WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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David has many careers simultaneously.
He has a television program which

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for most people would be a fulltime
job, and he writes about a book a year,

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which is a huge undertaking.
He gives speeches constantly,

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he is constantly in demand
to go and rescue some place

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or thing that\'s under threat. …any kind
of credibility, any kind of integrity…

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Usually, such groups don\'t have
any funds to pay anything,

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so all of that is voluntary. His
knowledge of the seriousness

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of the environmental problems
we\'re facing is so acute

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that I think that drives
him more than anything.

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He works all the time, even on holiday,

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he has his computer and he is
constantly receiving faxes.

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We have always tried to slow him down a little
bit because we worry about the sustainability

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of the fact that isn\'t right. But
he has found it very difficult

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to slow down, and when he
thinks of slowing down,

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he tends of think of it as sort of going
cold-turkey and then not doing anything,

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whereas I think most of us who love him
feel that we never get enough of him.

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You know, we all feel that he neglects us
because he works so hard all the time.

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[music]

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[sil.]

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David Suzuki takes some rare
time off to relax by working.

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He attacks the task with a
passion that is his hallmark.

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Suzuki is a man who challenges
who we are, how we live,

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how we are governed. He questions
our very fate as a species.

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In Canada, many people have an opinion about
David Suzuki, but most don\'t know him,

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who he is and what drives him.

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[music]

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My memories of Vancouver before
the war are all very, very happy.

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[music]

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The notion that I was Japanese

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never entered into my life at all.

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For me, I was a Canadian.

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War! It moved on to a new climax

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at Pearl Harbor in 1921. Within
a few hours of the event,

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Canada was at war with Japan.

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Fear of attack became suddenly real.

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Canada struck back against its own people.

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In British Colombia, the Suzuki family along with
23,000 other people of Japanese decent were rounded up,

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their homes were ceased, businesses
carefully built up over decades

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were confiscated. The proud
Japanese Canadian fishing fleet,

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the Japanese names painted over it
became part of the Canadian navy.

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Cars purchased with years
of savings were taken away.

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But it wasn\'t just property that was
confiscated, Japanese Canadians had to surrender

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their Canadian identity.

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Pearl Harbor led to a total shift then
in the way that I perceived myself.

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Although, I was a third generation Canadian,
my country had said that I was an enemy

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and not to be trusted, that I had
no rights along with my parents.

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My father suddenly disappeared,
he had voluntarily gone to a camp

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in the interior thinking that by
agreeing to go we might be left,

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but he was dead wrong. Working for
the government for miserable wages,

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David\'s father would not be able to join his family for
several months. We got moved out along with everybody else.

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My mother having, at that time, three children, I mean
I can\'t imagine what she must have been emotionally.

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Her husband was gone, she had to
do it on her own. She buffered us

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from any anxiety or fear. And
for a child of five or six,

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I mean it was all very
turbulent and exciting.

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I remember vividly the train trip.
And it was just fun.

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And we were going to a
concentration camp basically.

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Canada\'s camps held none of the horrors

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of concentration camps in Europe or Asia.
But on a carefree young Canadian boy,

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the experience would leave an
indelible mark. We ended up in a room

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that couldn\'t have been more than 12 feet
by 10 feet, tiny room for four of us.

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In the morning, we would be
covered in welts from bedbugs.

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The Japanese cleanliness is almost like a
religion. The idea of going to bed in a room

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in which there were bedbugs must have
been absolutely disgusting to my parents.

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In the same campus, young David
was future author, Joy Kogawa.

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Our whole class wrote poems one time,

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and his poem was Mr. Bruster had a
rooster, those are the first two lines.

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It got published. Mine did not.
He\'d be chosen out of the class

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to be the kid that was the MC for
concerts and things like that

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and he was so articulate. I admired that.
David\'s skill in English made him an outsider

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even among the Japanese.

