Early Feelings of Race-Based Victimization

Born in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC) on March 24, 1936, David Suzuki is a third-generation Japanese-Canadian whose grandparents immigrated to Canada from Hiroshima and Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Suzuki was one of four siblings, and his parents owned a dry-cleaning business in Vancouver. But from 1942 until the end of World War II, he and his family were among the many North Americans of Japanese ancestry who were confined to internment camps. Suzuki’s father was sent to a labor camp in Solsqua, BC, while Suzuki and the rest of the family were sent to a camp in Slocan, BC. That experience of family separation had a profound and lasting effect on Suzuki, who thereafter viewed white North American society as a bastion of racism, and felt “a very profound empathy for what minority groups in this country [the U.S.] have gone through.” Suzuki has asserted, for instance, that blacks and Native people in the West “have been taught, generation after generation,” that they are “savages” whose intrinsic value amounts to “nothing.”

Academic Career

Suzuki earned a BA in biology at Amherst College in 1958, and a Ph.D. in zoology three years later at the University of Chicago. He subsequently spent the bulk of his professional career as a faculty member at the University of British Columbia (UBC) from 1963 until his retirement in 2001, at which time he became a professor emeritus at UBC. Suzuki’s overall career in academia proceeded chronologically as follows:

• 1961-1962: Research Associate, Biology Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory — Oak Ridge, Tennesee
• 1962-1963: Assistant Professor, Department of Genetics, University of Alberta — Edmonton, Alberta
• 1963-1965: Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia — Vancouver, BC
• 1966: Summer Visiting Professor, Department of Zoology, University of California — Berkeley, California
• 1965-1969: Associate Professor, Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia — Vancouver, BC
• 1969: Spring Visiting Professor, Department of Genetics, University of California — Berkeley, California
• 1969-1993: Professor, Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia — Vancouver, BC
• 1971: Winter Honorary Professor, Department of Biology, University of Utah — Salt Lake City, Utah
• 1972: Winter Visiting Professor, Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico — Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico
• 1972: Spring Honorary Professor, Department of Biology, University of Utah — Salt Lake City, Utah
• 1976: Spring Visiting Professor, Bacteriology & Immunology, University of California — Berkeley, California
• 1977: Spring Visiting Professor, Molecular Biology, University of California — Berkeley, California
• 1978: Fall Visiting Professor, Department of Zoology, University of Toronto — Toronto, Ontario
• 1993-2001: Professor, Associate, Sustainable Research Development Institute, University of British Columbia — Vancouver, BC
• 2001-Present: Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia — Vancouver, BC

Television & Radio Programs

In an effort to communicate his scientific discoveries and concerns to the Canadian public, Suzuki began giving commentary on television during the 1960s. His first TV show, Suzuki on Science, which was aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) from 1971 to 1972, quickly made him a media personality. In 1975, Suzuki began hosting both the CBC television program Science Magazine and CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks. In 1979, Science Magazine was merged with another CBC program titled The Nature of Things, with the result becoming Suzuki’s own hour-long show, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, which he would go on to host for more than 30 years.

For a comprehensive list of Suzuki’s many television and radio ventures, click here.

Books

As of 2023, Suzuki had authored a total of 52 books. His 1976 book, Introduction to Genetic Analysis (co-authored with A.J.F. Griffiths), became the most popular genetics textbook used in the United States and was translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek, Indonesian, Arabic, French, and German.

Likening Human Beings to Maggots

During an informal 1972 discussion with a group of young people, Suzuki compared maggots to human beings. In particular, he likened the largest and most destructive maggots to people who accumulate a great deal of wealth, despoil the environment, and metaphorically “crush” their fellow man in various ways. Said Suzuki:

“One thing that I’ve gotten off on, lately, is that basically, you know, I study fruit flies. And I suddenly realized that basically we’re all fruit flies. [Laughter.] Like, you know. You’re born as an egg, and you live in that egg environment, and your parents kind of cut out all the external crap that comes in, and protect you, and nourish you, and clothe you, and all that. A very nice little egg, and it’s comfortable. But at some point, you hatch out and start crawling around and eating stuff on your own. You start reading, you start looking at the tube [television], you start doing all sorts of things. And you hatch out as a maggot. And a maggot — [laughter] — a maggot can now crawl around. It’s got two dimensions, and it can ingest food at its will, and it defecates all over the environment. And some other smaller maggots can even eat your defecation and get some nourishment out of it. And, you know, you grow as you eat more nourishment and you moult. You become a second-level maggot. You know, a bigger maggot. Even looks different. And the bigger you get, the more people you can — the more maggots you can crush with your weight. […] [M]ost people in the world are content to stay as first- or second-level maggots. And they establish their own little area. And they crawl around there, and that’s fine. And the guys that become tenth-level maggots are really big wheels. (To view a video of Suzuki speaking these words, click here.)

