David Suzuki on how the environmental movement has failed fighting climate change | Ask Me Anything 

David, my parents , like yours, came out of the Depression and WwIi. I grew up like you. My dad could and did fix everything... Never saw a repairman. He was so proud of this. Nowadays nothing is rrpsired... People buy new and old goes into landfill. Bring back repair shops!

The movement "talked the talk" but unfortunately not enough "walk the walk". The only way forward is backwards. Living a simple non-consumeristic local life, respectful of all other living creatures and their life support systems.

I watched The Nature of Things for years. The reality is that the majority of the people I know just do not care about our planet. They have some awareness of the problems that our earth is facing due to our massive consumerism. We know that governments and business will not do what needs to be done. We, as individuals, can do something - there are enough of us in the developed world to make a difference. People find me weird that I do care and try, in my little way, to make decisions to live with a lighter footprint. One small example, I grow a lot of my own vegetables. Some vegetables are easy to grow. My neighbours' reactions are that its too much trouble and its easier to go to the store to buy them. And we live in the countryside with lots of land - we have huge gardens and available land.

The fact that BC is still allowing companies to cut down old growth forests is just mind blowing to me. In my mind those trees don't belong to governments and logging companies since they didn't plant them. We need those forests to balance out the destruction humans are causing...

We used to watch "The Nature of things" in Africa in 1980's. I still remember his warnings about global warming and used a visual of the goldfish in the glass of water. All his arguments were always based on his scientific knowledge. So true that the leaders are not leading...

I'm really enthusiastic about climate because I like breathing. 🤨

I lost faith in humanity a long time ago, too many of us can't see the forest through the trees. Just reading the comments on here there are people who still believe that Rebel Media article by Ezra Levant. And I agree that electric cars are made to save the auto industry, not the planet.

I agree with the other comments, we really need trees we must stop cutting them down...it's most important 💚

Inequality. And people protecting their stash.

I agree about public transit. I live in rural bc. I would LOVE a train that takes me to the nearest citites. It would be amazing for seniors too who shouldn't be driving but need to go the city hospitals

You know, David, you indeed failed because you spent all of your time on the science that far too many people neither understood nor believed. I once wrote the Suzuki Foundation pleading with them to recruit economists and social engineers to go to resource communities and work on helping them build different economies. I got a terribly dismissive response that said this is not their mission. The problem isn’t the politicians; the problem is this bloody human construct we call “the economy” and if you can’t “show” people real concrete alternatives, nothing will change.

Tell people to reduce their emission those who own , 3 cars, a boat, a motorcicle , a motorhome etc in so many households living in big houses for 3 individual and so on. Its crazy

There's a few misconceptions said by David Suziki. Particularly regarding EVs. A EV saves way more than 3% what an ICE does. I've no idea what his calculations were, but consider 10 years of gas vs. 10 years of electricity that comes from renewables.

The UN Environmental Program said in 1990 that would be the decade of decision on the environment. Well, we decided. We were also at 5 billion humans then.

i'm listening David Suzuki,...watta LEADER !

Terrific talk about solutions to saving Planet Earth so we can live together with Mother Earth in a healthy way for humanity and Mother Earth. The music and anthams to support Mother Earth and the environment is a great idea. Sort of having a Live Aid trans Atlantic concert for carbon reduction and green movements like planting trees, carbon sinks, reducing burning oil and coal and taxing it more.

I wonder how many heads will turn when people hear that electric cars are not the solution and we are wasting money into electric car battery plants.

What would be nice to hear from this grandfather is: "Stop having children!" But it seems that David Suzuki does not have the intellectual courage to do so. If not a single human baby is born in 'the civilized world' (excluding the people of the North Sentinel Island and other isolated tribes) for 44 YEARS, humankind can still be a viable species on this planet. (The babies that are at age 0 today would be able to procreate --if they so wished-- to ensure the continuation of our species.) In other words, those who keep bringing children to this world are DOING HUMANKIND NO FAVOR! Generations (OF MILLIONS OF SPECIES) to come will certainly be paying for the crimes and mistakes of us who are living today, no matter what we do. I write these as a 61-year-old man who never had a child (and no woman got pregnant because of me).

