The Lives of the Rich and Famous Crooks: David Suzuki
See how this nature lover hides a darker side
The Canadian news network CBC has made him a legend by entrusting him with the television series The Nature of Things. David Suzuki, the geneticist turned environmentalist, has attracted a great deal of attention worldwide, for better or for worse. As it happens, this prominent tree hugger is also known for his intolerance and his false prophecies. Here’s the story.
Pseudo-Science and Hatred of Man
David Suzuki is very attached to nature; much more, it seems, than he is to mortals that we are. For instance, he would like the number of human beings to be greatly reduced, even if it takes a “Spanish flu epidemic”. No wonder why he describes these human beings as a giant version of “maggots” that “defecate all over the environment”. On another occasion, we were no longer “maggots”, but “cancer cells”.
These were not the first absurd statements the environmentalist had made. In a speech he had given years ago at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, he had stated that politicians who didn’t meet his arbitrary standards of “climate activism” should be incarcerated. So much for the love of man.
Now, let’s take a look at the profile of the so-called scientist. Here, the arguments are not more enlightening.
When the city of Fort McMurray, in the province of Alberta, had been devastated by a wildfire in 2016, the Suzuki Foundation had put the blame on the oil industry, in part responsible for global warming. But more serious scientists like Yan Boulanger, a researcher at Natural Resources Canada, had debunked that theory. Even the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which cannot be suspected of climate skepticism, had asserted that there was no causal link between forest fires and global warming.
Another nonsense: Suzuki claimed that up to 90% of cancer cases were caused by environmental factors as well as the heavy use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers. An opinion that the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) does not share. Based on scientific reports, the NCI concluded that approximately 4–19% of cancers were attributable to environmental factors. Very few were related to pesticides and other man-made chemicals.
One last example: after the earthquake that led to a nuclear accident at the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, Suzuki maintained that the likelihood that an earthquake of this magnitude occurs again was of the order of 95 %. And beware: that type of earthquake would result in the destruction of Japan and the evacuation of the entire American West Coast. But scientific studies told a different story. Those studies showed that the Canadian West Coast had not suffered any negative effects from the Fukushima disaster. As a reminder, only one death was linked to the radiation emitted due to the collapse of the power plant.
A Cult of Personality
A certain cult of personality has allegedly developed around David Suzuki. Ask Jonathan Kay, of the National Post. “I have had some dealings with the people who surround David Suzuki, and have found their treatment of him somewhat cultish, with each of his pronouncements being treated like pearls of wisdom from a Chinese emperor.”
A cult of personality that makes David Suzuki very sensitive to criticism, as the administrators of Carleton University in Ottawa noted. The environmentalist canceled two scholarships he was sponsoring at that university after a professor had written a negative review of a few of Suzuki’s books.
The Canadian, it seems, firmly believes in the superiority of his opinions, which has led him to attack Willie Soon, a prominent researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics because his research has shown that climate change was not caused by emissions from fossil fuels, but by solar variations. For Suzuki, the conclusion is clear: Soon is guilty of sacrilege.
A Disastrous Ecological Footprint
“Practice what you preach”, as the old saying goes. We have to admit, though, that the formula does not suit Suzuki.
In 2018, the Toronto Sun published an article that did not fail to highlight his contradictions. Examples of these contradictions abound, but we’ll settle for one of them, which involves his so-called 2014 farewell tour across Canada. On the agenda were 20 stops in several cities, from coast to coast. Twenty trips by bus or car, but also by plane, the ultimate polluter. Yet, his foundation had given us this advice: “Stay in touch with people by videoconferencing” to help “stop climate change”. Advice that, obviously, the “gray eminence” of environmentalism had ignored.
The Toronto Sun had calculated that, in addition to his “farewell” tour, Suzuki had made, between 2014 and 2018, at least eight more trips to cities in Ontario, four to Montreal, several in the Maritimes, a few more in Winnipeg and at least one in Calgary. And the whole time, our man had been making overseas documentaries for the CBC network.
An Environmentalist… and a Wealthy Man
It is good to be employed by the David Suzuki Foundation, as its salaries are quite interesting: from $100,000 to $ 250,000, according to 2016 reports. It is not known if its donors are aware of this fact. In this respect, the foundation was able to claim over $5 million in donations in 2018.
Perhaps this foundation is itself the source of the impressive real estate portfolio of its founder. Last we heard, David Suzuki owned two homes in the upscale neighborhood of Kitsilano, Vancouver. The value of the properties: 15 million for the main one, a little over a million for the second one. But why would he limit himself to these two properties? Suzuki also owns a 7-figure waterfront mansion on Quadra Island, British Columbia, as well as a vacation home in Australia.
Now, how does he get to pay the mortgages of the said properties? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the media darling reportedly charges between $30,000 and $50,000 per public appearance. Even better: Celebrity Net Worth estimates his wealth at 25 million. Not bad for an activist who calls for the end of capitalism as we know it.
Sources
Toronto Sun #1, #2, The National Post, Celebrity Net Worth, The Case Against David Suzuki: An Unauthorized Biography, Sheila Gunn Reid, Rebel News Network Ltd., 2018.
