By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. Many people say George Wald was the greatest lecturer in Harvard’s history. He was certainly the best I’ve heard. Dr. Wald won a Nobel Prize in 1967 for his work on the biochemical basis of colour vision. He and I became friends in the 1970s because we shared a common concern about the misapplication of science, especially during the war in Vietnam. Dr. Wald once captivated me with a story he told: For close to 150 million years, dinosaurs dominated the planet, and they were impressive. They were huge animals, armed with weapons like spikes on their tails, giant claws, and razor-sharp teeth. They were covered with armour plates. They seemed invincible, and when ... continue reading.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. After the massive international spotlight on Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics, many people will remember Canada for the accomplishments of our winter athletes. Those who came to Vancouver for the Games will remember our friendliness and our ability to create a society where people from many backgrounds and cultures can live together. But just as many will remember us for something that has always defined our nation: our spectacular natural environment. The forests, mountains, rivers, and ocean are visible no matter where you go in Vancouver. The wilderness at our doorstep is home to a wide range of plants and animals, especially for a northern temperate region. In much of Canada, you can ... continue reading.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. In December, Canadian specialty TV channel Business News Network interviewed me about the climate summit in Copenhagen. My six-minute interview followed a five-minute live report from Copenhagen, about poor countries demanding more money to address climate change and rich countries pleading a lack of resources. Before and after those spots were all kinds of reports on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the price of gold and the loonie, and the implications of some new phone technology. For me, this brought into sharp focus the inevitable failure of our negotiating efforts on climate change. BNN, like the New York-based Bloomberg channel, is a 24-hour-a-day network focused completely on business. These networks indicate that the ... continue reading.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. Several people have asked me if the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics will be the greenest games yet. The answer may be yes – if we’re talking about the abundance of greenery and lack of snow brought on by record high temperatures during one of the earliest spring seasons the city has experienced. With respect to environmental impact, all Olympic Games leave a very large footprint. Thousands of people flying in from all over the world, along with local transportation and the infrastructure that must be created, mean a lot of carbon emissions get spewed into the atmosphere. What many people may not realize is that, along with sports, the Olympic movement has two other ... continue reading.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. The United Nations has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity. It would be great if the year could be simply a celebration of the Earth’s biological richness, but Biodiversity Year is occurring while non-human life on our planet is in a more perilous state than ever before. Experts believe the world is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis on par with earlier mass extinction events. Some 17,000 of the plant and animal species that we’ve identified and assessed are now in serious decline, including many that are well-known and well-loved by Canadians, such as caribou, polar bears, and some salmon populations. This perilous situation for plants and animals threatens not only the ... continue reading.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. Salmon have played a central role in the lives and culture of Pacific Northwest people throughout history. Their abundance in the oceans and rivers made them a major source of protein for hundreds of First Nations villages, and they were also crucial to trade. Today, they are still considered to be one of the tastiest and healthiest foods available. The importance of salmon goes beyond their value as a food source. Because they begin their lives in lakes and rivers before making their way to the ocean, they bring nutrients from the ocean back up the rivers when they return to spawn. Bears, eagles, and other animals that feed on the salmon spread these ... continue reading.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. In a CBC interview about his decision to prorogue Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canadians are primarily focused on the economy. Thus, he dismissed concerns about Canadian complicity with torture in Afghanistan and ignored the fact that Canadians see climate change as a critical issue. Mr. Harper has often used the economy as an excuse to reject our international obligations as a signatory of the Kyoto protocol and to rebuff serious discussion about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, develop renewable energy, and create green jobs. In his recent cabinet shuffle, Mr. Harper reaffirmed that the economy is his government’s top priority. Raising the spectre of economic disaster is a convenient way ... continue reading.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. One thing I enjoy about the holiday season is having time to go to movies. For more than 40 years, I’ve been involved in making television programs to educate people about science and the natural world. But people watch television in a desultory way, often interrupted by the need to help children with homework, let the dog out, or go to the fridge for a beer or to the bathroom for a break. So we tune in and out, often forgetting whether we got a memorable factoid from The Nature of Things or Grey’s Anatomy. Movie audiences are different than those in TV land. For one thing, people have to make an effort to ... continue reading.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. To many people, our oceans are little more than a great blue expanse of water. To some, they are a source of beauty and enjoyment. And for millions of people around the globe, the oceans are sources of food and jobs in fishing or fish-farming industries. But the oceans are also the anchor for life on this planet. When it comes to global warming, the oceans may be our salvation. The oceans do much more than provide us with food, employment, and enjoyment. They also absorb much of the excess carbon that humans have been pumping into the atmosphere during industrialization. The world's oceans have already absorbed a huge percentage of carbon that would ... continue reading.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola. People who deny the reality of human-caused global warming are wetting their pants over the illegal theft and release of emails from scientists at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit. In their desperation, the deniers claim the emails point to a global conspiracy by the world's scientists and government leaders to... Well, it's hard to say what they believe the conspiracy is about. A letter to a Vancouver newspaper some time ago indicates the way many of them think. The writer claimed that people working to address global warming "are ideological zealots pursuing a quasi-religious socialist agenda to command and control western economies". It would be funny if it didn't echo the thinking of ... continue reading.