by David Suzuki
Bears are one of the major vectors of nitrogen. During the salmon runs, they congregate at the rivers to fish, but once a bear has seized a fish, it leaves the river to feed alone. A bear will move up to 150 yards away from the river before settling down to consume the best parts—brain, belly, eggs—then return to the river for another. Reimchen has shown through painstaking observation that in a season, a single bear may take from six hundred to seven hundred salmon. After a bear abandons a partially eaten salmon, ravens, salamanders, beetles, and other creatures consume the remnants. Flies lay eggs on the carcass, and within days, the flesh of the fish becomes a writhing mass of maggots, which polish off the meat and drop to the forest floor to pupate over winter. In the spring, trillions of adult flies loaded with 15N emerge from the leaf litter just as birds from South America come through on their way to the nesting grounds in the Arctic.
Reimchen calculates that the salmon provide the largest pulse of nitrogen fertilizer the forest gets all year, and he has demonstrated that there is a direct correlation between the width of an annual growth ring in a tree and the amount of 15N contained within it. Government records of salmon runs over the past fifty years show that large rings occur in years of big salmon runs. When salmon die and sink to the bottom of the river, they are soon coated with a thick, furry layer of fungi and bacteria consuming the flesh of the fish. In turn, the 15N-laden microorganisms are consumed by copepods, insects, and other invertebrates, which fill the water and feed the salmon fry when they emerge from the gravel.
In dying, the adult fish prepare a feast on which their young may dine on their way to the ocean. Thus, the ocean, forest, northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere form a single integrated part of nature held together by the salmon. For thousands of years, human beings were able to live on this productivity and achieve the highest population density of any non-agrarian society, as well as rich, diverse cultures.
When Europeans occupied these lands, they viewed the vast populations of salmon as an opportunity to exploit for economic ends. Today in Canada the responsibility for the salmon is assigned to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for the commercial fishers, to the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs for the First Nations food fishery, and to provincial ministers of tourism for the sport fishers. There are enormous conflicts between the ministries, even though they are responsible for the same “resource,” because their respective constituencies have very different needs. The whales, eagles, bears, and wolves come under the jurisdiction of the minister of the environment, and trees are overseen by the minister of forests. The mountains and rocks are the responsibility of the minister of mining, and the rivers may be administered by the minister of energy (for hydroelectric power) or the minister of agriculture (for irrigation). In subdividing the ecosystem in this way, according to human needs and perspectives, we lose sight of the interconnectedness of the ocean, forest, and hemispheres, thereby ensuring we will never be able to manage the “resources” sustainably.
chapter SEVENTEEN
ACULTURE OF CELEBRITY
IT IS ASTONISHING and frightening to see the extent to which the phenomenon of celebrity has come to dominate our consciousness. Not only tabloids and magazines like People and Us Weekly but also the mainstream media seem obsessed with celebrities—and not just for days or weeks but for months and years. When the media lavish as much attention (or even more) on celebrities as they do on weightier issues, how can people distinguish what is important from what is not? The result of our preoccupation with celebrity is that the opinion of someone who might be a lightweight or a fool carries as much heft as the words of a scientist, doctor, or other expert.
Consider how information is packaged in a newspaper: entire sections are devoted to celebrity (entertainment), sports, business, and politics, yet few newspapers assign reporters to write specifically about science or the environment. Our focus on economics often results in big headlines for a developer, promoter, or hustler, while the environmental or social implications of industry are ignored. But when more than half of all living Nobel Prize–winning scientists sign a document of warning—as they did in November 1992, when the Union of Concerned Scientists declared that human activities were on a collision course with the natural world and, unchecked, could result in catastrophe in as little as ten years—they are virtually ignored.
Their predictions have been corroborated by reports about threats to significant portions of mammalian and bird species, the melting ice sheets and permafrost of circumpolar nations, and coral bleaching due to warming oceans. In 2001, I accepted a position on the board of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a United Nations–appointed committee created to assess the state of global ecosystems and the services they perform (exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen in the air, pollinating flowering plants, fixing nitrogen in the soil, filtering water, and so on). The reports from this $24-million project, which involved some 1,300 scientists from more than seventy countries, painted a devastating picture of the natural world on which we are all ultimately dependent.
The final report was released in March 2005 and in Canada was covered in an article on page 3 of the Globe and Mail newspaper. The next day, Pope John Paul II was taken to hospital, and his illness, death, and succession pushed our report out of the news. So a major study warning that Earth's ecosystems are being degraded at an unsustainable rate was a one-day, inside-page wonder.
We live in a time when the military, industry, and medicine are all applying scientific insights, with profound social, economic, and political consequences. As a result, ignoring scientific matters is very dangerous. It's not that I believe science will ultimately provide solutions to major problems we face; I think solutions to environmental issues are much more likely to result from political, social, and economic decisions than from scientific ones. But scientists can deliver the best descriptions of the state of climate, species, pollution, deforestation, and so on, and these should inform our political and economic actions. If we don't base our long-term actions on the best scientific knowledge, then I believe we are in great danger of succumbing to the exigencies of politics and economics.
