the Philippines, or the Maldives and other small island states as they begin to lose drinkable water to relentless sea level rise. What you cannot forget is that Vancouver is vulnerable to sea level rise as well. Even a rise of 0.2 - 0.4 meters could do millions of dollars' worth of damage to our city, and the IPCC has projected a four- to six-metre rise by 2100. Take a walk along the seawall under the Cambie Street Bridge and look at those painted lines on the bridge supports - that is how climate change can affect you personally if it hasn't already.
Love him or hate him, David Suzuki has asked us to join him to make sure this planet is able to sustain his grandchildren, and your grandchildren, nieces, nephews, sons and daughters for future generations. Will you help?
Lois Weir is an honours communication student at Simon Fraser University.
