Login / RegisterDavid Suzuki: 24 Hours of Reality speaks up about climate change
Most reality TV has little to do with the real world. But here’s an online show that will reflect what is happening in and to our world: 24 Hours of Reality will feature 24 presenters in 24 time zones talking about the climate crisis in 13 languages. It starts September 14 at 7 p.m. local time in Mexico City and wraps with a live multimedia presentation from New York City by Nobel laureate and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore at 7 p.m. on September 15.
Climate change is reality. It’s happening in front of our eyes, and massive volumes of research from climate scientists around the world confirm that it will get worse if we fail to do something about it. The facts are no longer in dispute. Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly caused by humans burning fossil fuels, are warming the planet. And the consequences aren’t pretty: health problems caused by pollution; increasing extreme weather events leading to floods, droughts, and storms; shrinking glaciers and related impacts on water supplies and agriculture; insect infestations; conflict over dwindling resources; threats to the survival of plants and animals… the list goes on.
Some people don’t recognize how serious the problem is, delaying efforts to resolve it. And the longer we put off finding and implementing solutions, the harder and costlier it will be to overcome the impacts. Former World Bank chief economist Lord Stern estimated that keeping heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions below levels that would drive climate change to catastrophic levels could cost up to two per cent of global GDP, but failure to act could be economically disastrous.
People accuse me and other environmentalists and scientists of being “alarmist”. But the situation is alarming, and it’s even more alarming that some people ignore it, perhaps believing it will go away – or that the crisis doesn’t even exist. In part, this disconnect with reality is because industrial interests spend billions of dollars sowing doubt and confusion, continually promoting discredited theories―just as they’ve done with issues including the dangers of tobacco smoke and the harmful effects of chlorofluorocarbons on the ozone layer. They tell us climate change doesn’t exist, or that it’s caused by volcanoes or the sun, or that it’s part of a natural cycle―even that God will regulate the climate to the advantage of humans.
But as Al Gore points out, “The deniers may have millions of dollars to spend, but we have a powerful advantage. We have reality”. That reality includes mountains of published, peer-reviewed research by close to 98 percent of the world’s climate scientists, as well as real-time observation.
The David Suzuki Foundation’s executive director in Quebec, Karel Mayrand, will deliver the 24 Hours of Reality French presentation at 7 p.m. French Polynesia time (midnight Montreal time). He’ll be joined by two more Canadians, Peter Schiefke in Victoria at 7 p.m. Pacific Time on September 14, and Carl Duivenvoorden from New Brunswick at 7 p.m. Greenland time (6 p.m. New Brunswick) on September 15. They and others will show there is no debate among scientists and knowledgeable people over the existence of human-caused climate change. If there is to be debate it should focus on what to do about it. Doing nothing, as some of the industry shills argue we should, is not a viable option.
Solutions exist, although the cost and severity of the challenge is greater now than in 1988 when climatologists first called for emissions reductions. As more people become aware of the problem and its causes, and learn about the motives of the deniers, it becomes more likely that we’ll find ways to reduce the consequences and put humanity on a path to healthier lives on a healthier planet.
We can’t argue with people who deny reality. All we can do is to make sure the voice of reason speaks louder and that those of us who care about humanity join together to find better ways to live on our Earth. Visit ClimateRealityProject.org to find out how you can tune in to 24 Hours of Reality. Choose the presentation and time zone you want, or take part in the entire event. You can even set up viewing parties with family, friends, neighbours, and colleagues. And spread the word. We need to speak up for the future of humanity.
The time to act is now.
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation editorial and communications specialist Ian Hanington. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.
Your chickens home to roost, as public school-boards shovel out millions of dollars to the Pacific Carbon Trust in a twisted form of corporate welfare.
Rape of River projects run by IPP's have destroyed the precious few intact spawning grounds for anadromous species.
Suzuki's support for Gordon Campbell and the BCLiberal environmental policies has left this province in fairly sad environmental shape.
At least the Cons in Ottawa had the balls to stop Fish Lake from being destroyed. Perhaps Suzuki should publicly endorse and congratulate Harper et al!
