David Suzuki Foundation

by David Suzuki, Dec. 4th 2009

I'd like to begin by thanking the Right Livelihood Foundation for the great honour you have bestowed on me. Thanks too, to Stephen Lewis who put the effort into nominating me.

I would not have been able to do what I have in my life without the efforts of my wife, the brains and the looks beside me, Dr. Tara Cullis.

A lot of people at The Nature of Things and the David Suzuki Foundation, have worked very hard on programs and projects, yet people give me a lot of the credit for their efforts. And the Canadian public by watching my programs in substantial numbers, kept me on air as host of The Nature of Things for thirty years. So I accept this award with gratitude on behalf of all the people who have made me look good.

In a few days, delegates will gather in Copenhagen to try to come to some kind of agreement on how to tackle the challenge of human-induced climate change. Vested interest groups - the fossil fuel and auto industries - and a few dissident petro-states like Canada, will attempt to water down any hard targets and I fear we will not be able to respond adequately to the urgent threats from human activity.

Now it is true, ever since life appeared on the planet some 3.8 billion years ago, living organisms have interacted with and changed the physical and chemical properties of the planet: weathering rock and mountains; absorbing carbon and sequestering it as limestone; creating the oxygen rich atmosphere by photosynthesis; making soil; filtering water; and so on. But those processes took millions of years and involved tens of thousands of species.

Now, we are suddenly and singlehandedly altering the physical, chemical and biological features of the planet on a massive scale. From a plane 10 kilometers above the earth, you can see our impact - immense lakes behind dams, clearcut patches of forest, huge farms and cities. We have become a geological force.

Not long ago, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, drought, forest fires and earthquakes were referred to as "natural disasters" or "acts of God". Not any more. We have joined god as a major force causing these events.

Human use of fossil fuels is altering the chemistry of the atmosphere; oceans are polluted and depleted of fish; 80% of Earth's forests are heavily impacted or gone yet their destruction continues. An estimated 50,000 species are driven to extinction each year. We dump millions of tonnes of chemicals, most untested for their biological effects, and many highly toxic, into air, water and soil.

We have created an ecological holocaust. Our very health and survival are at stake, yet we act as if we have plenty of time to respond.

When our species appeared in Africa 150,000 years ago, we were not very impressive. Our advantage over all other species was the human brain that endowed us with a massive memory, curiosity and creativity.

That brain imagined a future and recognized that we could influence that future by using our experience and knowledge to see danger and opportunity. Foresight, the ability to look ahead, was our unique advantage and enabled us to spread across the planet and occupy every continent. We are now the most numerous mammal in the world, and with technology, consumption and a global economy, we are undermining the very things that keep us alive and healthy.

But we have increased our ability to look ahead with scientists, supercomputers and telecommunications. And for over 40 years, leading scientists of the world have been telling us we are on a dangerous path, that there are opportunities if we shift direction. Yet now we turn our backs on the very survival strategy of our species -- look ahead to avoid the dangers and exploit the opportunities.

Instead, we complain about the cost of changing our ways. The Prime Minister of Canada has refused to honour the Kyoto protocol and opposes a binding agreement with hard targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. He tells us: "Canada is a northern country so we need to use more fossil fuels. Besides, it will cost too much to reduce emissions". And to that I say, "thank god for Sweden." Like Canada, Sweden is a northern country, yet by enacting a carbon tax, you have reduced emissions beyond the Kyoto target while the economy has grown by 44%. So thank you for putting the lie to my Prime Minister's claims.

For most of human existence, we have been local tribal animals. Now we have to ask, "What is the collective impact of all 6.8 billion people in the world?" But there is no mechanism to act as a single species in our common interests.

Instead, we fiercely defend our boundaries around property, cities, provinces or countries. But human borders mean nothing to air, water, windblown soil or seeds or migrating fish, birds or mammals.

My Prime Minister regards the economy as our highest priority and forgets that economics and ecology are derived from the same Greek word, oikos, meaning household or domain. Ecology is the study of home, while economics is its management. Ecologists try to define the conditions and principles that enable a species to survive and flourish. Yet in elevating the economy above those principles, we seem to think we are immune to the laws of nature. We have to put the "eco" back into economics.

The current economic system is fundamentally flawed and inevitably destructive. Nature performs "services" that keep the planet habitable for animals like us: photosynthesis removes carbon dioxide and generates oxygen. Nature filters water, creates soil, sequesters carbon, and so on. Yet economists call such ecosystem services "externalities". They are not considered a part of our economic system.

Now there are some things in the world we can`t change -- gravity, entropy, the speed of light, the first and second Laws of Thermodynamics, and our biological nature that requires clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and biodiversity for our health and well being. Protecting the biosphere should be our highest priority or else we sicken and die.

Other things, like capitalism, free enterprise, the economy, currency, the market, are not forces of nature, we invented them. They are not immutable and we can change them. It makes no sense to elevate economics above the biosphere, for example.

Economists think the critical part of our economy is us. We are so clever, creative and productive. And since there is no limit to human imagination and creativity, economists believe the economy can and must grow forever which is an impossibility. Growth is not an end or goal, it's just a description of a state of a system. Yet if you ask a politician or business executive how well they did last year, they will point to growth in market share, profit or GDP.

If we think growth is progress, well no one wants to impede progress, so we fail to ask the important questions like "What is an economy for?" "Are we happier with all this stuff?" "How much is enough?" "Why does a global economy act as if a Mongolian horseman, a farmer on the Andes and a Papua New Guinean highlander have the same aspirations and needs?"

If we continue to set human borders and the economy as our highest priorities, we will never come to grips with the destructiveness of our activities and institutions.