David is a legend in Canada , he has our utmost respect. Thank you David for teaching us over the years. Take care and thank you. BT Barrie Ontario 🇨🇦

Human society has always manipulated it's environment to it's needs, all too successfully...the "chickens have come home to roost"...right now,right here, today.

David lived as most 1% people did. Owned many homes, travelled extensively in planes. His carbon footprint was huge. That was his action. Talk is cheap.

Environmental movement has become mental. They dropped the ball when they abandoned building consensus and opted for performative theatractics and NIMBYism. Blocking highways and ruining works of art tarnishes environmentalism.

"if we wait until climates around the world start to change, we waited too long"

Climate change is based on two little ideas. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and water expands as it warms

I keep hearing that the main issue from everyone including myself is that we just don't know what to do and expect someone to give us all a strict checklist. Everyone and our circumstances are different so this manner of thinking and hesitation is doomed to fail. Procrastination with no personal punishment or fault. A cultural shift needs to happen in Canada and around the world like South Korea and their food compost and efficiency programs. The paraphrase "hope means nothing without action to go along with it" needs to be heard again and again to truly get people to follow along, amazing.

How many properties does David own

Please Dr. Suzuki please listen to me. You have a key! Televise a benefit, bucks for green technology, AND put lists of environmental pieces that need to be found on NET and send us the tech we need to use, and YOU Can Do IT!

Thank you for suggesting that we reduce acquisition of consumer durables. It is very risky, however, to suggest that our species veer away from eating meat. One of the most wasteful industries out there is the medical industry. Let’s try to optimize human health, okay?

You have been a scientist for a long time what is your standing on fukashima dumping radio active waste in the pacific.

how many homes does david own now? i'm sure he travels by public transit, too.

Too many people have now woken up to the fallacy, that cbc spreads propaganda through the likes of Suzuki

I hear a lot of complaining and no solutions. Imaging arguing that rail transport isn’t a viable solution.

I've always had great respect for you David Suzuki, but unless 8 billion humans come together as an agreement that we're all on the same biospherirical (sp) life boat all life is screwed...It is.. If people that had millions or billions of excess moola,they could lead by example. I'm sure you probably d9 good things with your extra currency, but Jesus man ,I see where you don't even understand the predicament were in. It's amazing we lasted this long.

Keep ignoring the reality of the magnetic excursion. See what happens.

Considering Suzuki spent his life as an employee of a state paid for media, he keeps blinders on to the independent scientific community that looks beyond the political agenda that influences Suzuki.

@16:45 -- [sigh!] He's spouting the same old debunked/outdated tropes about EVs' carbon footprint. Maybe it's a good thing after all that he's retiring.

The Great Waves Phrophecy ~ "What will take place is that the world will become warmer, producing greater loss of food production and great scarcity of water resources in many places in the world while there will be tremendous flooding in other places. Energy resources will diminish, creating economic upheaval and in some places even collapse. Everything will become immensely expensive. There will be great competition and a great risk of conflict and war over gaining access to the remaining resources. Certain regions will be devastated. Others will be impaired. Many industries will fail. There will be many people out of work. There will be the risk of great starvation in many parts of the world, even in parts of the wealthy nations. There will have to be ever-increasing international agreements. Food will have to be distributed where it is needed most. There will be great shortages of medicines and medical care, even in the wealthy nations. There will be tremendously destructive weather events." A quote from the book The Great Waves od Change

It's better than never for "woke-katers" to be involved whether at beginner or exceptional stage in the challenge to a balanced eco world. Not without gratitude to the fossil fuel industry that has given our past parental generation a relief to live. Compared to the talks of today shoving it out away paints a constipated artistic view, which dilutes the motive and will to survive for all. I appreciate the changes that comes through from the trustable and worthy eye. That sees out of "caring". Rather than having all in one boat, to perceive capsizing is to engross a vision of a ship large enough for everyone. In that vision the water seems safer than the land. " What have we done!?"

The average person cannot help this cause with things like getting off of fossil fuel when the cost of living is so high. Most people make decisions based on what they can afford. It's not necessarily a choice. I would love a hydrogen car, but it costs more than a mercedes.

