Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
The cover story of the November 25, 2013 Canadian weekly magazine Macleans pictures self-appointed Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki.
The caption reads, “Environmentalism Has Failed”“David Suzuki loses faith in the cause of his lifetime.”
Suzuki doesn’t realize he‘s the cause of the failure as a major player in the group who exploited environmentalism and climate for a political agenda. Initially most listened and tried to accommodate, but gradually the lies, deceptions and propaganda were exposed. The age of eco-bullying is ending. Typically Suzuki blamed others for the damage to the environment and climate but now he blames them for not listening to him. He forgets that when you point a finger at someone three are pointing back at you.
Environmentalism was what academics call a paradigm shift, which Thomas Kuhn defines as “a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions.” It was a necessary new paradigm. Everybody accepts the general notion it is foolish to soil your own nest and most were prepared to participate. Most were not sure what it entailed or how far it should go. Extremists grab all new paradigms for their agenda but then define the limits for the majority by pushing beyond the limits of the idea. Environmentalism and the subset climate are at that stage pushed there by extremists like Suzuki. Instead of admitting the science is wrong they double down and make increasingly extreme statements, just like the IPCC. It underscores the political rather than the scientific agenda. For example, Suzuki, apparently frustrated that politicians were not listening to his demands for action on climate change said they should be jailed.
Environmental groups grabbed environmentalism and quickly took the moral high ground preaching that only they cared about the Earth. Suzuki set up the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) with tax benefits that required it to be non-political, but after active involvement in an Ontario election he was forced to resign. His major theme in the election was to push the climate change and alternate energies put in place in that Province when Maurice Strong was in charge of Ontario Hydro, the state controlled energy agency. Ontario is the perfect example of how and why climate energy policies promoted by Strong as Founder of UNEP are a disaster.
The Foundation campaigned on environmental issues most presented in deceptive or incomplete ways. An example was the attack on salmon farming and corrupted research on PCBs and sea lice. This was the focus of an interview of researcher Vivian Krause by Ezra Levant. Another was Suzuki’s parade across Canada pushing extinction theories and claims of DSF Board member E.O Wilson that 3 species go extinct every hour. He never named one. He never listed the plethora of new species found. He refused to discuss the issue and in his visit to schools pre-arranged and wrote a question for a selected student to ask. He promoted threats of global warming, but refused to debate the issue or answer questions. When asked questions on a radio interview in Toronto, he swore and stormed out of the studio.
He hired former Federal politician NDP (socialist party) David Fulton as Director of DSF. James Hoggan has been Chairman of the Board for many years. His PR Company has major alternate energy companies as clients. Hoggan is the proud creator of DeSmogblog a web site that claims it is “Clearing the PR Pollution that clouds climate science” but mostly involves personal attacks on people asking questions. The objective was to denigrate people by creating “favorable interpretations” to the following questions. “Were these climate skeptics qualified? Were they doing any research in the climate change field? Were they accepting money, directly or indirectly, from the fossil fuel industry?” This doesn’t answer skeptics questions about the science.
Their real agenda was disclosed in a Climatic Research Unit (CRU) leaked email dated December 2007 from senior writer Richard Littlemore to Michael Mann.
Hi Michael [Mann],
I’m a DeSmogBlog writer [Richard LIttlemore] (sic) (I got your email from Kevin Grandia)* and I am trying to fend off the latest announcement that global warming has not actually occurred in the 20th century.
It looks to me like Gerd Burger is trying to deny climate change by “smoothing,” “correcting” or otherwise rounding off the temperatures that we know for a flat fact have been recorded since the 1970s, but I am out of my depth (as I am sure you have noticed: we’re all about PR here, not much about science) so I wonder if you guys have done anything or are going to do anything with Burger’s intervention in Science. (emphasis added)
(* Grandia was a former writer for DeSmogBlog who moved there after serving as a research assistant for a Liberal Minister in Ottawa.)
Do as I say, not as I do is the hallmark of extreme environmentalists behaviour. Al Gore is the poster boy for this hypocrisy. It appears Suzuki is only different in scale. They were enumerated in programs by SUN TV Reporter Ezra Levant. They include the familiar list of funding and financial activities and personal wealth accumulated, especially in properties.
