David Suzuki

Dr. David Suzuki

David Takayoshi Suzuki, CC, OBC, BA, Ph.D (born March 24 1936), is a Canadian science broadcaster and environmental activist. Since the mid 1970s, Suzuki has become known for his TV and radio series and books about nature and the environment. He is best known as host of the popular and long-running CBC TV science magazine, The Nature of Things, seen in syndication in over 40 nations.

Early life

Suzuki and his twin sister Marcia were born to Setsu and Kaoru Carr Suzuki in Vancouver, Canada. Suzuki's maternal and paternal grandparents had immigrated to Canada at the beginning of the 20th century.

A third-generation Japanese-Canadian ("Canadian Sansei"), Suzuki and his family suffered internment in British Columbia during the Second World War from when he was six (1942) until after the war ended. In June 1942, the government sold the Suzuki family's dry-cleaning business, then interned Suzuki, his mother, and two sisters in a camp in the Slocan Valley in the BC Interior. His father had been sent to a labour camp in Solsqua two months earlier. Suzuki's sister, Dawn, was born in the internment camp.

After the war, Suzuki's family, like other Japanese Canadian families, was forced to move east of the Rockies. The Suzukis moved to Islington, Leamington, and London, Ontario. David Suzuki, in interviews, has many times credited his father for having interested him in, and sensitized him to, nature.

Suzuki attended Mill Street Elementary School and Grade 9 at Leamington Secondary School before moving to London, where he attended London Central Secondary School.

Academic career

Suzuki received his BA from Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1958, and his Ph.D in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961.

Early in his research career he studied genetics, using the popular model organism Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies). To be able to use his initials in naming any new genes he found, he studied Drosophila temperature-sensitive phenotypes (DTS). (As he jokingly noted at a lecture at Johns Hopkins University, the only alternative was "damn tough skin".) He gained several international awards for his research into these mutations. He was a professor in the zoology department at the University of British Columbia for over thirty years (from 1963 until his retirement in 2001), and has since been professor emeritus at a university research institute.

For his work popularizing science and environmental issues, he has been presented with 19 honorary degrees (all doctorates) from schools in Canada, The United States, and Australia.

Broadcasting career

Suzuki began in television in 1969 with the weekly show Suzuki on Science, a children's show. In 1974, he founded the radio programme Quirks and Quarks which he also hosted on CBC Radio One from 1975 to 1979. Throughout the 1970s, he also hosted Science Magazine, a weekly programme geared towards an adult audience.

Since 1979, Suzuki has hosted The Nature of Things, a CBC television show that has aired in nearly fifty countries worldwide. In this show, Suzuki aimed to stimulate interest in the natural world, to point out what some of the threats to human well-being and wildlife habitat were, and to point out some promising alternatives in terms of sustainability. Suzuki has been a very prominent proponent of renewable energy sources and the soft energy path.

Suzuki was also the host of the PBS series The Secret of Life.

A Planet for the Taking, a 1985 hit series, averaged more than 1.8 million viewers per episode and earned him a United Nations Environment Programme Medal in 1985. His perspective in this series is summed up in his statement: "We have both a sense of the importance of the wilderness and space in our culture and an attitude that it is limitless and therefore we needn't worry." He concludes with a call for a major "perceptual shift" in our relationship with nature and the wild.

Suzuki also did The Sacred Balance, a five hour mini-series on Canadian public television which was broadcast in October 2001.

In 2007, Suzuki made a cross-country tour in a diesel bus, lecturing Canadians about climate change and urging compliance with the Kyoto Accord. Gold Standard carbon offsets were purchased by the David Suzuki Foundation for all bus travel and tour activities.

Radio interview controversy

On February 15, 2007, Suzuki was interviewed at Toronto radio station AM 640 by morning show host John Oakley. Suzuki asserted that Canada should be branded "international outlaws" for reneging on Kyoto agreements, and dismissed as "a lot of baloney" Oakley's suggestion that some scientists feel intimidated from questioning global warming hypotheses.

After claiming that scientists who do express opposing views are "shills" for big corporations, Suzuki defended his own foundation by declaring that "corporations have not been interested in funding us" and that their financial backing comes "from ordinary Canadians". However, the foundation's 2005-06 annual report lists numerous corporate donors, including EnCana Corporation, Toyota and ATCO Gas

Suzuki's attitude attracted criticism from National Post columnist Barbara Kay, who wrote: "The remorseless pressure on Canadians to sign up for environmental orthodoxies that they are not cognitively equipped to judge is demoralizing and divisive. Tantrums by self-anointed prophets do not help the situation. Whatever the eventual outcome on the global warming front, we could all use a little non-partisanship, maturity and attitudinal cooling on the behavioural front".

Awards and honours

Suzuki is the author of thirty-two books (fifteen for children), including Genethics, Wisdom of the Elders, Inventing the Future, and the best-selling Looking At series of children’s science books.

Suzuki is the recipient of Canada’s most prestigious award, the Order of Canada Officer (1976) upgraded to Companion status in (2006), the Order of British Columbia (1995), UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for science (1986) and a long list of Canadian and international honours.

In 2004, David Suzuki was nominated as one of the top 10 "Greatest Canadians" by viewers of the CBC. In the final vote he finished fifth and therefore ranked as the greatest living Canadian. Suzuki said his own vote was for Tommy Douglas who was the eventual winner (aside from 1996 when he supported the Green Party, Suzuki has consistently endorsed the NDP, the party founded by Douglas, in provincial and federal elections).

In 2006, David Suzuki was the recipient of the Bradford Washburn Award presented at the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts.

Family

Suzuki was married to Setsuko Joane Sunahara from 1958 to 1965, with three children (Tamiko, Laura, and Troy). He married Tara Elizabeth Cullis in 1972. They have two daughters: Sarika and Severn Cullis-Suzuki. Severn, born in 1979, has also done environmental work, including speaking at environmental conferences.

David Suzuki's Japanese name is Takayoshi Suzuki (鈴木 孝義, Suzuki Takayoshi) but he is always known by his English name to the public, even in Japanese scientific and popular literature (using Romaji).

David Suzuki and his family (he, his wife, and two of their kids) produce only one bag of garbage per month, reusing or recycling everything else .

See also

• David Suzuki Foundation
• Conservation biology
• Soft energy path

References

• John C. Phillipson. "David Takayoshi Suzuki" in The Canadian Encyclopedia: Year 2000 Edition, James Marsh, ed. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1999. p. 2277. ISBN 0771020996
• David Suzuki. David Suzuki. Vancouver: Greystone, 2006. ISBN 1553651561
• David Suzuki. Metamorphosis. Toronto: Stoddart, 1991. ISBN 0773755098

External links

• Order of Canada Citation
• On the Tories Clean Air act from CBC The Hour
• From Naked Ape to Superspecies Series of MP3s from CBC
• Suzuki's curriculum vitae
• The David Suzuki Foundation, with the mission of popularization of science and environment
• Nature of Things official website
• Greatest Canadian bio
• David Suzuki at Saxton Speakers Bureau
• David Suzuki's scientific publications from PubMed
• Video Interview with David T. Suzuki
• David Suzuki talks about the year's record temperatures, CBC News: The Hour, December 6, 2005. Retrieved December 28, 2005.
• CBC Digital Archives: David Suzuki: Scientist, Activist, Broadcaster
• The Sacred Balance: a four part television series
• The Biotech Context (March 2006) - video and audio files of a speech given at the University of British Columbia
• "Global warming charlatan" - Joseph C. Ben-Ami's commentary on the John Oakley interview
• This Man Can't Save You interview with David Suzuki in ascent magazine