I know that seems a little harsh but each scientist did encourage their respective countries to invest in scientifically poor observation to great detrimental effect (crops that could acquire and pass on characteristics in one case, biofuels, run-of-river and wind power in the other) and with devastating consequences. One held back an entire country in great need of agricultural success and the other went after virtually every available last government cent to spend on non-workable solutions to a worldwide environmental crisis.
The differences were not only that Lysenko's mistakes were geographically limited but that Suzuki was dealing in a market economy which saw charlatans of every stripe pick up his musings and mimic the chameleon in becoming green. They sell every type of profitable device and plan (the new snake oil and kitchen slicer) to half-witted governments and political movements (like Vision Vancouver) until what is left of democratically inclined citizens rise up to expose them. It is still somewhat unfair to compare these two men, though. Both lived well while seemingly oblivious to the economic wreckage their beliefs had wrought to their neighbors but Lysenko at least had training in the discipline on which he was consulted.
As Suzuki has been saying for decades, we need to get off the suicidal (un)economic growth path. But to date, the Suzuki Foundation board and staff been too timid to really work to advance Suzuki's position and has mainly focused on timid half measures. What is needed is a real change to our economic system as being explored at www.systemchange.ca
I hope the people appearing on this 24 hour show will tell it like it is, most people are ready for change and are tired of being pandered to.
What brought me to this place, is that I did some reading..just to SEE if the claims universal certainty of disaster and 'planet burning up!' were well founded. What I discovered is that activists will say anything at all as long as it promotes their agenda and Dave has definitely fallen to that place. I suggest some reading by people who are NOT convinced and yet are recognized as extraordinarily competent in the field. ( which Dave Suzuki is not). I refer to people like Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry.. who have very capably questioned the methods and validity of the IPCC (United Nations) reporting process and others who have questioned the conclusions of climate modellers in the face of new and continuing science. Just because Dave repeats, repeats, repeats, repeats that 97% of scientists are advocating locking up politicians who dont implement carbon taxes.. doesnt make it true.
There are more than enough questions surrounding the so called 'settled' science and how that untruth came to be believed for us to slow down and take a long hard look at who is saying what and why before plunging headlong into draconian 'solutions' dreamt up by social engineers and radicals.
Shame on you Suzuiki. I really thought you were better than this.
So sure, compare the research of the minuscule number of scientists who question climate change against the research of the overwhelming number who have proven its existence. The truth isn't that difficult to find if you really do want to find it.
And for some information on who some of the scientists and other doubters are, go to www.sourcewatch.org.
Well, since you clearly have no interest in the science underlying Lindzen's and others efforts, which have been considerable and DO challenge the dogma served up in this article, perhaps people might be surprised to learn of some of the sources of funding that appear on the David Suzuki Foundation's list of donors (try http://www.davidsuzuki.org/publications/downloads/2005/DSF-AR2005-final.pdf) which I found enlightening as it contained the names:
EnCana (read Oil sands)
AtcoGas (Alberta natural gas)
amongst others that might surprise.
If I were intent on meerly smearing the Foundation, I would have made more of an attempt at the eye rolling and snide prose you practice and dug up more, but I am not. Your smearing attempt, however, amply demonstrates its own weakness. Namely, if Lindzen is so OBviously untrustworthy an opinion as you are trying to imply, then so must be the IPCC process for having had him serve on two of the IPCC climate reports and once as a LEAD AUTHOR no less. The overwhelming majority of the 97 percent of scientists(plus Dave Suzuki) that you and Suzuki make reference to, haven't. Lindzen has been on the inside of climate research and the IPCC for decades while most of them havent.
No, you cant have it both ways. If Lindzen is good enough to be an IPCC lead author then he must be good enough. And if he is not, then the IPCC process is not.
If people of his calibre challenge his conclusions, as they continuoiusly do, and if he challenges theirs, at a level of dicourse most of us are not competent to follow in deep detail, then we do not have anything 'settled' at all to the degree that Suzuki's
propaganda piece assumes.
If you can;t convince a guy as qualified as Lindzen that the world is going to burn up, then your science isnt 'settled' and a concensus doesnt change that one iota.