Claiming That Technology Destroys the Environment

In a speech he delivered to the Empire Club in Toronto in December 1988, Suzuki explained that modern mankind’s technology had become the great enabler of environmental destruction:

“We now are the most numerous, ubiquitous large mammal on the planet, but we are like no other animal that ever existed, because we are armed with the incredible muscle power of science and technology. Armed with that kind of muscle power, and our numbers and demands, we now assault the environment, and the environment can no longer take it and bounce back.

“I think of the increase in muscle power out our way in the Queen Charlotte Islands where the people have lived for thousands of years. They tell me that before contact with Europeans, it took them up to a year and a half to cut down a single cedar or spruce tree. It took so long for those trees to fall, they would build cradles to cradle them as they were starting to lean. After contact with Europeans, two men and a saw and axe could take ten days. Now, one man and a chainsaw can repeat the job in minutes. It’s that incredible increase in muscle power that is at the base of what we are facing today. We continue to attack the environment as if it were the way it has been for 99.9 percent of our existence.”

Claiming That Capitalism & Its Illegitimate “Sacred Truths” Destroy the Environment

In that same December 1988 speech to the Empire Club in Toronto, Suzuki lamented people’s widespread embrace of what they viewed as “sacred truths” regarding the desirability of capitalism and economic growth:

“[W]e continue as a society to cling to beliefs and values that are so deeply embedded in our culture that we never question them. I call them sacred truths. And yet, in many cases, these sacred truths are the very cause of the problems that we are trying to deal with…. I think the most important one that we have to face is that we now are driven by the priority of global economics. Global economics has become the reason why governments exist, to deal with global economics and to carve out our place in the market.

“I would suggest that we have to look at the way that economics has changed in the last few decades. We have come as a society to equate progress with economic growth. If there is no economic growth, we say that we have stagnated, that we have a crisis, we have a recession. Growth and progress have become equivalent, and most of the growth we deal with is in terms of profit. So growth, progress and profit have become interchangeable terms; growth has become an end in itself. If we don’t grow, we don’t progress. The problem with that is that nothing in the universe continues to grow in that way indefinitely, exponentially. It’s a ludicrous kind of notion. If growth becomes an end in itself, then there is no further end.

“I can tell you there is something fundamentally wrong with that, fundamentally wrong because … 20 percent of the planet’s population—North America, Europe and Asia, or Japan at least—now consumes over 80 percent of the resources of the planet. It produces the vast bulk of toxic waste…

“I would suggest that if you are seriously concerned with where we are going in the next few decades, you cannot continue to cling to the notion that we can have steady exponential growth in the coming years.

“Let me just skim through some other sacred truths. We believe that we as a species lie outside nature, above nature; that we are somehow different from other creatures … It is easy to feel a sense or an illusion that we now are somehow controlling the world around us. We forget this at great peril. We forget that we are still, at its absolute fundamental level, animals. We are animals who for our health and longevity require clean air, clean water and clean food …

“It’s a ludicrous idea to think that we can use air, water and soil as a dumping ground for our effluents and not ultimately pay for that in some way. We live in a finite world in which all that we eat and depend on must derive its nutrition and survival out of the air, water and soil around … We need a radically different notion of society’s priorities. A redefinition of the word progress and of our relationship with nature.”

In September 2008, Eric Heidenreich of the Capital Research Center wrote: “It is becoming increasingly clear that David Suzuki’s agenda has gone far past simple environmental issues. He is pushing for the destruction of the American economy and an almost complete return to the 19th century.”