With Jane Fonda and Tom Lovejoy at a conference in Malibu, California
SOME “CELEBRITIES” DO DESERVE attention. Noam Chomsky is an academic I admire enormously. As a linguist, he is widely respected by academics for his idea that language and syntax are built into the human brain by heredity. His celebrity status, however, rests on his role as an outspoken critic of American foreign policy.
He has near cult status in Canada, where each of his books rockets to the top of best-seller lists, and he has gained a wide audience through the National Film Board documentary Manufacturing Consent. His forays into Canada are met with a rapturous response from his fans, a striking contrast to the reaction in his own country, where he is reviled as a traitor by large segments of American society. When Tara was teaching at Harvard, she saw an announcement that Chomsky was speaking on campus, so she went to the hall early to get a seat. To her surprise, there was no one else there, and by the time Chomsky spoke, there may have been thirty students in the room. He has a large following in Europe, Australia, and Latin America, where his left-leaning analyses strike a chord with activists.
I first met Noam Chomsky in the early '90s, when he was in Toronto to speak at Ryerson Institute of Technology. At that time, the CBC offices I worked in were at the corner of Bay and College, only a few blocks from Ryerson, so I dropped in to see whether I might meet him. It was a few hours before his talk, and he was in an auditorium checking the audiovisual system with a few students. To my delight, he greeted me warmly, informing me that Canadians regularly sent him my newspaper columns, and he complimented me on what I was writing. He is a superstar, and it was flattering to be acknowledged so generously.
For years after I began to speak out about environmental issues, as I said earlier, I felt as Chomsky does—that it was not up to me to tell people what to do or where the
solutions were; I was simply a messenger trying to catalyze public concern. But I have read many books and articles, met many people, acquired information and knowledge, and reflected a lot about issues, all of which has shaped the way I see the problems. It has become clear to me over the years that it would be very difficult and time-consuming for people who are starting to get involved to wade through the same volume of material in a short period. And if the issues are urgent, then those of us who are pressing those issues have a responsibility at the very least to help people avoid unnecessary material or sources and get up to speed faster, still on their own but with some shortcuts to assist them. Chomsky refused to give any tips or recommendations when asked.
American consumer advocate and reformer Ralph Nader once spoke in Vancouver in the same week that Chomsky lectured at the city's Queen Elizabeth Theatre. It was almost too much to have two such prominent figures on hand at the same time. Nader's performance two nights later was a huge contrast to Chomsky's presentation. Nader had been invited by nurses who were involved in a dispute with the government. Instead of the grand surroundings of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, his event was in a movie house in a rougher part of downtown Vancouver. It too was packed, and Nader gave a stirring speech in which he praised Canadians for our leadership in social issues (with Duff Conacher he had written a best-selling book about Canadian firsts) and compared Canadian social values with those of the United States. He received a standing ovation. Unlike Chomsky, when he was asked what could be done, Nader immediately listed off people, organizations, and strategies that could be contacted and worked with.
Nader has spent his career motivating people to take action, setting up public-interest research groups in universities across Canada. But it's a lonely life. From his earliest venture as a consumer advocate against the automobile industry, the lawyer has been subjected to intense scrutiny for any signs of vulnerability. I had met Nader while I was in Washington to film for The Nature of Things; I decided to drop in and meet him as a hero of mine. He greeted me warmly and was clearly informed about issues in Canada. His office was cluttered, books and articles heaped in piles. As we strolled through the room, he loaded me up with books, pamphlets, and articles. He really believes in empowering people with information.
Before he arrived in Vancouver for his speech, his office had called and said he would like to have dinner with me. When I asked what kind of food he liked, I was told he had no great preference but that since he is of Lebanese origin, Middle Eastern would be good. So Lebanese it was. Tara and Severn went along with me, and Ralph was accompanied by an associate and a nephew who lived in Vancouver. It was a lively and stimulating evening with lots of animated discussion.
Famed First Nations actor Graham Greene in a gag shot
Ralph is a very serious and intense person. This became obvious when a belly dancer appeared and began clicking her castanets, throwing her scarf around the necks of diners, and pulling them to their feet or their heads to her bosom. My jaw dropped as I watched. Ralph didn't even look her way and kept on talking. Finally she came over to our table, enticing a couple of people to get up to wiggle for a few seconds on the floor before stuffing some bills into her bra. Ralph never looked up but kept right on talking. The dancer eventually left without ever engaging him.
At the end of the meal, as we got up to leave, Ralph made no mention of the belly dancer but simply said: “That was a very nice meal. And no one overate.”
WHEN I TAKE A trip—and especially before I used e-mail—faxes and mail pile up very quickly. So I have the mail separated into folders marked Urgent, Speaking Requests, First Class, Second Class, and Bumf. This system provides me with a way of responding first to the most pressing messages and working toward material to glance at and then file or discard.
