Excerpt: “Environmentalism has failed,” Suzuki declared in a dark blog post. The heady victories of the 1970s and ’80s over air pollution, acid rain, and clear-cut logging are distant memories. The oil and gas industry has never been stronger, sinking ocean wells, fracking across the continent, and going full-bore on Alberta’s oil sands. Meanwhile, the fight against climate change has come to a virtual halt, as governments around the world put the economy ahead of the environment. “We’ve come to a point where things are getting worse, not better,” he said in an interview with Maclean’s.
In the final stretch, David Suzuki is beset by doubts and doubters, both at home and abroad. During his recent trip to Australia, he sat down with a national network for a one-hour televised Q&A. It was anything but a love-in. The evening began with two hostile questions on global warming from invited dissenters. Other audience plants took him to task for his stand against genetically modified foods, statements he had made about the effect of cyclones on the Great Barrier Reef, and his views on immigration. Suzuki never lost his patience, but he seemed to wilt under the attacks as the show went on. “I’ve had a belly full of fighting. We’ve got to stop the fighting,” he pleaded at one point. The message that he has been delivering for four decades is no longer getting through. And time is running short. “I hope there’s a happy ending. That’s all I have left. Hope.”
Complete article here: http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/11/18/the-nature-of-david-suzuki/