In an interview in early 2023, Suzuki said:

“I think what we’ve done in the West, in the industrialized world, is that we have shifted in the way we see the world. For 99% of our existence, we saw ourselves living in a web of relationships with air, water, land, the sun, and other species. And in that web, we were one small strand, so we understood that we were dependent on everything else. We have come along, and we’ve shattered the web and made it into a pyramid where we’re at the top, and everything down below is for us. And our actions in this pyramid are now driven for economic, political, and legal reasons that are founded on this idea of us being at the top instead of being in a web. And that’s the real crisis, I think. We’re still arguing about climate change as if it’s an economic problem.

“When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said acting to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions was “crazy economics,” he elevated the economy above the atmosphere that gives us air to breathe, weather, climate and the seasons. Now that’s crazy – the creed of cancer, namely endless growth, is a fundamental assumption and goal of the economic system. Nature is only a source of raw materials or a dumping ground for our wastes, but ecosystem services like filtering water during the hydrological cycle, the creation of soil, the creation of oxygen-rich air, the removal of carbon dioxide, etc., are ignored as ‘externalities.’

Establishing The David Suzuki Foundation (1990)

In 1990, Suzuki and his wife, Harvard professor Tara Cullis, together established the David Suzuki Foundation to “protect the diversity of nature and our quality of life, now and for the future.”

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

In 2006, Suzuki articulated his reasons for opposing the use of nuclear energy at that time:

“I do not categorically reject nuclear energy but believe that any large investment like this should be able to answer some critical questions: First is the cost. Show me any nuclear plant that has come in under budget. Most of the power debt Ontarians are paying now is for nuclear investments already made. This is an extremely expensive technology. Second is reliability. These plants are plagued by breakdowns which take them off the grid and cost huge sums to fix. So cost and reliability alone suggest this is a really bad investment. Third, after 9/11 we live in a different world. We know any committed terrorist could blow up our nuclear plants or steal radioactive material. How secure is this technology? Finally, there’s waste. What do we do with radioactive waste that will last for tens of thousands of years? It seems to me there are no satisfactory answers to these questions and so why would anyone seriously propose nuclear energy at this time?”

Advocating Decreased Energy Consumption, & Conversion to Renewable Energy Sources

In 2006, Suzuki said the following about which sources of energy he viewed as acceptable alternatives to carbon-based sources:

“We cannot go on living with the idea that energy demand will simply continue to rise so we have to keep meeting those increases. We live in a finite world and it is ludicrous to think we can have steady growth forever. The rolling brownouts over California were followed by a massive decrease in demand. Consumers showed they could bring their demand down so we have a chance to educate people to be much more efficient and to reduce their needs. Switching from an SUV to an energy efficient car can triple the distance one can travel on a litre of gas. On the other side, we can go ahead with opportunities in non-polluting renewables like wind, solar, geothermal, and microhydro. Then there are stopgap technologies like biofuels, while further down the line is the great hope of hydrogen. We need to maximize exploitation of renewables while getting more out of every unit of energy we do use.”

Contempt for the George W. Bush Administration

Suzuki had many disagreements with President George W. Bush’s administration (2001-2009), and those disputes extended well beyond environmental matters. As Suzuki said in a 2009 interview: “The Bush administration, from the minute they came in, essentially declared that they’re going to be world bandits. They’re not going to abide by any international agreements. They said they will not abide by the World Court [also known as the International Court of Justice)…. They said ‘we’re not going to abide by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty’ … They said that ‘we don’t want to enter into any kind of international land mines treaty. And we sure don’t want to enter into the Kyoto Agreement.’”

Portraying Climate-Change Skeptics as “Criminals” & “Eco-Terrorists”

According to Suzuki, global climate change is a serious and pressing problem that an “overwhelming majority of scientists” now ascribe to the carbon-dioxide emissions associated with human industrial activity. During the George W. Bush administration, Suzuki chastised the president for “continu[ing] to deny the reality of climate change and … rejecting the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”; he characterized Bush’s position as “a direct slap in the face of the scientific community.”

In November 2006, Suzuki accused certain media outlets, particularly Fox News, of maliciously working to discredit what he characterized as the large body of scientific evidence suggesting that anthropogenic global warming posed a grave threat to the earth and all its life forms. These media “skeptics” and “deniers,” Suzuki said in 2009, were bankrolled by coal and oil companies and “[fossil-fuel] industry-funded lobby groups.”