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The war outside did not stop at the camp\'s
boundaries. Prisoners divided into two factions,

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one was strongly pro-Japanese. Kids
reflected their parents feelings,

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their parents were very angry and bitter at the government.
And so there was a great deal of high hope that Japan

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whips the allies and teaches them a lesson.
Whereas I was only saying,

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you know, I hope Canada wins the war because Canada was my
country. Because I\'d get beat up for that all the time.

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There was racism against
him from both sides,

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you know, Canadian side as well as the Japanese side.
He was pretty sensitive, its hurt him tremendously.

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This was how Hiroshima
looked after the blast.

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War on the (inaudible) almost
completely burned out.

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And suddenly, the bells started going and people
started yelling and we heard fire crackers going on.

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And this old man said, (inaudible)

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which means Ah! It\'s bad, we lost.

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And I had no idea what he was talking
about. But he knew that the war was over.

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So I jumped out and got all dressed and ran
out. And of course, kids are lighting off

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fire crackers and fire works. And I just saw it as a
celebration. So I went up to this kid and said hey,

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can I get some fire crackers? And the kid, he was
a teenager, he kicked me in the back and said,

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\"Get away, Jap, we\'ll beat you.\"

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And that\'s what I remember of
VJ day, the victory over Japan.

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These are Canada\'s 23,000 people
of Japanese race and origin.

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The problem they represent has been solved only
temporarily by the war. The ultimate solution will depend

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on the measure of careful
understanding by all Canadians.

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As the war was coming to an end,
people in British Colombia saw

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a way of getting rid of their
(inaudible) problem they had.

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And so they faced the people in the camps with a choice,
you can renounce your citizenship and go to Japan,

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which to many us was a foreign country.
Or you can stay in Canada,

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but get out of the province by
going east of the Rocky Mountains.

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And for us, for my parents,
there was no choice,

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for they were Canadians or Canadian
born, had never been to Japan,

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they wound up staying in their country. I think
that the most terrible aspect of the war

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was that I came out of
that driven by an need

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to prove to fellow Canadians that I was
worthy, that I was a Canadian like them,

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and not the kind of guy you throw in
jail because you don\'t trust him.

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So I\'ve driven by the constant need to
succeed, not because it brought money

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or because it brought me fame.

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But I was just wanted to do it to
say, see I, you know, I\'m okay.

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And the question… I mean, it becomes a sickness
when you are 61 and you still feel that,

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that need to verify to other people that
you\'re okay, you\'re a worthwhile person.

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That I attribute to the warriors

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and that very vulnerable period of
growing up and being brutalized

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by being called an enemy alien of the
country, the only country that I knew.

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[sil.]

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So here we are at Leamington.

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15,000, oh, I think it must be a
lot bigger than when I was here.

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When we left the camps and moved to
Ontario, I was nine at the time.

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We were absolutely empoveraged, we had
nothing. We arrived in Leamington,

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it must have been about 1946. Now I
am not really sure where we are,

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the town has changed so much. Holy cow!

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That\'s amazing!

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So this was all farm field when I was here.
We worked on a farm

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that was out here called Wilkinson\'s. We\'ve
worked 12 hours a day. While it was hard work

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but I didn\'t remember it as being
impressive. So you see the problem here

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that we see everywhere I guess, there
is more money to be made growing houses

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and developments than growing
vegetables on the land.

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One of the great things about my teen
years is my father of course was my hero.

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And he was a giant

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and all through my school years, when I
came home from school and he came home,

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he would always say, \"Well, what did you learn
today?\" And I really looked forward to going home

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because I would get to mouth-off and he always acted as if
I was, you know, \"Oh, boy, are you ever learning a lot?\"

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But it encouraged me to
talk, in having to remember

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and then explain to my father I had learnt.
He was teaching me how to teach.

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He always said, \"You know, the trouble with
Japanese is when they are asked to speak in public,

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there are so shy, they do a terrible job. So
you got to be able to get up on your feet

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and speak extemporaneously.\" Leamington
High School had this wonderful activity

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that oratorical contest.
And my dad made me enter

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and he would make me write
out my entire speech.

