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Suzuki's Nature — Page 3
The distorted amplification of celebrity,
despite its drawbacks, still favours those with a specific
message—as the saying goes, there is no such thing
as bad publicity. Unfortunately, those who seek constant
publicity make good targets for others trying to generate
some buzz of their own. Noble cause notwithstanding,
Suzuki has been accused of favouring activism over research,
of polluting the environment with his bus tour (even
though it was a carbon-neutral venture), and, for those
who have approached his Dr. Jekyll but encountered his
Mr. Hyde, of just plain being a jerk.
Upon encountering Suzuki for the first time, one might
be surprised at how quickly his voice can raise and
the expletives can fly. “I can see why it would
put some people off that he gave them some lip,”
says Welton, “because you expect David Suzuki
to be almost like a Care Bear. You really do. You go
up to David and you want to just give him a hug and
be like, ‘You’re the greatest’ and
just shake him around—that’s what I want
to do when I see him now, I want to give him a hug and
shake him around. But he’s a 71-year-old man with
his own ideas and he gets it constantly, so I can see
why he’d want to push back.”
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The recent explosion
of ecology chatter echoes the mass flirtation
with jungle-love awareness of the late 1980s when
Brian Mulroney and George Bush Sr. promised to
make the environment their priority.
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Day 24 of the bus tour finds a clear Saturday in Calgary.
Capacity seating and standing ovations marked the previous
day’s breakfast event, and more of the same is
expected at this evening’s speech in Edmonton.
Between lectures, Suzuki’s schedule is packed
with media engagements, ranging from morning shows and
an Entertainment Tonight appearance to PR-hobnobs
with scientists, politicians, hockey players, and Barenaked
Ladies. This sunny morning finds him strolling down
a Calgary side street on the way to a radio interview,
his tour assistant Teresa and cameraman Kyle in tow.
The occasional driver breaks to gawk, recognizing Suzuki’s
Brillo-pad goatee and mischievous smile. A white work
van slows. The driver rolls down his window and yells,
“Global warming is a scam!” Kyle and Teresa—insulated
by the warm receptions they’ve received throughout
the tour—are stunned, repeating the phrase quietly
to each other to make sure they heard right. Suzuki
doesn’t break stride.
He’s been here before. Since the 1970s Suzuki
has been vilified by those who question the validity
of global warming science. As recently as February,
he was taken to task by the National Post in
an article championing the environmental views of novelist
Michael Crichton, who called global warming “at
best unproven and at worst pure fantasy.” The
writer, Barbara Kay, dismissed Suzuki’s passionate
preaching under the rubric “tantrums by self-appointed
prophets.” Even as the evidence of global warming
has grown from convincing to downright obvious, he still
faces the possibility of verbal assault whenever he
steps out in public—a stranger insults him as
he works out on a treadmill in Winnipeg; an airline
passenger accuses him of being friends with Saddam Hussein
as he deplanes in Edmonton; and now, in Calgary, a stranger
suggests that global warming is some kind of pyramid
scheme.
Annoying, yes, but any talk of global warming is good
press, and if it replaces the wolf whistle from van
windows, all the better. Ideas without conflict don’t
make news—drama is what keeps us glued to the
page, screen, and speaker. So if a stranger in Calgary
wants to make an ass of himself, Suzuki should be pleased
that his message is getting out and global warming is
on everybody’s mind.
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