In a 2006 interview with the publication Collections, Suzuki made the following remarks regarding climate change and the skeptics who questioned whether it truly posed a grave environmental threat:

• “[I]t is not a scientific debate [any longer]. The data are in and totally compelling. Indeed, climate scientists meeting in Toronto in 1988 were so alarmed by the data that they called for a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases in 15 years. Think how much easier and cheaper it would have been had we taken the scientific evidence seriously and started then.”
• “[T]he skeptics are a small group known for their support of corporations like the fossil fuel industry. In fact, many are receiving money directly from the industry.”
• “The fossil fuel industry has done its best to suggest that human induced climate change is not happening, that the science of climate change is not credible, and that the cost of doing something will be prohibitive. I believe in the future, people will look back on the efforts corporations have made to stave off any action on reducing emissions as not only immoral but criminal. Al Gore’s film was powerful, as has been Tim Flannery’s book, The Weather Makers, but industry is launching an all out assault on their credibility.”

In 2008, Suzuki urged an audience at McGill University to “see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders [who deny the environmental threat posed by global warming] into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act.” “It’s an intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years,” he added.

Suzuki took up this theme again in a 2009 speech, also at McGill University, where he said: “When you have politicians who are advised by scientists how bad climate change is going to hit, and by economists how bad it is for the economy, and they still do not take action, that is an intergenerational crime.”

Suzuki uses the term “eco-terrorists” to describe “people who say ‘baloney’ to global warming,” who “continue to pump out all kinds of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” and who “clear-cut forests” but “don’t give a damn about what that’s going to do the the quality of the air or the water or other creatures.” Such destructive actions, he said in November 2006, are largely by-products of greed in the “corporate sector” which has routinely “injured and manhandled” many innocent people.

In a similar vein, Suzuki in a 2010 interview characterized “the private sector” – specifically the automobile, pharmaceutical, forestry, fishing, and fossil fuel industries – as “absolutely disgusting” for trying to implement cost-cutting measures that would, in Suzuki’s view, jeopardize both public safety and the natural environment. To address this problem, Suzuki called on “government leadership” to regulate these industries much more tightly and to advise them: “You damn well live up to that [i.e., the regulations]. And if you don’t want to be in our country [i.e., comply], get the hell out!”

In a June 2018 article published by Canada’s National Observer, Suzuki wrote: “The costs of climate change are mounting — from floods, droughts, wildfires, healthcare costs and degradation of natural services, among others — and will worsen if we don’t act.”

In September 2019, Suzuki wrote in the Toronto Star that the world was on the verge of succumbing to the “catastrophic, irreversible” consequences of anthropogenic climate change:

“Last October, hundreds of the world’s top climate scientists, representing almost every nation, gave us another, even more dire warning: We only have about 12 years to reduce our global emissions by half in order to avoid the catastrophic, irreversible effects of locking too many emissions into the atmosphere for years to come — everything from widespread drought, crop failure and water shortages to intensified wildfires and mass human displacement. The world’s best-known medical journal, The Lancet, also tells us the health consequences for humanity — from heat stroke to the spread of diseases and parasites — will be enormous.”

At a November 18, 2021 Extinction Rebellion protest on Vancouver Island, Suzuki issued a warning about what would happen if political leaders failed to take actions to mitigate climate change. “We’re in deep, deep doo-doo,” he said. “This is what we’re come to. The next stage after this, there are going to be [oil] pipelines blown up if our leaders don’t pay attention to what’s going on.”

Emphasizing the existence of broad agreement in the scientific community regarding the threat posed by anthropogenic climate change, Suzuki says: “The overwhelming majority of scientists who study climate change agree that human activity is responsible for changing the climate. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is one of the largest bodies of international scientists ever assembled to study a scientific issue, involving more than 2,500 scientists from more than 130 countries. The IPCC has concluded that most of the warming observed during the past 50 years is attributable to human activities. Its findings have been publicly endorsed by the national academies of science of all G-8 nations, as well as those of China, India and Brazil.”

Suzuki’s Massive Appearance Fees

One day in October 2012, Suzuki appeared at a publicly funded, not-for-profit college in Quebec, Canada, to help it celebrate the opening of its new Science and Health Technologies building. He arrived at the school at 9 a.m., met with students, gave a speech, sold and signed signed copies of his books, participated in a press conference, and attended a gala dinner where he was the keynote speaker. For his time and efforts that day, Suzuki billed the school $30,000, plus nearly $4,500 in tax.