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And then when he came home from work at night, he\'d
say, \"Okay, down in the basement.\" And down we go.

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And then I would have to give the speech.
So if at any point

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I stumbled over a word, I had to
start at the beginning again.

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And I might be going through the speech and then he might
say, \"Stop. Now you\'ve got to emphasize this word here.

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And you should move your hand so that you add the
emphasis.\" And then I\'d have to start over again.

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And of course, every night I\'d end up
crying \'cause in frustration and rage

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at just having to go over and over
and over and over at this thing.

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But it got, so that by the end
of the time I was doing this,

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he could have woken me up at three in the morning
and I could have given the speech perfectly.

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Of course I won a lot of these contests.
I always felt that

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my father gave me the greatest gift that he could have ever
have given, which is that he taught me how to be orator.

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We think the trees that I are in our
watersheds there have too much value,

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we can\'t afford not to cut them down.
Being able to speak in public

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in a way that is passionate,
powerful, and credible

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gives you enormous power.

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This power Suzuki would later use to protect
what he came to love, nature itself.

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If you just look along there, you can see
the key to life here is just the diversity,

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it\'s a very diverse ecosystem, from
cattails right through to the lily pads

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and all of the water weeds.
And it\'s teaming with insects

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which are the basis for the bigger
things like birds and fish.

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[sil.]

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There is a carp over there and you see,
that\'s a nice big fish, there it is.

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When I was a kid, we used to just come down

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and it was basically a swamp. And for a boy, it was
a delight, it was a world that you could spend

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literally a lifetime in
just grabbing around.

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But fishing for me, has been
a major part of my life.

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It\'s where I really experienced and
learned a lot of my lessons about nature

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through getting ready to go fishing, gathering grasshoppers
in the morning. And of course, fishing isn\'t an activity

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where you have to catch something all
the time, fishing is an activity

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where you are just constantly immersed in that
environment. Or you might be just sitting in a bank,

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taking it easy and thinking.

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Great deal of my biology
came about through fishing.

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[music]

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In 1950, David moved from
small town Leamington

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to the prosperous city of London, Ontario.
You know, how you\'re in high school,

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you just think you\'re such
hotshot and so insensitive.

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My mother was doing the laundry and I was chatting with her.
We got to talking about when I get older and leave home.

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And she said, \"Well, you known, when you
leave home, dad and I will be getting older.

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And we hope you\'ll help us out.\" And I did
this thing about, I never asked to be born,

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you had me because you wanted me, you know, I\'ve worked in the
family, contribute too, I don\'t see that I\'ve got this obligation.

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Then I looked over and my mother was
just working and she was just crying.

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And I just felt

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what a stupid jerk you are, you know, that I would
do this to my mother just to be a smartass.

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But that was my mother, you know, like…

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she taught me about selflessness.

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So this is London Central High School,

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and it is a very centrally located, and you can
see from the size of the houses around here.

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This was a very, very chic upper
middle-class neighborhood.

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I guess there are about five
or six hundred students,

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99.5 % white. I think about
the only Asians there were

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the Suzuki family, cousins and sisters.

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High school was a very tough time because of course puberty hits
as well. And when puberty hits, of course your brain damage

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by all this testosterone
slashing through your bodies

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and at the same time I was just terribly,
terribly shy and terrified of ever asking

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a white girl out. There was a just
a profound sense of humiliation

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at being the enemy. Every
time I looked in the mirror,

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that was the enemy. That\'s what all the propaganda
said, those sneaky Japs are not to be trusted

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and you got to kill them. So the
result for me especially with my eyes

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was that I was absolutely
ashamed of the way I looked.

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Do you remember feeling like this picture?

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You remember feeling like this?
Yeah, that was me. Very Japanese.

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That\'s not what I see.
All I see is handsome.

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Look at that!

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But I remember a face, a happy face.

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And then it clouded over,

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almost while I saw… watched.

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Well, I didn\'t go through any kind of depression.
I just felt very much the outsider at Central.

