Calgary — David Suzuki has a way of making you feel like an environmental heretic.
As the 68-year-old held court in the lobby of a Calgary hotel this week to talk about his 25th anniversary as host of CBC Television's The Nature of Things, his publicist was aflutter about the prospect of bringing him coffee in a Styrofoam cup. Hotel room service eventually agreed to deliver coffee in a cup and saucer, but when the tray carrying it arrived, so did several plastic bottles of water, which, naturally, Suzuki didn't touch.
As Canada's best-known scientist and eco-activist talked about the need for individual responsibility and for government intervention to resuscitate a sick planet, he gazed out the window at the steady stream of traffic in the city's downtown.
"When I look out in the street right now, the number of SUVs, it breaks my heart," he said. "You've got a city where you have no need for an SUV and the problem is that cars and people's need for cars is still a major political force. We're not doing enough to provide bicycle lanes and alternatives and we're not penalizing the gas guzzlers."
I don't dare tell him about my sport-utility vehicle — a small one, but still, in his eyes an ecological menace.
Suzuki makes no apologies for his views. He is a long-time advocate for protecting the environment. The Nature of Things is his platform. The show, which dates back to 1960, is one of the network's longest-running programs, with an average of 400,000 viewers a week.
Suzuki doesn't shy away from controversies and over the years has been embroiled in a few. Network lawyers once yanked a segment when Suzuki alleged political favours. A university professor was so upset with a show that concluded animal testing was largely unnecessary he called for Suzuki's head. Suzuki also received some flak for posing nude, but for a fig leaf, for the cover of The Toronto Star's television guide promoting a program on the penis.
The Nature of Things has also produced results, including the impetus for the Mulroney government to designate a portion of the Queen Charlotte Islands as the Gwaii Haanas National Park and it also raised awareness about the Kyoto protocol against greenhouse-gas emissions, something that warranted thanks from former prime minister Jean Chrétien.
"The Canadian public has kept me where I am," Suzuki said. "If they lost their interest, CBC would have canned me a long time ago."
Suzuki was born in Vancouver in 1936. By the time he was 6, he and his Canadian-born parents were interned in a camp in B.C.'s interior for Canadians of Japanese descent.
Without school to attend, a young Suzuki, encouraged by his father, explored the outdoors. After the war, his family had lost their dry-cleaning business and moved to Southern Ontario — first Leamington and later London — where, again, he took note of his natural surroundings.
The budding scientist would later go on to earn a biology degree and a doctorate in zoology. He turned to academia at the University of Alberta and later set up a genetics laboratory at the University of British Columbia in the course of becoming an expert in the field.
Awards, honorary degrees and fans have followed his rise to become one of the planet's most recognizable environmentalists.
He isn't afraid to give politicians, industry and reporters a tongue-lashing and yet has still managed to keep the ear of world leaders.
Almost every journalist working today, he complained, blithely reports on business and the economy, but they fail to question whether growth is necessary and at what cost.
He takes a "bio-centred" view of the world. Humans are part of the natural world and what happens in nature happens to affect us, he explained. Some have called him and his show biased. Suzuki bristles at the accusation, but he wears his impact as a badge of honour.
"We got hammered by the agriculture departments in universities when we did a show on organic farming. Of course the pharmaceutical industry is always pissed off at us and the oil industry and the logging industry," he said.
Still, he's not fond of criticism.
The animal-research episode, which prompted the call for his job, still rankles.
A couple of years ago, Suzuki challenged Alberta Premier Ralph Klein and Environment Minister Lorne Taylor to debate the merits of Kyoto. Alberta, which is home to much of this country's fossil-fuel industry, has been a staunch opponent of the climate-change accord. When the debate didn't happen, Suzuki brought his message to Dave Rutherford's popular, right-leaning, talk-radio show on CHQR in Calgary.
The experience was "so nasty," according to Suzuki, that he says he will never go on the program again.
Suzuki does have other audiences. Buoyed by the Green Party's success in the recent federal election (winning 4 per cent of the popular vote and qualifying for annual funding), he agreed to speak to its annual convention just outside Calgary last weekend. He is soon meeting with the federal New Democrats and he has already chatted with Prime Minister Paul Martin about Kyoto, and urged greater cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions.
("Paul Martin said, 'I can't do the things you want me to do against the fossil-fuel industry.' He told us right up-front. 'Too powerful a lobby. Alberta's too important.' ") He said he'd love to chat with the federal Conservatives.
Suzuki tells them all the country needs an environmental goal.
He envisions a future with free public transit, where downtown cores ban private vehicles, where governments yank subsidies to the fossil-fuel industry, where massive premiums are tacked on to gas guzzlers and rebates given to those buying fuel-efficient vehicles.
"We've got to tax the things we want to discourage and pull taxes off the things you want to encourage. We've got to be much more creative and stop these perverse subsidies," he said.
Suzuki is no flash-in-the-pan environmentalist.
Many people pick up a cause, obsess over it, burn out or give up. Too many environmentalists have killed themselves, he said, naming one — Tooker Gomberg (who took his own life by jumping off the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge into Halifax Harbour last spring).
Why does he carry on?
He said he has a responsibility to his three grandchildren who didn't ask to be born, yet are going to inherit the Earth.
"I'm not going to save the world," he said, "I don't think any individual can, but I am doing the best I can. I can look at my grandchildren and tell them that without looking away, I did the best I could."
With that, a young boy approached Suzuki and asked if he would mind posing for a picture. He obliged and both smiled for a couple of shots.
So far, it seems, so good.
The season premiere of The Nature of Things airs Sept. 16 on CBC-TV.