David is a GREAT CANADIAN HERO and Role Model

Kenneth E.F. Watt, Ecology Professor (1970) "If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 years colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age" Newsweek article: The cooling world (1975) "There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only ten years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada, the USSR in the north, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas - parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina, and Indonesia - where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon"..."In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant over-all loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually." John Holdren - Global Ecology: Readings toward a rational strategy for man (1971) Claimed human activities were "responsible for the present world cooling trend". "Jet exhausts" and "man-made changes in the reflectivity of the earth's surface through urbanization, deforestation, and the enlargement of deserts". It predicted "carbon dioxide induced famines by year 2000". John Holdren was Obama's lead scientist. Paul R. Ehrlich - Speach at the British Institute for Biology (1971) "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people. If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000 and give ten to one that the life of the average Briton would be of distinctly lower quality than it is today."

David Suzuki can absolutely pull off a convincing Mr Miyagi in a new movie or as a flash back in Cobra Kai

I was introduced to David Suzuki in biology class in 1974, he has been my lifelong educator.

I was very forturnate to have met, and heard Dr. David Suzuki speak at an educational Professional Day years ago. He has certainly earned the respect, and honor of being addressed as Dr. Suzuki.

For the past 7 years I have gone to solar energy, drive an EV, bike or walk, stopped buying plastics, buy second hand products, eat plant-based non-processed food, stopped traveling outside of my city, save water, spend more time in nature. If only others did similar. The more people that do these things, it forces governments to change.

I don't see any differences since I was a kid. LOL

Live simply so that others less fortunate may simply live.

I once admired him, now I can't stand him. He's nothing more than a hypocrite. Let's talk about his carbon footprint.

68 years of wanting a better enviroment and getting blamed as a boomer and a tree hugger. I am moving to Austalia there is not value of living with climate deniers

How has it failed? I thought we were all supposed to be dead by year 2000 from climate change 😂

Unfortunately David Suzuki has had the platform for a long time but has never contributed or been willing to listen logical solutions. His society just asks for money and neither comes up with or listens to ideas. When asked about solutions he talks about blue jeans instead of hemp based clothes. He was against biochar because he hadn't studied it enough. Rather than electric cars why didn't he push really small cars, scooters, cargo bikes or velomobiles every one using a fraction of the energy and much easier on the environment. Heavy industry wastes enormous amounts of energy and resources without a second thought because it's so cheap. Many more things but you won't hear any from him. I'm sadly disappointed that he tried to get the message out but never got the message himself and instead hijacked anyone who could help.

The alternative to fuel is worse

Good weather is weather, bad weather is climate change... More of a new-age pagan religion than any sort of objective scientific endeavor.

He's right about the cars, the planes, and trains, what he's talking about is appeasement, On Native Land could be considered more. Thank the trees thank the Oceans, thank the air that we breathe.

Toronto has not had an air quality alert since 2014, according to the Toronto Star.

He says, as he travels in a personal plane ✈️

I don't think spraying the skies helps because it gets on every thing including our water and food and blocking the sun can't be good either I don't think life could go on without the sun.

Turn the kids against their parents, sounds like a ploy that has been tried before

Have we considered guillotines?

Guys, do you remember back in the early 80s when Dave absolutely guaranteed that there would be no ski hills left in the USA by the year 2000 because of global warming, I see his lunacy continues today 😂😂

4:31 Word.

Talk to your Bank Manager then choose a bank with the lowest carbon footprint / funding of oil industry.

I love David but....he was under a mistaken concept that people really are self determining....the evidence is contrary....things happen to him ,not necessarily to the individual, but absolutely to the masses....the masses react not act...

The Ultra rich believe they can live on Mars . They must believe that they can live on Earth , and turn it into a Mars . PS: Thumberg uses Jets & and fossil fuel vehicles to get around . She makes [individually] more carbon than 35% of the world's population does . "How Dare you! " .

He’s right, look how brutally hot it was last week? The hottest globally for the whole week ever

CIAzuki Foundation!

One of the wisest men on the entire planet! Love you Uncle Dave!!! ❤

Every time a Carbon Footprint disappears from Hastings Street. An environmentalist takes another transoceanic flight to save the world.

I use to admire this man. But now I see he is not on the side of humanity and peace. He is another shill who has been bought. If others said the stuff he has, they’d be in jail. Either he’s become less wise in his old age, or he was a never who he seemed to be. This guy is rich, what is he willing to sacrifice? It’s really easy for one to preach, but what you practice is what matters.