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I feel sorry. As I look back

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and I think, look, what you should have given David and you
didn\'t. No, you are wrong on that, you\'re wrong on that.

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You are a very powerful influence in my
life. I mean, the fact that you expected me

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to give more was a tremendous… I did that?

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Yes. And for me, that was a very important thing
that I knew that you had the confidence in me

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to know there was something
more to come out of me.

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So stop being so lazy and give me more. Well, I
didn\'t. I remember you just pulling it out of us.

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You bet, you bet. Did it show?

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Of course. Why do we remember you and come
back to you? Well, I have often wondered.

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Do you remember details
of becoming pious person?

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In grade 13, one of the guys I hung around said,
\"You know, you ought to run for student president.\"

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Well, I was never socially
adapt in high school

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and the idea of running for
student president was just,

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I mean would never have occurred to me to do that. My father
was the guy that when I told him about this, he said,

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\"Well, of course. Go for it, if you think you might have
a chance.\" And I said, but, dad, I\'ll never make it.

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He said, \"Look, you\'re not going to do
anything if you are afraid of loosing.

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How can you go through life constantly saying, \"No, I don\'t want
to do that cause I don\'t have a chance.\" You\'ve got to try.\"

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My dad had this old Marlin T-Ford,

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where David made a big sign \"Vote
for David Suzuki for president.\"

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I did do a lot of graphics for him

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in those days saying \"Vote for Suzuki\", and doing
wonderful designs, and cheering him on that way.

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I got more votes than all of the
other candidates put together.

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But it really wasn\'t because I
was so well known or so popular.

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
I think it\'s just because there are far more
outies in the school than there are innies.

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
I mean that was probably and incredible
achievement for, you know, a Japanese Canadian

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
in the 50s to be elected as a president
of a very middle-class school

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
in South-Western Ontario.
It was quite remarkable.

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
Fellow student, John Thompson graduated from Central
High, a year ahead of Suzuki and went to the prestigious

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
Amherst College in Massachusetts. A college that actively
sort students who would offer a different perspective.

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
I went to the dean of
admissions and I said, hey,

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
there is this kid back in London,
Ontario, and he is pretty bright,

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
and he is Japanese. I wasn\'t aware
at that time that David had been

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
one of the Japanese that had been interned during
the war. Anyway, I remember the dean saying

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
after I told him about David, he said, \"Well, how can
we get him?\" Amherst offered Suzuki a scholarship

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
that he received what is considered to be one
of the best educations in North America.

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
When he graduated, in the eyes of his
parents, it was time for him to marry.

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
My father said to me, \"The only
acceptable mate for you is Japanese.\"

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
I said, Dad, there are only ten Japanese
girls that are eligible in London

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
and three of them are my sisters. He said, \"Okay, okay, okay,\"
He said, \"if you find a Chinese girl, that\'s acceptable.\"

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
I said, dad, there are three Chinese girls in all of
London. So he said, \"Okay, if you find a native American,

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
and Indian girl, that\'s acceptable because
they are related to us genetically.\"

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
I said, there isn\'t a reserve in
London, I don\'t know any native girls.

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
He said, \"Okay, if you have
a black girl, that\'s okay

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
\'cause they are visible minority and they know what
prejudice is about and there was only one black girl

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
in all of my school that I knew. She wasn\'t interested
in me. He said, \"Okay, well, if you find a Jewish girl,

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
that\'s okay \'cause they are minority.
They know about prejudice.\"

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
The absolute rock bottom of course was
English. In the end, Suzuki married Joane,

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
a Japanese Canadian. I picked the
queen of the crop in London, Ontario,

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
which was Joane. We were
high school sweethearts.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
And Joan worked for three years while
putting me through graduate school.

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
Suzuki earned his PhD in Zoology
at the University of Chicago.

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
Tamiko was born in 1960
and that I must say was

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
the most unexpected joy of
my life, when Tam arrived

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
I had no idea what children were about.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
There was just this wonderful
experience for me.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
[sil.]

