Dr. David Suzuki

David T. Suzuki, PhD, Co-Founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, is an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. He has received consistently high acclaim for his thirty years of award-winning work in broadcasting, explaining the complexities of science in a compelling, easily understood way. He is well known to millions as the host of the CBC’s popular science television series, The Nature of Things. The author of more than 50 books, his passionate, hard-hitting speeches are filled with critical content and delivered in a manner that will mesmerize, educate and inspire.

His eight part series, A Planet for the Taking, won an award from the United Nations. His eight-part PBS series, The Secret of Life was praised internationally, as was his five-part series, The Brain, for the Discovery Channel. For CBC Radio he founded the long running radio series Quirks and Quarks, and has presented two influential documentary series on the environment, From Naked Ape to Superspecies and It's a Matter of Survival.

An internationally respected geneticist, David was a full Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He is professor emeritus with UBC's Sustainable Development Research Institute. From 1969 to 1972 he was the recipient of the prestigious E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship Award for the "Outstanding Canadian Research Scientist Under the Age of 35".

David has received numerous awards for his work, including a UNESCO prize for science, a United Nations Environment Program medal and is a Companion to the Order of Canada. He has 24 honorary doctorates from universities in Canada, the US and Australia. For his work in support of Canada's First Nations people, David has received many tributes and has been honoured with five names and formal adoption by two tribes.

David was born in Vancouver, BC in 1936. During World War II, at the age of six, he was interned with his family in a camp in BC. After the war, he went to high school in London, Ontario. He graduated with Honours from Amherst College in 1958 and went on to earn his PhD in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961.

The author of 50 books, David Suzuki is recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology.

Dr. David Suzuki has made it his life's work to help humanity understand, appreciate, respect and protect the natural world. His keynote speeches provide audiences with a compelling look at the state of our environment, underscoring both the successes we have achieved in the battle for environmental sustainability, and the strides we still have to make if Earth will remain a welcoming home for all nature's creatures. Both inspiring and realistic, he offers leading-edge insights into sustainable development and model for a world in which humanity can live well and still protect our environment.

The Challenge of the 21st Century:
Setting the Real Bottom Line

• In the past century, humanity has undergone an explosive change in numbers, science, technology, consumption and economics, that have endowed us with the power to alter the biological, physical and chemical properties of the planet.
  
  
• It is undeniable that the atmosphere and climate are altered; air, water and soil are fouled with toxic pollutants; oceans are depleted; forests are being cleared; and species are disappearing.
  
  
• Now that most people live in large cities, our relationship with nature is less obvious. Computers and telecommunications fragment information so that we can no longer recognize the interconnectivity of everything in the world.
  
  
• Globalization of the economy renders the entire planet a source of resources and all people a market for products, while local communities and local ecosystems are negatively impacted (for example, large scale pig farms are raised in Canada for an Asian market while the water, air and soil surrounding the hog farms are negatively impacted).
  
  
• Traditional people refer to the Earth as their "Mother" and tell us we are made of the four sacred elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water.
  
  
• Today science is verifying this ancient wisdom and defines a different set of priorities that should become our bottom line for the 21st century:
  
  a) We are biological beings with an absolute dependence on clean air, water, soil and sunlight for our well being and survival.
  
  b) The web of all life on Earth (biodiversity) is responsible for cleansing, replenishing and creating air, water, soil and captured sunlight.
  
  c) Diversity at the genetic, species, ecosystem and cultural level is critical for long term resilience and adaptability.
  
  d) We are social animals with an absolute need for love to realize our full human potential; maximal opportunity for love is ensured with strong families, communities, full employment, justice, equity, freedom from terror and war.
  
  e) We are spiritual beings who need to know that there are forces that impinge on our lives that lie outside our understanding or control; that nature that gave us birth, will persist after we die; that there are sacred places where humans come with respect and reverence.
  
  
• Human beings are one species among perhaps 10 to 15 million other species on whom we are ultimately dependent for our well being.
  
  
• Humanity needs to rediscover humility and our place in the world so that we and the rest of life can continue to flourish.