BY SCOTT HUNTER HADDOW
David Suzuki, the well-known environmentalist, broadcaster and author was in Sudbury yesterday to deliver his message about things that are more important than money: clean air, water and soil.
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David Suzuki spoke at Science North last night to a sold-out audience. |
Speaking to the media at Market Square, where he also took part in a book signing, Suzuki said the bottom line isn?t the economy. Rather we all should take a good, long, hard look at ourselves and ask what can we do to better our environment.
?Over and over again we?re told by the media, politicians and business people that the economy is the bottom line,? said Suzuki. ?That doesn?t make any sense. First and foremost, we?re animals, and as animals, if we don?t have clean air, clean water, clean soil and clean energy, we?re dead?How can we say the economy comes before that?
?We?ve used air, water and soil to dump our toxic chemicals because the economy comes before everything else.
?What I am saying, is there?s a very different bottom line and that is one we?re ignoring at our own peril?We?re mortgaging our children?s future by using the air, water and soil as a toxic dump.?
Suzuki is concerned Canadians want cheap food and are not concerned about the ?hidden costs? to other countries and the environment.
?In Canada, in the middle of winter we buy apples from New Zealand and that?s never made any sense to me,? said Suzuki.
?The way we do it is, we don?t add the cost to the environment of shipping those foods here. We think it?s OK to spend less than 10 per cent of our income on food. In many countries, people pay 80 per cent of their income on food. We want cheap food, we don?t care where it comes from, we don?t care what the cost is to the earth and we don?t care what it?s doing to our children.?
Organic foods have a huge barrier to overcome.
?The barriers we have right now is the human mind,? said Suzuki. ?We think material wealth is what life is all about. I was shocked to find you have Wal-Mart and Costco. They all bring you lots of stuff, but they put local merchants out of business and why do we need all that stuff? Does it make us happier??
We live in a world that is disconnected and we?ve forgotten what the important things are.
?The important things are family and community,? said Suzuki.
?In order to have a strong, healthy community we have to think about the things that really matter and what?s important for our children. It?s clean air, water and food we eat.?
Suzuki stresses the importance of supporting organic farmers who promote a cleaner environment.
?We have to create the market for it,? said Suzuki. If you have an organic distributor, then support them.
He estimated that if Canadians ate an average of one month a year of locally grown food, it would create thousands of jobs in this country.
Suzuki?s visit was organized by The Green Teacup, Sudbury?s organic restaurant.
?For food, if your not a vegetarian, give up meat one day a week,? said Suzuki. ?That will have a huge impact. It takes 85 times as much water to grow one serving of meat as it does for growing one serving of potatoes. By giving up meat once a week, you lighten the effect on the air, water and soil.?
Suzuki foresees a confrontation on the horizon between industry agriculture and small farmers.
?We have biotech companies trying to corner the genetic material of plants all over the world and they?re patenting them,? said Suzuki. They?re trying to ram their plants into farmer?s fields.
?If you buy their seeds, then you?re completely dependent on their chemicals, because their seeds are resistant to their chemicals to grow them?I think there?s going to be an increasing collision between the forces of industrial agriculture and the small farmers.
If we?re going to avoid the monopolization of foods by big corporations, then we?ve got to think a hell of a lot more about food as consumers. We?ve got to be willing to pay more for our foods and support local farmers.?