A major part of Suzuki’s attacks relate to global warming. His refusal to debate or even answer questions is legendary. He ignores his lack of qualifications on climate, but uses that challenge when it comes to his supposed expertise in genetics and genetically modified food. A possible explanation for his “environmentalism is a failure” claim is a PR move to divert from the exposure of his climate ignorance in an Australian interview. He could not answer questions about information fundamental to any understanding.
Suzuki abandoned his academic career in genetics decades ago explaining why in a 1999 Seattle speech. His concerns related to the internment of his Japanese Canadian family during WWII. Here are his words:
In the exuberance of the excitement over the discovery of new principles of heredity — that seemed to apply across the plant and animal kingdoms — geneticists began to make wonderful, wild statements about the implications of their discoveries. I’m sure most of you know that it ultimately led to what was considered a legitimate area of science called Eugenics.
Some of our most eminent geneticists taught courses in eugenics, wrote textbooks in eugenics, published articles in eugenics journals. Eugenics being the attempt to apply the new-found knowledge of heredity to improve the genetic quality or makeup of human society.
It seems more logical to maintain standing as a geneticist and work to prevent such drifts occurring. Instead he quit and became a tele-evangelist using state television (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) to push his environmental/political agenda.
His television series became his undoing as a classic example of how extremism is its own undoing. It’s why Suzuki’s exploitation of environmentalism, as he defines it, caused failure. Most programs in the series were unjustified, misleading condemnations of different components of society. I identified some of the misinformation in a presentation to farmers in Saskatchewan a few years ago. Afterward a woman told me that a month earlier she would have disagreed with my comments. Now she understood because Suzuki did a program on farming and as a farmer’s wife she knew how wrong and biased it was. Each new program exposed another segment of society to the deception. This created a populace open to and not surprised by the exposure of his hypocrisies. The same is happening to climate alarmism as more and more segments of society are negatively affected. His actions and climate driven energy policies close industries, decimate communities, cause job losses and force business closures, virtually all unnecessarily.
As Suzuki’s campaign to use environmentalism for a political agenda fails he lashes out, blaming others for the failure. It parallels what is happening in the climate alarmist community. The comments and claims become more extreme, but achieve the opposite of their goal. It is necessary to consider the further negative effects of their exploitation and deceptions. What is the damage to the credibility of science? Can we pursue environmentalism with rational, science based, prioritized policies?
Related articles
- CNN mocks Greenpeace’s “Save Santa’s Home” video (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Climate change: Fear based messages don’t work (psychbot.wordpress.com)
- The nature of David Suzuki (macleans.ca)
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When someone finally gets around to a full blown investigation into millennial neurosis, narcissism and fear of the natural world seem likely to loom large.
cf. Bart says:
December 7, 2013 at 12:05 pm
“Now, the children live in antiseptic urban environments, and they never outgrow that phase. They learn to obsessively towel their hands with antiseptic wipes, and keep their living spaces pristine. All of which has the perverse and self-defeating effect of weakening their immune systems by lack of stimulation. They also develop a tunnel vision. By seeing the constructs of mankind all around them 24/7, they develop an egocentric view in which humans are the center of the world, and are therefore responsible for everything which happens in it.”
And :-
John Whitman says:
December 7, 2013 at 11:18 am
” I thought that the diminishing of a culture’s focus on expanding beyond itself results in an inward focus; environmentalism being a culturally internal focus. Is the creation of an ideology of environmentalism a necessary result of the absence of culture’s pioneering focus?”
The Achilles heal of the environmentalist cause/quasi-religion has always been its willingness to use deception and lies, and its attitude that the ends justify the means. That, coupled with its attitude towards humanity as being somehow evil, and that human well-being is expendable in the ultimate goal of “saving the planet”. Now, all of that is coming home to roost, and Suzuki is bitter about that. Tough noogies. Maybe he should do everyone a favor and retire on his ill-gotten gains. Maybe taking care of his wife would be a better thing to do than jet-setting around the globe spouting his nonsensical drivel.
I wouldn’t pronounce the green movement dead yet. Like a comic book villian, it’ll come back at some point and try to take over the world again.
Crying all the way to the bank.
“I think one of the factors driving environmental OCD over the past century is increasing urbanization.”