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
By the early 60s, Suzuki had gained a reputation of in
America as a brilliant researcher in the field of genetics.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
Despite, better offers in the
US, Suzuki decided to come home

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
and to the province that 20 years
earlier had thrown his family out.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
We came to UBC, then in \'63. I was
working on the genetics of fruit flies.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
I really had the bug that I wanted
to be a big hotshot geneticist

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
and I\'ve always felt that in science, you
can\'t just do it from eight to five,

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
five days a week. It has to be total involvement and
of course that was a great excitement of the lab.

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
He was just away all the time, and when I was
actually at his lab once, and the phone rang,

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
and I answered, and I said, Suzuki residence. And all
the students in there were howling with laughter

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
but it could only be I, I knew something
then. Go to the lab in the morning,

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
come home from dinner, play with the kids,
bathe them, put them to bed, go back to work,

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
and come home one, two, three in the morning. And
often say, hey, Joane, can you make something to eat,

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
I haven\'t eaten dinner. And she would get up and make
me dinner. Well, it was a crummy way of living I think.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
At one point, she finally said, \"Look,
you know, you\'ve been a professor now,

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
you\'ve got lab, you\'ve got a job.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
You\'ve got to start spending more time with me and
the family.\" And at that point I just couldn\'t

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
the idea of spending less time in the lab

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
was like ripping my right arm off.
And so I moved out.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
While Suzuki\'s home life was crumbling, his genetics
laboratory at the University of British Colombia

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
was fast building an international reputation.
Students recognized Suzuki as a great teacher

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
and flocked to his classes.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
I talked in my classes about
the social impact of genetics.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
I talked about the ethical implications and
the fact that geneticist had an obligation

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
to discuss this in public. And I found the
students love this kind of discussion,

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
and they would come to me, and say, \"Well, what\'s
this thing Eugenics? What\'s that all about?

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
And, you know, what about in Nazi Germany, what
was going on there?\" I didn\'t know any of this.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
A branch of Eugenics advocate
the true genetic selection

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
human kind can be improved.
In the hands of the Nazis,

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
Eugenics meant racial purification, which led to the
murder of people whose genes were labeled inferior.

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
I had never heard of Eugenics.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
I had never heard that there was anything to do
anything with genetics and the Nazi race purification.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
I discovered that the kind of reasoning

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
that had been used to lock up
the Japs when the war broke out

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
was being filled by geneticist. There were
two great passions in my life at that time,

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
one was genetics and the other had been civil
rights. While working in the United States,

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
Suzuki had fought against racism
directed at black Americans.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
The civil rights had come through my own experience
being incarcerated as a Japanese Canadian

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
during the Second World War.
My concern about human rights

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
and my love of genetics came together
in this incredibly grotesque way.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
I realized that this great
activity that I love, genetics,

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
was filled with enormous implications,
horrific implications for the rest of society.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
And for many, many months, I
was absolutely paralyzed,

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
I just couldn\'t bring myself
to continue to do any research

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
because I felt I was contributing to a body of
knowledge, that we had potential applications

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
that were enormous. Suzuki realized
that science was not neutral.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
It could be used for good or for evil.

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
I came out of that period of paralysis by saying one
of the responsibilities was to speak out as openly,

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
and honestly, and as informed,
in as informed manner

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
about the implications. And then I realized my
God, here is this powerful medium of television

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
and through television then I could
begin to try to educate people

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
about science and how it
affected their lives.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
Have you ever wondered what it would
be like to be of a different race?

