David Suzuki

[markopolo]

David Suzuki is retiring.

Who will remind us that we should not ruin the planet?

Comments?

[Johnny R]

ABBD (anyone but banana Dole)

Phil Edmunston, the lemon man?

[renrut]

CBC had a documentary movie about him the other day. I've enjoyed his look at things. Unfortunately, greed and profit is driving the world right now. Nature and planet survival is put low on the priority list to satisfy all the people worried about profit.

It's amazing to think man kind survived off of the land for thousands of years. It's scarry to think what has been done to the plant in the last 200 years. My father use to talk about how he use to drink the water in the Grand River in Cambridge when he was young. Once Kitchener/Waterloo started to dump their sewage in the river, it went white with dead fish. His family could hardly breath from the smell. At least the poluting isn't that bad any more but the destruction of trees and nature is.

[markopolo]

I think I saw the same documentary.

His comments about air resonated with me:

The point I am trying to make is that you cannot draw a line that marks where the air ends and I begin. There is no line. The air is stuck to us and circulating through our bodies. We are air. It is a part of us and it is in us. Air is not a vacuum or empty space but a physical substance. We are embedded in a matrix of air and if you are air and I am air then I am you, we are a part of this single layer that encompasses the planet. We are embedded in that air with the trees, the birds, the worms and the snakes, which are all a part of that web of living things held together by the atmosphere or the air.

Makes you think.

[Mike]

My Devil's Advocacy comment:
Many have made millions/billions off the many who believe anything an intellectual might espouse with
sometimes dubious facts to back it up.
The scandals over climate change numbers, and the fact that most greeners seem to point the finger
quickly at the developed countries, who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints in the middle of a
recession, but ignore the massive contributions of carbon by the developing countries seems a bit
hypocritical to me. Even if they did criticize the major polluters worldwide, those countries would
likely not change anything in the interests of continuing their development. They just don't care about
polluting the planet, as it stands now.

Suzuki has profited from his involvement in greening the planet. He can probably afford a class A RV
if he chooses to. I sent a question about wind power, versus bioreactors, versus solar power almost
a year ago, as we were having a serious political discussion in my area about the benefits and costs of
the plans to move towards one or the other. I received a shoulder shrug as a reply from his "people".

These are just my opinions about Mr. Suzuki and his ilk. Yes, I am skeptical. Not, trying to offend anyone.

[VernM]

"Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known. "

— Garrison Keillor (Lake Wobegon USA)

Now, if we could get more people to realize that, the world of Mother Earth and Father Sky might have a chance for survival.

[Mike]

I should have added another point to my previous post, in that, man made pollution is obviously a result of man.
The root cause analysis of that statement, IMO, always ends up at the greatest single issue facing mankind today,
and that is over population. But it is also a topic/problem that most people and countries refuse to recognize, with
the possible exception of China, who have a "1 child per" policy, although I don't know how strictly it's enforced. There's
only so much resource available to us on the planet, to be split amongst us all. The world's population is increasing
largely due to improved medical treatments and the reduction of many natural population controls like famines and
plagues and other natural disasters. But overall, we're birthing far more than we're burying, and it's going to be the
end of us, if we all don't step up and address it soon.
Again, in my opinion.

[markopolo]

His show "The Nature of Things" aired for 50 years.

Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie
http://www.nfb.ca/playlist/force-nature ... uki-movie/

One of his main themes is that there is finite space and resources on this planet. Never ending growth is not sustainable.

[VernM]

I lost my first draft of this. I hope this doesn't duplicate it.

Mike, the population of humans would increase regardless of medical technology's advancement just because we have this bigger brain case and ability to adapt (at least our ancestors did) to changing environments and enviromental conditons. Up to a point. I believe we must restrain population growth in some humane fashion too or face extinction because of nunbers. But, try to sell that to the religious fundamentalists and general all-around do-gooders.

[Mike]

Perhaps I misspoke, I meant we have inadvertently or otherwise accelerated worldwide population growth,
as a result of regular breakthroughs in technology and medicine.
And yes, I agree, it would be easier to sell ice boxes to Eskimos. You and I won't be around (likely) when the issue
finally reaches the point where it becomes a worldwide crisis, but it will happen, it's an inevitability. Unless,
as you say, we find a humane way or an incentive to reduce runaway reproduction. Just being able to eat,
might work as an incentive, because in spite of everything science at the time might be able to do, it likely won't
be able to produce enough food from the dwindling natural resources being rapidly consumed by the existing population.

p.s. Never got a reply to my query about inverters and such from Outside Supply in NOLA. They still around?