We can agree on this statement of fact. Children don’t know where their food comes from. Environmentalists and Maoists (the ones with a plan to remake the economy in five years) slink into classrooms and propagandize them too easily.
Show them a rockin farm and awesome cattle, like the Peterson Farm.
I’m Farming and I Grow It (Parody Song) dur. 3:32
DanD, MacLeans loves the guy, and sadly enough that is one of the most flattering pics of him they could shoot. He really, truly is physically repulsive.
“David Suzuki loses faith…”. Gosh, and I thought faith was limited to the fundamentals of religion.
Hey, Code Tech!
I missed you on your birthday last month and have not been able to find you since (always, I’m just a bit too late when I see you’ve posted on a thread). In the hopes that you’ll see this:
HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY!
If you’d care to, please see my birthday greeting to you here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/04/october-2013-sunspots-largest-jump-in-solar-cycle-24-so-far/#comment-1466388
I hope it was a good one.
Take care,
Janice
P.S. I’ll check back on this thread to see if you saw it.
Zeke said “Children don’t know where their food comes from.”
Ain’t that the truth. I mentioned bird hunting on a local Audubon forum, and a member jumped on me, asking how could I condone “senseless, unnecessary murder of animals”. After a bit of back and forth I finally asked “May I assume then that you are a strict Vegan?” Never heard another word.
Steve wrote “Gosh, and I thought faith was limited to the fundamentals of religion.”
Environmentalism is a religion. One definition of “religion” (Merriam-Webster) is “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.” Another is “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”
““I’ve had critics all my life,” says Suzuki. “But I certainly think the intensity and vileness of the personal attacks has changed.” Levant, who is a trained lawyer with a great deal of personal experience with Canada’s libel laws, has been careful to make most of his allegations technically factual, Suzuki says, but they’re a contorted version of the truth. The house in Vancouver was purchased for $145,000 in 1975 with a loan from Suzuki’s in-laws. For years, he and Cullis lived in the basement and rented out the top floor in order to afford it. Later on, they added a second storey and her parents moved in. Suzuki’s mother-in-law, now 95, still lives above them. “It’s not like it was an investment. It’s the crazy escalation of house prices,” he says.
As for the charge about the island, it took some digging for Suzuki to figure out what Levant was talking about. In 1986, after winning a $100,000 achievement award from the Royal Bank, he and his wife bought 10 acres on Quadra Island as a getaway property. It was part of a much larger parcel that was being subdivided. As it turns out, one of the other buyers made their purchase through a family business, a Calgary company that once delivered home heating oil, but now exists in name only.”
http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/11/18/the-nature-of-david-suzuki/
Creating caricatures of those who oppose you is a lazy mental shortcut. With this technique one can attribute motivation and intent…without ever truly trying to understand what their opponent is saying. I am sure that I have taken this shortcut on occasion, but I make daily effort to avoid pigeon-holing ideas and people. I strive to stay open minded and revisit my assumptions and conclusions. I try to avoid applying labels to myself and others.
It is with this perspective that I have found myself labeled as a lackey for “Big Oil”, of being “anti-science”, and being “anti-environment”. What these knee -jerk responses do is shield those casting these stones from seeing that I have enduring amazement of the natural world (I’ve spent an hour in the forest watching a spider spin a web), and life-long love of science.
Much of this boils down to seeing, not just looking. If you can truly see, you can’t attribute any credibility to the celebrity voice Global Warming/Climate Change/Irritable Climate Syndrome when they refuse to limit their own consumption. Perhaps we understand them much better than they understand us.
Dr Ball’s essay and the excellent comments in this thread are real keeper.
Cheshirered says:
December 7, 2013 at 9:30 am
So I ask again; what is there left to be afraid of?
Uh, the politicians who are promoting and passing unnecessary CO2 regulations.
brian356 says, “I mentioned bird hunting on a local Audubon forum, and a member jumped on me, asking how could I condone “senseless, unnecessary murder of animals”.”
We have a wetland reserve here which features an interactive display (obviously for children) where if you turn a knob one way, buildings take over the wild life habitat. If you turn the knob the other way, wild life habitat expands and buildings are reduced.
Back to Tim Ball, on his excellent blog he has compiled the figures of the actual surface area on the planet where humans live, and it is something like 3-10% of the land!