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
Just imagine changing the color of
your skin or the contours of your face

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
whenever you like. It would
truly be a color blind world.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
Then again, without visible trades,
how would we make quick judgments

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
about each other, like where someone
is from, how smart they are,

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
or whether or not they are good in sports.
The way we look says a lot about

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
who we are or does it.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
That aspect of David\'s concern of course
fitted into him coming into television

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
and speaking to a much wider
audience about issues in science,

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
trying to demystify science, trying
to explain what scientists are doing.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
Jim Murray hired Suzuki as host
of The Nature of Things in 1972.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
The Murray-Suzuki team
made The Nature of Things

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
one of the most popular series on the CBC.
It turned Suzuki into a national personality

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
and into a passionate environmentalist. We were
doing environmental programs back in the 60s.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
So when David came in, we started to talk to him about
these kinds of issues. He wasn\'t into that space

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
and it certainly was the
unit that brought him around

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
to thinking about these issues. It\'s
not just an intellectual issue,

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
it\'s an issue that goes to the heart

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
of the relationship between human
beings and nature, and the sad fact is

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
that we are devouring the earth and life support
systems. And if that isn\'t something that

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
one can occasionally get emotional
about then I don\'t know what is.

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
About how technologies affect
and now threaten life.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
Every year, we destroyed thousands of
species, we behave as if all this life

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
exists just for us, for our consumption.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
Other things that strike me about his life, the thing that
strikes you most interesting is that he got out of genetics

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
at exactly the point where
genetics was turning into the

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
absolutely most interesting
science in the world.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
Suzuki had made his choice. Now
a nationally respected figure,

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
he began to speak out against what he considered to be
the want and destruction of Canada\'s natural resources,

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
especially, forest clear cutting.
This put him in direct confrontation

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
with British Colombia\'s biggest industry.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
I consider him an enormous forest for good and Canadian environmental
movement. But he has this enormous passion and it\'s almost uncontrollable.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
David Suzuki says, \"The forest industry

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
won\'t be heard if the Stein Valley isn\'t log.\"
If they think you can cut down a virgin forest

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
and pay a bunch of kids to go and stick seedlings
in the ground and somehow that\'s reforestation.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
They have got rocks in their head. I
think his great strength as a politician

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
and kind of politician that you can be when
you actually have a place in the media.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
Today, something very weird is going on. The economy
now is there and we are supposed to serve it,

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
you know, you\'re going to sacrifice
for the sake of the economy.

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
Your community has to give up social services for the sake of the
economy. Wait a minute, the economy is not some monster or a thing,

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
we made it! And if it\'s
not doing what we want,

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
then we damn well want a different one is what I
feel. The thing about being a political person

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
is that it\'s very hard to
be both a political person

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
and a very nuanced thinker.
He has a tendency

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
not to want to include
in the political world,

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
the kind of nuances that he knows
exists in genetics let\'s say.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
The young people are all knowing
and are all hero worshipping.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
I want to see (inaudible).
Oui, okay. (inaudible).

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
Cynthia.

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
He is undoubtedly one of the piped pipers

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
of the Canadian environmental movement.
See that wasn\'t too bad.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
There is a downside to celebrity to being

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
quite a well-known person. We do
get a lot of anonymous letters.

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
For example, a letter filled with hatred,
we have a bullet through the window,

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
and David\'s computer files at UBC were entered. Inside the
zoology building at the University of British Colombia,

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
Dr David Suzuki has an office. He says his
computer in the office has been tampered with.

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
At the very time that our
office was broken into,

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
we got a call from RCMP that our
cottage had been vandalized.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
Suzuki says both incidents occurred after he
appeared in a controversial German documentary

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
in which deprived to the
sea logging practices.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
IWA President, Jack Munro blasted Suzuki.
Munro saying his actions were treasonable.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
To call people traitors, I
find very, very shocking

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
because the word traitor or treason is a
reason many countries to execute people.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
So he has to take the flack personally

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
and I must say that he is been
very courageous about that.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
He is fortunately a tough guy.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
Well, this isn\'t so bad.

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
I was giving a lecture at
Carleton University in Ottawa,

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
this is December 10th 1971.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
And I noticed this woman sitting near
the front ad she is very striking.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
He talked for an hour and half and that gave me a
lot of time to observe a lot of things about him

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
and hear a lot of things he believed in.
And by the end of it,

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
I decided well, that\'s the first person I\'ve
ever seen that I would realty consider marrying.