Suzuki’s Hypocrisy Regarding Carbon Footprints

In May 2018, an opinion piece in the Calgary Herald pointed out Suzuki’s hypocrisy vis-a-vis what he portrayed as the urgent need for Westerners to implement dramatic changes to their lifestyle:

“Suzuki … spends a lot of time hectoring others about over-population (but he has five children), reducing our carbon footprint (he has a jet-set lifestyle of the rich and famous), living smaller (he owns four houses in B.C. and an apartment in Port Douglas, Australia), and much else besides. So much hypocrisy from this guru of green.

“If Suzuki was really convinced that the Earth is going to perish because of increasing amounts of man-made carbon being released into the atmosphere, would he seriously own a vacation getaway in Australia, so far away from Vancouver? The amount of CO2 created by one economy airfare from Vancouver to Cairns, Australia, is 4.5 tonnes,… or one-third of the total amount the average British Columbian produces in an entire year (13.7 tonnes), according to a report called By the Numbers: Canadian GHG Emissions.“

Advocating Carbon Taxes and “Cap-&-Trade”

Suzuki has long supported the imposition of government taxes on carbon emissions generated by businesses of all kinds – so as to make carbon-based fuel sources more expensive, and non-carbon-based sources more affordable. In June 2018, he published an article in Canada’s National Observer calling for carbon taxes to be imposed via a cap-and-trade system. Some excerpts from his piece:

“One of the world’s best-known climate scientists is discouraged that almost 40 years of study and warnings haven’t convinced humanity to adequately address the climate crisis. But [former NASA scientist] James Hansen understands why we’ve stalled. ‘As long as fossil fuels seem to be the cheapest energy to the public, they’ll keep using them,’ Hansen recently told Bob McDonald of CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks. ‘We’re up against an industry that would prefer to just continue to do things the way that they have been because they’re making a lot of money.’  His solution: Ensure the price of fossil fuels factors in the costs to society.[…]

“How do we ensure the price of fossil fuels includes the costs of pollution, environmental degradation and climate disruption? The simplest way, as Hansen and most scientists, economists and energy experts know, is to put a price on carbon emissions. […] A carbon tax is the simplest method to price carbon, although some opponents cringe at the word ‘tax.’  It’s a fee, often rising annually, levied on fossil fuel production, distribution and use based on the amount of carbon pollution emitted. By making fossil fuel use more expensive — reflecting more accurately its societal costs — governments can encourage conservation, efficiency and cleaner alternatives. Many jurisdictions offer rebates or reductions on other taxes so they can target carbon emissions without creating a burden for most citizens.

“Under a cap-and-trade system, a government caps the amount of greenhouse gas emissions an industry can emit or that can be emitted overall in the economy. Governments auction allowances, generating revenue to invest in the clean economy. Companies that exceed their limits can buy allowances from companies that remain below the cap, or bid for them in the auction. The cap is reduced every year, and total emissions fall.

“With either system, the more someone pollutes, the more they pay. Although ideas vary on the best way to price carbon, amounts to be charged and what to do with money collected, we can’t afford to do nothing.”

Opposition to Oil Drilling & Pipelines

In June 2011, Suzuki joined fellow notables such as Danny Glover, Bill McKibben, and James Hansen in writing an open letter that asked people to risk arrest by participating in demonstrations outside the White House from mid-August through Labor Day, protesting the proposed construction of the TransCanada Keystone XL oil pipeline.

At a November 18, 2021 Extinction Rebellion protest on Vancouver Island, Suzuki issued a warning about what would happen if political leaders failed to take actions to mitigate climate change. “We’re in deep, deep doo-doo,” he said. “This is what we’re come to. The next stage after this, there are going to be [oil] pipelines blown up if our leaders don’t pay attention to what’s going on.” (Note: This paragraph also appears in the section above which is titled “Warnings of Climate Change …”)

The Alleged Importance of Reducing Methane Emissions

In a July 2022 article published by NowToronto.com, Suzuki wrote about the importance of reducing the emission of methane into the atmosphere:

“One of the quickest, most cost-effective ways to slow global heating is to reduce methane emissions. That’s because, although methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, it remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter time.