When our species was born, we looked out at a chaotic world and the human brain imposed order and meaning in myriad ways, looking ahead and imagining the world into being. That was our great gift. So now the challenge is to imagine a different world where our wealth is in human relations and the things we do together, and we learn to live in balance with the rest of nature. By imagining a future, we know where we want to go and then we can marshall our creative abilities to make it happen as we always have.

Video gift by the Flyt Foundation

In honour of Dr. David Suzuki being named the 2009 Right Livelihood Prize Honouree, The Flyt Foundation (Forwarding Leadership through Youth Transformation) created a 3-minute video as a gift to David Suzuki and the Foundation featuring in-part exclusive footage from interviews and Dr. Suzuki's speech recorded from the day of the Summit:

David Suzuki has been preparing for the lecture of a lifetime this fall as he works on his first feature film. Tickets to this event sold out immediately, but it's not too late to get in on this amazing opportunity!

You can catch a sneak preview of the lecture by attending the rehearsal on Dec. 10. Ticket prices have been reduced to $20 as there might be minor interruptions during the filming of the event. Don't hesitate, the event is next week and tickets won't last long. All proceeds for this event will support the work of the David Suzuki Foundation.

David Suzuki: The Legacy Lecture
December 10, 2009, 1:00 PM
Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
University of British Columbia
6265 Crescent Road, Vancouver

http://www.ticketmaster.ca/David-Suzuki-tickets/artist/903544

A recent survey of more than 16,000 Canadian university and college students rated our very own David Suzuki Foundation as one of Canada's Top Campus Employers. We were #10!

But really, you don't have to work at the David Suzuki Foundation to do meaningful work (although I highly recommend it). You can bring your values to any workplace, and you should.

Not long ago we realized that employees were looking for this very type of information- how to become more engaged at their workplace. After all, you are spending hours and hours there, right? It's practically a second family. Up and coming generations also seem less interested in "sucking it up" (as your mother might say) -- they want their employer to have values much like their own.

That's one of the reasons we created the David Suzuki at Work Toolkit. Download the toolkit and get a little David Suzuki vibe in your work place!

*****

Cream of student job seekers shoot for strategic positions
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
Canwest News Service

Andrea Belvedere is a go-getter. A marketing major at Ryerson University in Toronto, she also devotes considerable time to Students in Free Enterprise and the Ryerson Entrepreneur Institute. Top of mind, though, for the 22-year-old who will finish her studies in December is the type of job she hopes to land and the characteristics she'd like to see in her employer.

"My top priority is to find interesting, engaging work," says Belvedere. "I'm not necessarily concerned about the title. I'm concerned about the ability to grow and develop. Opportunities and challenges excite ment. . . .

"I'm willing to invest myself in a company if they are willing to invest in me. I've heard people use the expression, 'You don't owe anybody anything', but I completely disagree with that. I think that if an employer offers you something worthwhile and that you can excel in, then absolutely you owe that organization your best."

She plans to focus on the not-for-profit sector, where she has experience. "I have worked at companies where there are a lot of volunteer efforts, initiatives to give back, and that interests me because I spend a lot of time volunteering. If a company does nothing on this front, I would see that as an opportunity to introduce that component to them."

Belvedere's thoughts and goals are mirrored in the findings in Canada's Top Campus Employers, a recent survey of more than 16,000 Canadian university and college students conducted by the research and consulting firms Brainstorm Consulting and DECODE.

"This is the sixth year for the survey and our findings have been consistent," says Graham Donald of Brainstorm Consulting in Victoria, B.C. "We know that the opportunity to do something good, useful and meaningful for others is incredibly strong among this generation. No previous generation has been as interested in volunteering and giving back."

The findings show three for-profit companies cracked the list of top 10 employers identified by this year's respondents: Google, Apple and Microsoft. The top employer brand was the Government of Canada, followed by provincial and municipal governments. The list also includes Health Canada, the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, the Canadian Cancer Society and the David Suzuki Foundation. In addition to providing insights into students' career goals, the survey upends views of a generation typically viewed as entitled, dedicated to the short-term and unwilling to work hard, says Donald.

"The fact is the kinds of things that are meaningful to them are things we all value. The difference is they are willing to ask for them."

"Generally speaking, this generation is strategic and has a very specific list of criteria that have to be met by employers," says Eric Meerkamper of DECODE in Toronto. "They want work that's interesting; they insist on work-life balance; they want great people to work with -- this is even more important than who they work for -- and job security. They consider these before they worry about what the salary will be."

Since the survey launched in 2004, one of the key myth-busting trends to emerge is the desire for job security. When asked: Do you believe if you work hard and are loyal to an employer they will be loyal to you? A majority, 71 per cent, say yes. What's more, 53 per cent of respondents say they would like to find one employer where they can spend their entire career -- an option Belvedere, for one, finds appealing.

"Employers who aren't asking new recruits about long-term plans are missing an opportunity to develop long-term employees," says Meerkamper. "These students are attracted to a stable company that can provide opportunities for learning and training. They are very rational and draw a line from that stability to a healthy work-life balance. The Government of Canada ticks all the boxes for many of the respondents for that reason."

The onus, says Donald, is on the employer to create a workplace that a young person can be loyal to. "We know we are going to have a labour shortage as people retire. Employers need to embrace what these young people are about, knowing that it is going to be good for all of us."

CANADA'S TOP CAMPUS EMPLOYERS 2009

1. Government of Canada
2. Provincial government
3. Health Canada
4. Google
5. Apple
6. The Hospital for Sick Children
7. Municipal government
8. Microsoft
9. Canadian Cancer Society
10. David Suzuki Foundation