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
And when I finished my talk then, at the end
people come up, and they gather around,

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
and discuss things, and she came up.
So I said in a very loud voice

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
at this end of this kind of discussion with all these
people, I hope everybody is going to the party tonight.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
And I kind of took off at that point. But I did think as he
left and said, does everyone know about the party tonight,

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
that was for my benefit. I got there and
there was such a crowd around David

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
that I couldn\'t talk to him but
I thought well, here I am.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
So he suddenly popped up in front of me
and said, \"Would you like to dance?\"

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
And then, we really couldn\'t talk that evening,
our hearts were pounding too hard I think.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
She was from Vancouver and so I set
up a date to meet her in Vancouver.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
We went up to a cabin op on
one of the mountains here

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
and I asked her to marry me. And
I married her exactly to a year

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
to the day December 10th 1972.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
So it was the greatest thing
that ever happened to me.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
[music]

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
When I met Tara and found
that she responded to me,

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
I felt I\'d really gone ahead.
I never in my wildest dreams

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
could have ever imagined having am partner like
Tara ever spending the rest of her life with me.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
And I just feel it\'s been
an incredible privilege

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
and having her grow so much together
with me has just been wonderful.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
When David asked me to marry him, I
remember thinking if I marry him,

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
it\'s going to be like
riding in a rollercoaster.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
If I hang on, I\'ll have the ride of my life.
But there are going to be a lot forces

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
acting on me and I managed to hang on and
it\'s been fantastic, a real adventure.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
But it\'s been tough. He is doing something
which I consider extremely important,

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
I am very deeply involved
in that out of choice.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
And so I choose to work alongside him.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
But it doesn\'t make it easy to have
a separate strong personal identity

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
apart from David.

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
I am a Japanese male, only son in
a traditional Japanese family.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
And of course, in our family, when you eat
your rice and when the bowl was empty,

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
if you are a male, you just held it up like
this, and if I was having a conversation,

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
I would continue talking, and the I would just go on
eating because it would be taken away filled with rice,

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
and put back in my hand. He didn\'t say me
may I have some more rice, it was just…

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
So you just automatically
filled up his rice bowl.

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
I mean that\'s the kind of
background that I had.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
So when I first encountered people like Tara,
it was quite a shock because there was no way

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
that role was going to be
filled by a strong feminist.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
But he did at one point sound
quite sorry for himself,

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
being Japanese in a white society

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
and I remember for some reason
it made me burst of laughing.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
And I told him, well, he would never understand what
it was to be a female in a sexist society either.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
So his going to have to get over it,
and I think he was quite surprised.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
Yes, I know he is really changed. Oh, I
think Tara has done a remarkable job,

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
his transformation is unbelievable. I
mean if you asked us 20 years ago,

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
we would never envision David
sort of tackling the dishes

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
and making the fruit salad and scrubbing and
yes, he does seemingly really enjoying it

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
and maybe he is doing in a frenzy
to make up for all the years

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
that he was catered to. So Tara is
enjoying the benefits of his guilt me.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
[sil.]

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
For me, having a very
committed feminist as a wife

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
and having two children, who because of
Tara\'s feelings are mimicking her attitudes,

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
I\'m constantly brought up very sharply

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
when I express my own male chauvinism.
Are we going fishing? No, we were but…

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
Well, we want to go porch
fishing, you know, later.

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
Dad, (inaudible). Please, for my birthday.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
For your birthday. Man,
I just love the idea.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
Getting up in the morning and just jumping…
It\'s a great idea, that\'s a great idea.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
[sil.]

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
David Suzuki admits he was an absentee
father with his first family, now grown up.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
He still maintains the work and
travel schedule as punishing as ever.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
But now he is firstly protective of the
time he spends with his second family.

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
We had to go a lot of the places that he
went. So I wouldn\'t say he was so absent

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
as you might think because we\'ve been travel all
over the world. We\'ve seen all kinds of things

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
that most kids our age
haven\'t been able to see

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
and it makes you realize first of
all how lucky we are as Canadians.

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
And also I feel the sense of responsibility
as someone who knows how privileged we are.