(Not to mention the park also features lovely little drawings and plaques of the nice, natural mosquito larva and pupa in the water.)
Thing is, The Fruit Fly Guy thinks that the failure of environmentalism (sic) is a bad thing.
Canada – world leader along with Australia! Hoodthunkit?
Mike Smith,
The biggest worry isn’t that the green NGOs have been subsumed by politicalnoperatives, but that the UN has. That the fake socialist watermelon style environmentalism including its love child climate change pervades the UN is a huge worry, how does one cleanse a body answerable to noone like the UN? Much bigger problem!
People such as Suzuki have turned to the language of war mongering to rally the troops behind the warmist cause. But to have a war you have to have an enemy.Big corporates are always a good target.Never mind the hypocrisy. In Michael Mann’s case he goes a step further and actually promotes the climate war with his books. He has also latched onto party politics as a means maintaining the momentum.This takes the focus off the AGW science which is looking increasingly doubtful.Suzuki has had his day (leaving a trail of disappointed warmists in Australia on his last visit where he was lampooned for inaccuracy, contradictions and gaffes). My prediction is that Mann will follow suit in the not too distant future. Mann made a strategic error in publicly linking tornadoes /hurricanes to climate change and has been peddling uphill ever since. This is despite his efforts to discredit collected data and to call in modelled data to justify his linkage.The New York Times has distanced itself from him which I think is a fair indication that he is on the nose in certain circles already.With a bit of luck it will be Mann overboard soon.
Suzuki seems to have afflicted himself with a severe credibility problem. Well-earned, I say!
Mososmo at 3.55 a.m. asks “Have we indeed reached a turning point for humanity, a point where the tertiary educated are mostly dumber than the rest?” A. Not dumber but longer, more effective indoctrination. Once that process has been completed it is very difficult for students to change viewpoints as to do so makes a mockery of all those years of study. Though change may be tough for students it is almost impossible for academics as acceptance means their whole life has been a lie – think universities of East Anglia and Virginia.
Thanks Janice, no I missed that before.
Some days I think I’m invisible on WUWT… lol
I first realized Suzuki was clueless when he blamed the carbon in our windshields to explain why your car was warmer when the windows were rolled up. I both feared and despised Suzuki’s efforts when the wrote a post for Huffington Post urging governments to “Deny the Deniers the Right to Deny.” While he urged intellectual tyranny, bogus climate advocacy was hindering legitimate conservation needs such as the attempts to moderate amphibian extinctions as doucmented http://landscapesandcycles.net/contrasting-good-and-bad-science–disease–climate.html
Apoxonbothyourhouses@ur momisugly 6.16.
Surely thats does mean the” tertiary educated’ are dumber than the uneducated.
If a rational person can adjust their viewpoint to meet reality.As most working people must.
But an overeducated victim of our universities indoctrination system, can not without massive loss of self esteem.And will not doubt their own correctness, is this the base of the Team IPCC theory, when the measured values contradict the projected values from the models, the actual measurements must be at fault.
OH, HOORAY!> Finally. LOL, yes, Code Tech, I have wondered if my posts were invisible, too! Seriously (I thought maybe a mod did it because another commenter complained about my “drivel”). I mean, I’ll post a super (I think) video or actually say something reasonably witty and……… nothing. Or, worse, I’ll praise someone or affirm someone who posts again down the thread and who completely ignores the kind words I just wrote him or her. Pretty discouraging.
Take heart, O Weary WUWT Commenter, you are being read. I read you all the time (and your posts are always relevant and often highly insightful and informative). I usually don’t comment because I’m so far down the thread below you.
Thanks, SO MUCH, for responding! And, do keep warm up there, out there by the lake (now frozen solid, no doubt!). Hope all is well (fwiw to you: ivebeenpraying). J.
Great post, Jim Steele — BUY JIM’S BOOK! (see upper right hand side of this page) He donates a % to WUWT. (And, if you’ve read it, post a review on Barnes & Noble or Amazon!)
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@ur momisugly John Robertson (re: 7:09pm) — You must, I think, have Scottish heritage to be so pragmatic (yeah, yeah, the last name is a clue, too, smile). Good point about self-esteem/ego blocking an otherwise intelligent person from seeing truth. Pride, truly a deadly sin. (And, yes, I should know, I battle it ALL the time.)