Entertainment
David Suzuki's Final Stand
By John Burns published Oct 1, 2010
The Legacy started as a lecture; now it’s both a book and the basis of a documentary in theatres October 1. How did it come about? Often when a professor reaches retirement age he gives a last lecture to sum up what he’s acquired over a lifetime of thinking. [UBC’s Department of Zoology hired Suzuki in 1963.] That’s what this gave me—the opportunity to hone a few ideas that I could present as summation of a life of science and broadcasting. The book has the same basic theme, delivered in the same spirit, as the speech. But there were a lot of things I was able to expand. I completely wrote the thing myself. So many books I have people working with me and basically they do all the work. But this book, it’s mine and I’m very pleased with it.
Is it your legacy? Someone asked me a couple of months ago, “How do you want to be remembered?” My answer was “I don’t really give a shit how I’m remembered—I’m going to be dead.”
In the book, you talk about all the changes you’ve seen over your life. Have we progressed? In 1988, I interviewed the newly appointed minister of the environment, Lucien Bouchard. I said to him, “What is the most important issue we face?” And he said, “Global warming. It threatens the survival of our species.” That’s 22 years ago. What’s happened since? Fewer people take global warming seriously now. There’s not a single environmental problem that we had in 1962 that isn’t still a problem today. The difficulty is that we fight so many battles in the environmental area. We lose most, but even when we win it’s only temporary. Thirty years ago I was involved in fighting with First Nations against the proposal to drill for oil in Hecate Strait, and we won that. We fought 30 years ago against a plan to create a dam at Site C on the Peace River, and we won. Guess what? Those things have come back now. Our victories are temporary, and meanwhile, when we lose, the planet’s resilience is being reduced.