He was and is a hypocrite. Remember the “saving energy equals more beer” adds on TV. He tells us how we should live as he bombed around Canada in a massive bus.

Stop making it worse. Slow down the above ground detonations.

Greta, is he referring to the high school drop out0?

Wait, I though you already retired?

To the people that don't think climate change isn't real. When I was little it used to snow in late September, now we're lucky to get snow in November. It's been like the for the past 10 years now. I remember there being a bunch of snow when we were trick or treating on Halloween, now it's hot in October

I dont know about you guys but a 100% tax on exhaling carbon dioxide seems legit about now...

WE'RE SCREWED AHAHAHAHAHAH :DDDDD

We care about making money...and basically burning fossil fuels makes money

Action is doing, so far all I see is talking, more talking, and lots more talking. Nobody is doing. We call them hippocrites Lets stop oil. Then within 3 months we'd be starving, have nothing to wear or drink. and it'll be very cold this winter.

Grandpa Suzuki with his four Mansions preaching to anyone foolish enough to care.

Bye bye

healthcare

How Dare You!!!!

There was the Jack nickelson hydrogen car the ping pong ball info commercial what the hell happened

At least Just Stop Oil are trying …

I'm sorry but there is no way in any shape or form if it touches my freedom of movement I am not onboard. It completely goes against what we achieved so far as a species. Wrights brother flying machine was in pursuit of freedom, the cars, the innovations and all this stuff in the spirit of human and that lies in the pursuit of freedom. All the innovation etc and of modern life.

tabatout

If there aren't any viable solutions brought to the table it's just yelling.

I lost faith in Suzuki when I discovered that his lifestyle is at the complete opposite of what he is preaching. He is a true hypocrite.

Thanks for your career work, did not about your long running show, I wish I had known, not your fault, I don't know why there's not enough interest in climate or reality for that matter, can't wait for more interest at large, I'm doing my part since 2012, not the same lifestyle, and I'm working on solutions because "no planet B", and I going to have life support from Earth forever, my mental state is vital to accomplish that, free will to live with perfect air, food, shelter, wardrobe, hygiene all provided by Earth and Earth's jurisdiction, Earth is working at that with me, evidence of that will appear to me. The emergency as I see it the oceans are to hot and for my continued living here that heat has to escape to upper cooler atmosphere, I'm doing an Albert Einstein thought experiment, what if I can convince a hurricane to turn upside down? You can do some calculations I can't, in your spare time thought experiment that, what if you accidentally came up with something, it's an emergency we gotta think outta the box, no machinery needed, we live in an intelligent place and maturing, getting better and at life support, the best is yet to come, thanks David!

good news channel

Not my problem

How will the goverment survive with out 10billion in gas taxes a year😰

Just imagine one of the most vast largest countries in the world WITH one of the lowest population densities being blamed for global climate change.

Ripped jeans do look good, but they look better when they're naturally well worn, takes about 5 years of wearing them often to get some natural splits after the surface cotton has worn off the knees leaving the horizontal strings...

Find stuff off the planet

Why doesn’t Suzuki condemn the Asian countries as the biggest contributors to CO2 , China is building more coal fired power stations to power its wasteful manufacturing industries which dump millions of cheap consumer goods on the world market. Then what about INDIA it’s population is soaring out of control, 1.4 billion people now and they all want a high consuming Western lifestyle. Asia has more than half the worlds population in an area of about 5%of the earths surface including oceans , a very concentrated population if they continue to modernise and demand the wasteful consumer way of life the worlds environment will suffer , imagine China and India with the equal standard of living as the USA, 2 billion more cars on the road for a start ,the answer is reduce population and Asia is the worst offender.

I thought Suzuki was dead. I will be just like Suzuki and care for the environment once I have made my millions, have several large homes and properties and of course the cars. Suzuki got his and I’m going to get mine as well and I think that climate change gravy train will get it for me as well. David Suzuki and the CBC are not worth listening too. Bo

Sorry, this is depressing

We have trains and it costs huge formthe fares.

Probably due to people like Suzuki who have cried wolf too many times and hence have no credibility anymore.