In 1990, I arrived home from a couple of weeks away to find a stack of mail that Shirley Macaulay, my secretary, had left on my porch at home. Even though it was quite late at night and I was tired, I couldn't resist taking the top two folders, which were quite thick, to bed, and I began to sift through them. Shirley usually flagged with a little tab letters she thought were especially urgent, interesting, or important.
When I got to a handwritten letter of several pages with no tab, I figured it would be a struggle, because handwritten notes are so much harder to read and this was a long one. But the script was beautiful and easily read, so I started and was soon drawn into the content, which was the writer's response to a speech I had given a few months earlier. When I got to the thirteenth and last page, it was signed “Charles.” I thought, “Charles who?” I looked back at the letterhead on the front page, and it said Windsor Castle. It was from Prince Charles! I thought it must be an elaborate joke, but it wasn't. I've never discussed this letter in public before. It was the real thing, and this is how it came to be.
In January 1990, I gave a speech to the Food Marketing Institute in Honolulu, and apparently a transcript of my remarks was sent to Prince Charles. Not only did he read it, he sent me a detailed response in the handwritten letter. Unfortunately, when I asked his office for permission to reprint the letter, I was refused permission to quote even a sentence. But I can give the gist of what he said.
Prince Charles was especially struck by my use of the metaphor of the “boiled frog syndrome.” According to psychologist Robert Ornstein, frogs that live in an aqueous environment have thermal receptors, sensory organs that detect large changes in temperature but not small, incremental shifts. According to Ornstein, if a frog is placed in a pot of hot water, it will immediately hop out. But if it is put in cold water and heat is slowly applied to the pot, the frog will eventually boil to death without ever registering the temperature change. The relevance of that frog as a metaphor to humans, who cannot sense thinning ozone, rising atmospheric temperature, background radiation, or toxic chemicals, is obvious.
Not only did His Royal Highness consider my analysis brilliant (his word, honest), he agreed with me about the gravity of the crisis, the destructive demand of conventional economics for endless growth, and the unwarranted optimism that technological innovation will get us out of any difficulty generated by our activities. He described his own experiences of the way people in developing countries are lured away from their traditional values by advertisements and our dazzling lifestyle.
Prince Charles told me that he and the BBC were discussing the possibility of his hosting a program on the environment. He was under enormous pressure to tone down his remarks, however, even though he felt there was a need for the kind of strong statements I had made in my speech. He ended by telling me that he would send copies of my speech to businesspeople and other influential folk, and he asked me to let him know if I was ever in his neck of the woods.
Now, like many people, I had read stories in the popular press portraying an eccentric king-in-waiting who was reputed to talk to plants and have weird ideas about architecture, but this was an unusually thoughtful letter. And since he had responded so generously to my ideas, of course I knew he must be brilliant. My parents-in-law are English, so I figured I would win a lot of brownie points with them when I showed them the letter. And I was right—they were most excited.
Because the letter had ended with an invitation to drop in, Tara and I decided we would take a trip to England built around a visit to Prince Charles. He had given a number to call, so the next day I called it, and I reached his personal secretary. I suggested a number of days when I could visit, and he promised he would check the prince's calendar and get back to me, which he did within a couple of days. We were scheduled for a half hour at Highgrove, the prince's summer place, which was near Tara's birthplace in Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire.
Soon we had booked a plane and made our summer plans around our English visit, only to read a few weeks later that the prince had fallen off a horse while playing polo and broken his arm. I figured our visit would be off, so I called his secretary, telling him I had heard the prince was cancelling appointme
nts. “Yes, he is,” the secretary confirmed, “but not the appointments he wants to keep, and yours is still on his calendar.”
Tara and I flew to England and after dropping our children off with relatives in Wotton-under-Edge went to Highgrove, where we were ushered into a large room whose walls were covered with pictures. I recognized the famous portrait of George iii, the mad king thought to have suffered from porphyria, a hereditary disease; under his reign, the United States had broken away. Sitting on some of the tables were numerous family photos of the prince's siblings, children, and friends, but not one of Diana. We waited for several minutes—long enough to have a good look around without being snoopy. The apparent lack of security was quite stunning, although I'm sure today things are different. When we arrived at Highgrove, I had simply called out my name at the front gate, and we were let right in, then left alone in the room.
Finally Prince Charles walked in with his arm in a sling and greeted us warmly, making a self-deprecating remark about his clumsiness while playing. He is so familiar and famous, yet so personable and relaxed. He's only a human being, but he has been bred for this kind of rarefied life and exudes that in the way he carries himself. We had been briefed about what not to do—for example, refer to the Queen as “your mother” or call him Charles. I was impressed by how trim he was—not a hint of fat around his waist, yet think of all those fancy dinners he attends.
We spoke of many things. He mentioned that the critics had blasted him for expressing his views on modern architecture, since he had no credentials. He was keenly interested in environmental issues but wanted to avoid being attacked again in the same way he was by architects, so he asked if it was all right for him to consult me if he ever needed to have some backup expertise. I readily agreed but have never heard from him again, so I hope he does have others with expertise to advise him. He told me how to address the envelope of a letter so it would get to him in person, but I have never taken advantage of that information.