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
I find myself feeling responsible to
take action, to do something about it.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
But I will live with all of the consequences
of the decisions that are made today.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
I\'m inheriting what you leave me.
The fast bulk of ecological change

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
that has occurred over
the last 10,000 years

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
has happened within in my parent\'s lifetime. I
think a massive value change has to take place.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
We have to face up to all the bad news.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
But most importantly, we
must look to what we must do

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
in our own backyards. Severn and Sarika
are determined environmentalists.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
[sil.]

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
Suzuki agonizes over the world his
generation is leaving for them.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:43.000
[music]

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
[sil.]

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
This is my father\'s favorite spot.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
He loved this place on Quadra. When he
was dying and I would wheel him out

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
to this spot here and he would sit for
hours and hours just looking out.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
When he died, my sister brought his ashes and
spread them here because that\'s what he wanted.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
He said, \"If you look out after you
spread my ashes and see that eagle flying

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
or look at the great trees on
the island, I will be there.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
I\'ll be part of them.\" And I always feel
that my father is still very much here,

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
a part of this island.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
In his older years, my father became very
intrigued by the whole idea of Shinto

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
which is his Japanese ancient
form nature worship.

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
And he would always talk about reincarnation
that you can\'t ever destroy the atoms

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
that makeup what your bodies
are, and that when you die,

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
you put the atoms back into
nature, and you become revivified

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
through all of the things that absorbed
those atoms. And the older I get,

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
the more I think he is absolutely
right, I mean I\'m made up of atoms

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
that are identical to the atoms in the
grass, to the birds, to the insects.

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
What is it about the arrangement of those
atoms that is so special in a human being,

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
and I just don\'t think that there is anything
special. And I would prefer to think

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
that its matter itself, the elements,
the atoms that makeup our minds,

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
that makeup the grass, and
the trees, and the air,

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
that are imbued with something
very, very special.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
Suzuki has long felt himself an outsider.

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
So it\'s not surprising he feels an affinity
with first nation\'s people and their causes.

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
He has been honored by aboriginal people

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
from British Colombia to the Brazilian Rainforest.
These are honors Suzuki values as much

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
as the many degrees and
awards he has received.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
The Kayapo of the Amazon and the Musqueam
of Vancouver, have both received support

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
from the David Suzuki Foundation, an influential
environmental think tank to which Suzuki now devotes

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
most of his energy. Set up in 1990,
the foundation has 15,000 supporters.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
Its goal is to influence public
opinion on environmental issues

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
through research reports,
project funding, and the media.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
The reason why we (inaudible) on dimming
our way into destroying our surroundings

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
is because everybody is looking through these
tiny vested interest windows. That\'s right.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
And nobody is looking at the big picture. I
don\'t believe for a minute that I or any group

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
is going to save the world. We aren\'t. But if
we have a few hundred million people saying

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
I can make a difference, we will.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:03.000
[sil.]

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
There is no question that the
driving force in my life

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
has been to show that even though I am Japanese,
I am a Canadian and I love this place

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
and I want to make a contribution. Now by
all of the criteria of public accolade

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
or honorary degrees, I
have achieved all of that.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
And it\'s clear those aren\'t
the things that matter.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
This is a different kind of sea cucumber, eh, Tara? Yes.
The other part that flowers. Yes. Oops, it spit at me.

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
It came out of the wrong end.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
These are related to our ancestors.
They are?

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
Yeah. Well, it\'s kind of like… If I have to make
a decision, should I or should I not do this.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
I ask will my parents still be proud of me,

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
will my wife still respect me, and
will my children still love me

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
if I do or do not do this. And the answer to that
is what determines whether or not I do this thing.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
So obviously, I\'m not
impelled with any notion

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
that I\'m going to go out and save the
planet. I\'m going to go out and try

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
because if I didn\'t, I wouldn\'t be
able look my children in the eye.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:33.000
[music]

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
The water is so clear, I bet you
could drink that, it\'s just…

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:53.000
[music]