“Methane is around 85 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year period, but most is removed from the atmosphere through oxidation within about 12 years. CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years, so its warming effects continue long after emissions are reduced or eliminated. When more methane is released into the atmosphere than the amount removed, it contributes to climate change.

“Methane accounts for a third or more of global heating since pre-industrial times and is also a main source of ground-level ozone pollution, which causes at least a million premature deaths every year.

“More than 60 per cent is produced by human activities, mainly agriculture and oil and gas production and distribution, along with biogas burning and landfills. Natural sources include wetlands, permafrost, wildfires and termites. Atmospheric methane levels have increased by more than 150 per cent since industrialization and intensive agriculture began — and they continue to increase. […]

“[K]eeping excess methane from the atmosphere is crucial to resolving the climate crisis and to reducing pollution. There are many practical ways to do so and the effects would be quickly evident. […]

“Agricultural solutions range from improving livestock feed and cultivation practices to encouraging people to switch to more plant-based diets and alternative protein sources.

“For fossil fuels, the ultimate solution is to shift quickly from coal, oil and gas to renewable energy, along with energy efficiency and conservation.”

Praising Indigenous Peoples & Disparaging Westerners

In an early 2023 interview with Mongabay.com, Suzuki said:

“[B]ack in the 1970s … in British Columbia … I interviewed a Haida, an Indigenous guy who was leading the battle against logging. Now, I knew they had over 50% unemployment in their communities, and I knew a lot of the loggers were Haida. Logging was giving them one of their few economic avenues. So, I said to him, ‘Why the hell are you fighting against the logging? I mean, you’re an artist. What difference does it make to you if the trees are gone?’

“And his answer went right over my head. He said, ‘Well, I guess when the trees are gone, we’ll be just like everybody else. We’ll just be like you.’ I thought, ‘What the hell is he talking about?’ And it was only later, when I was looking at the [unedited footage] and I realized, my God! He’s saying something so profound, that to him, being who he is, his very essence as a Haida, doesn’t end at his skin or his fingertips. That it’s the air, the water, the trees, the fish, the birds, all of that is what makes him who he is. When you destroy one part of that, you destroy a part of who he is. And that just opened my eyes to this radically different idea. […]

“[W]e’ve had five centuries of denigration of Indigenous people everywhere. They’ve been regarded as savages, as primitive, that they had nothing to teach us. Nevertheless, there are remnants of that worldview. And we first have to recognize and honor that their worldview is rational, is credible, and has something to teach us.”

Lauding Young Environmentalists

In that same 2023 interview with Mongabay.com, Suzuki said: “[It] shouldn’t surprise us [that young people are leading the fight against climate change]. They’re the ones that are going to pay the price. This is why Greta [Thunberg] has had such an enormous impact, because she cut through all of the garbage and just said, ‘I take science seriously, and I don’t have a future. Why should I go to school?’”

Retiring from The Nature of Things

In early 2023, Suzuki finalized his retirement from The Nature of Things, the CBC television series which he had been hosting since 1979.

Additional Information on Suzuki

Over the course of his professional academic career, Suzuki published more than 50 books, most of them about genetics or ecological sciences, as well as several that were geared for children. He also published hundreds of articles and wrote several regular newspaper columns.

Suzuki has been awarded 29 honorary degrees from universities in Canada, the United States, and Australia.

For his longstanding support of Canada’s indigenous peoples, Suzuki has been honored with formal adoption by two First Nation tribes in Canada, as well as eight different names given to him by such tribes.

In a 2006 survey that polled CBC viewers in an effort to determine whom they considered to be the “top ten greatest Canadians,” Suzuki finished 5th.

In 2009, Suzuki won the Right Livelihood Award for “his lifetime advocacy of the socially responsible use of science” and “his massive contribution to raising awareness about the perils of climate change and building public support for policies to address it.”

In 2011, Suzuki was voted the “most trusted Canadian” by Reader’s Digest Canada for the third consecutive year. In 2012, he finished 3rd.

Suzuki is a member of Green Cross International‘s honorary board, along with such high-profile figures as Robert Redford, Ted Turner, and Leonardo DiCaprio. A notable former member of that same honorary board was Wangari Maathai, who died in 2011.

Further Reading

“Dr. David Suzuki: Detailed CV” (2012).