David Suzuki: If I Were Prime Minister

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David Suzuki says there are all sorts of solutions to the growing environmental crisis, but politicians are too chicken to take action. That's why, on February 1, Suzuki put the bus in motion, setting off on a 28-day, 50-stop cross-Canada tour to challenge Canadians to pressure governments to drastically curb big-industry emissions. The If YOU Were Prime Minister Tour [1] has received standing ovations, from Newfoundland to Saskatchewan. After delivering speeches at sold out events, Suzuki asks the audience, "What would you do if YOU were Prime Minister?" The audience lines up to videotape its ideas, all of which are being uploaded to the tour's YouTube group [2].

Suzuki, host of CBC's long-running and award-winning The Nature Of Things [3], who has spent over 40 years educating the public and committed to environmental activism, says Canadians are tired of politicians paying lip service to the environment. Years ago, he came up with the idea for a 'Chautauqua' [4], or traveling educational assembly. The David Suzuki Foundation [5] spent the last year planning and organizing the tour. At the time Dr. Suzuki sat down to talk to Orato, he was on the bus somewhere between Winnipeg and Regina. He told us if HE were Prime Minister, he'd stop spending taxpayer money to subsidize the worst industry polluters. He is due to arrive back in his home province of British Columbia when he wraps up the tour on February 28 in Victoria, where much warmer weather awaits him.

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The "If YOU Were Prime Minister" tour has been great so far. Canada is a big country and it's very cold. We're going across the country in the dead of winter, so it's had its challenges, but the reception in every town has been incredible - completely sold out, standing ovations and tremendous enthusiasm. Right now we're on the bus about half way between Winnipeg and Regina.

The elephant in the room is climate change and what we're going to do about it. Certainly the awareness of the problem is big. We just talked with British economist Nicholas Stern on Monday, who was in Toronto to discuss the economics of climate change, and he told us the cost of doing something serious about global warming would be about one per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. So, that's billions and billions of dollars in Canada spent every year, but the important question is, what will it cost if we DON'T do anything about global warming? What it will do is totally destroy the economy. We don't have a choice. It's either total destruction of the economy, or spend one per cent of the GDP to bring our emissions down, and that's what we've got to do. That's the big challenge.

There's evidence that environmental momentum is building - just look at the polls. The polls put it at the top of the list. I'm not sure why that shift happened. I'm not a pollster. But people know that something freaky has happened with the weather. Something like the destruction of 3,000 trees in British Columbia's Stanley Park was quite a wake up call for Vancouverites. The fact that B.C.'s Northern forest has turned bright red rather than green because of pine beetles, the hazards of salmon runs because the waters have been getting warmer, Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth - all these things have added up and people are now very, very concerned.

I'm very confident our American neighbors will pick up the cause. Just look at what's happening with Arnold Schwarzenegger in California - he's set a very hard target for reductions. Mayors in over 300 cities in the United States have committed to meeting or passing the Kyoto targets. The fact is, the country is getting on with it.

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I've been thinking about this tour for several years. I had heard about this thing called a 'Chautauqua,' which came about a hundred years ago. Entertainers - acrobats, actors, musicians - used to load the wagon with the tent, all their regalia and equipment and travel town to town, entertaining people. They didn't have televisions or radio back then, so it was also a chance for politicians and other people to stand up and raise issues. A gathering place was established in Chautauqua, New York, where people would discuss serious issues. About ten years ago, I started saying, "I think Canadians need a Chautauqua." They're fed up with all the bullsh*t the politicians are saying and want to get down to substantive issues. I felt years ago that the time was right.

I called a lot of people, like Margaret Atwood, Dalton Stamp and Steven Lewis, and asked what they thought of it - they loved the idea but they were too busy to do anything and wanted me to do it, but I was also too busy. As my foundation began to grow, people in the foundation began to say "Gee, maybe we should do something like that." About a year ago, we started talking seriously about doing a bus tour, and about six months ago, we really sat down and started to plan it.

Flying is the most carbon expensive way to travel. We're traveling in a bus with a diesel fuel. We couldn't persuade the owner to allow us to use bio-diesel; he was afraid it would ruin the engine. Everyone tells us it would be perfectly fine, but it's his bus. All the carbon dioxide emissions we release as a result of burning fuel on this trip are being compensated for by an equivalent amount of green energy put on the grid. We're traveling what we call 'carbon neutral,' so the impact of our traveling is zero carbon emission because we're compensating for energy somewhere else. While we were going through Toronto, all the electricity we used when we were setting up lights at events, was put up by Bullfrog, which is a company that only puts green energy onto the grid.

We mapped out a possible route from St. John's, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia. We knew we had 28 days, starting on February 1st. There were some cities it was obvious we were going to stop in, like Winnipeg, although we had to choose between Saskatoon and Regina.

Once we knew the route, we began to call environmental groups in each of the potential cities and asked if they'd be willing to organize our visit, because we didn't have the resources to do the organization. We wanted to empower the local groups. They would charge money to attend the events, and all the money would go to the local groups, not to us. And they are the groups that we expect to carry on the conversation after we leave. In some places, they just didn't have the resources to do it, so we didn't go. Other places jumped on it right away and said, "Please come our way, we'll do it," and so that's how we filtered out the various groups.

The theme is of course "If YOU Were Prime Minister." After I give a speech, people line up to share their ideas and our videographer records them all. We've got literally hundreds and hundreds of them. I haven't had time to look at them all, but Canadians have good ideas.

On February 1st, the Alliance for the Planet called for five minutes of global electrical rest. I'm not sure if these kinds of activities have an effect. There are all these Live Aid concerts and Al Gore is going to have a big concert in partnership with SOS (Save Our Selves) sometime this summer. I have no idea what they do. I hope they raise awareness, I hope they raise money for good causes.

If I were Prime Minister, I'd stop subsidizing the fossil fuel and auto industries. It doesn't make any sense to me that taxpayer money is going into supporting fossil fuel industry, which is making windfall profits. If we take back those subsidies, we've got a lot of money to start supporting things like public transit. So, that's number one. I would also set hard targets in reduction of emissions and guidelines to achieve them and set in place regulations or legislation to enforce those across the board.

The previous government was too chicken to impose equal targets for the fossil fuel and auto industries - the heavy polluting sector. The government pulled back and gave them a lighter target and then wouldn't legislate and said, "You do it on your own." Of course, voluntary compliance never works. So, I'd make the other industries pull their weight, reduce their share and make it mandated by legislation.

The giant leap the world needs to take tomorrow is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, bigtime. We need to aim for a 90 per cent reduction, ideally by 2030. That's a pretty big demand for the industrialized countries. But we don't have a choice.

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If you enjoyed this story, you may also enjoy: Global Warming: The Cold Hard Facts [6]

Pullquote:

The previous government was too chicken to impose equal targets for the fossil fuel and auto industries - the heavy polluting sector. The government pulled back and gave them a lighter target...