David Suzuki compared inaction on climate change to slavery. on the CBC, with Evan Solomon. Here’s the excerpt:
SOLOMON: You talk about 2006. But the CBC has obtained documents that raise questions about the government’s ability to even meet that 20 percent reduction from 2006 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Today the environment minister, Jim Prentice, he did stick by that goal. But there is word that they’re thinking about giving the oil sands perhaps a different break on that.
SUZUKI: Of course.
SOLOMON: And in fact, what’s your view on that?
SUZUKI: Of course. Well, you know…
SOLOMON: And by the way, they’re saying because it is, by the way, because the oil sands creates jobs, creates money that is transferred to other provinces, and that’s their notion of the balance.
SUZUKI: You know, that’s what they used to say in the southern states. We can’t give up slavery because it’ll destroy our economy and slavery gives us jobs and we have to have slave runners and all of that. Some things you do because they’re right. And you know, the problem is…
SOLOMON: But David, just for the record, and I know you’re passionate, but is comparing this to slavery, is that fair, to demonize the other side like that?SUZUKI: We’re talking about the fate of all of humankind and the kind of future we’re going to leave for our children. Yes, I think this is criminal what’s going on now, to act as if the economy. Remember, the economy is a human- created construct. It’s not a law of nature. You know, some things like gravity and the speed of light, you can’t do anything about that. We can’t do anything about the fact that we’re animals, and if we don’t have clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and biodiversity, we’re dead. So, surely to goodness that should come before anything else.
I am currently reading Somaly Mam’s The Road of Lost Innocence, her memoir as a sex slave in Cambodia in the late 20th century. I’m almost half-way through it, the poor girl is not 20 years old, and already she’s been raped more times than I’ve had frappucinos in my entire life. And savagely beaten. Repeatedly. And degraded. And killed inside. Because she was simply considered a piece of meat that could be bought and used at the discretion of others. This book makes me shake with fury at the injustice of it all – the fact that countless other girls, some as young as five years old, are RIGHT NOW being used as sexual slaves (sold as virgins then sown up then sold again as virgins then sown up again, etc). And David Suzuki would have us believe that not acting fast enough for his taste on climate change amounts to treating human beings the way Somaly Mam was treated?
Shame on him.
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Andrea adds: Suzuki has established in different forums that he is prepared to make outrageous statements that he hopes will remain unchallenged. I heard he walked out of a Toronto talk radio station once because he got offended. Apparently the host asked a critical question (how shocking). In short, I have come to see Suzuki as a kind of petulant mini-tyrant. Perhaps he and Diane Francis could room together or something.
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Brigitte, I always appreciate your commentary on current events, but I’m afraid I have to disagree with (or at least question) your reaction to this story. (And I assure you that I am far from being a climate change activist.)
Actually, the first parallel that comes to mind is our pro-choice friends who assert that the CCBR’s Genocide Awareness Project is tantamount to calling women Nazis, and equating the abortion and the Holocaust. They subsequently take great offense to such arguments and fail to actually consider the comparisons being made. In reality, of course, the similarity is that severe atrocities and tragedies are often justified and accepted because the victims are denied personhood–and that this is never okay.
I think Mr. Suzuki’s point is similarly measured, drawing attention merely to injustices people have faced or will face (without comparing the depth of the tragedies involved or the motives of those perpetrating the injustices) that are sustained and justified by the economic benefits they allow. Indeed his point is not that our action is not fast enough “for his taste,” but that it matters because of the real effects it will have on real people in future generations.
In both cases (the CCBR’s and Mr. Suzuki’s comments), the idea is to show that justifications and rationales that are clearly wrong in one instance (genocides, slavery) are in fact just as untenable in other instances (abortion, climate change). If it was inadequate to abolish slavery gradually despite the economic benefits it would have allowed to some, it does not strike me as such a bizarre or offensive thing to say that it is inadequate to work on climate change gradually because of our economic concerns.
As I said, I am not an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination; I just think we should be willing to consider arguments as they are made, rather than oversimplifying them and reacting to comparisons that no one is making.
Sorry Natalie, but there is nothing in the climate change issue that comes even close to denying a category of human beings the status of “person” which is, when you get right down to it, what sets slavery apart from a whole bunch of other injustices, real or imagined.
Natalie F.
If you believe ANY of that psycho babble you spouted about Suzuki and what he said I would like to talk to you about a bridge I know about that is for sale.
David Suzuki would use the Christ Child in a manger scene to further his self enriching agenda.
He’s getting more shrill because he knows he is losing. He came so close, and now it is all slipping away from him. So his response is to get louder, more outrageous, more aggressive. But every morning he wakes up with the knowledge that he has staked his all on one cause, and has lost.