David Suzuki: Inaction on climate change comes with a huge price tag

It’s interesting to see the reaction to a report just released by our foundation and the Pembina Institute. The Globe and Mail called our analysis of the costs of fighting climate change “unsaleable and dangerous”.

But the Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson wrote that “The Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation have had the courage to uncover and to tell us the truth. Now Canadians must decide what to do.”

Yes, it is up to Canadians to decide what to do. Do we plug our ears and close our eyes and go about business as usual while the world strains under the damage we are inflicting? Do we leave our children and grandchildren a world of misery? Or do we pull together to confront this challenge, as we have with other major threats the world has faced?

Keep in mind that the report, Climate Leadership, Economic Prosperity, while pointing out that reducing the impact of climate change will come with some costs, also concludes that our economy will remain healthy. In fact, the analysis, conducted by M.K. Jaccard and Associates, says that Canada’s gross domestic product would continue to grow even if we adopted the stronger measures that environmental organizations are calling for rather than the weak measures the federal government has proposed.

Still, comments in the news, and from people who post their reaction to news sites, show that many people aren’t willing to make tough decisions for the sake of our collective future—for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

Let’s be clear. Resolving a global problem like climate change will cost money. But doing nothing will cost much more. The very survival of people, not to mention many other plants and animals that we share this small planet with, may well be at stake.

Former World Bank chief economist Lord Stern has estimated that to keep heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions below levels that would cause catastrophic climate change would cost up to two per cent of global GDP, but failure to act could cost from five to 20 percent of global GDP.

And those are just numbers. In the real world, runaway climate change could have devastating impacts on our water and food supplies, could lead to waves of refugees escaping uninhabitable drought-stricken areas or vanishing islands, and could wreak havoc on the world’s oceans and cause major extinctions of plants and animals. Some of this is already happening.

And consider what will become of our economy if we continue to fuel it with nonrenewable resources like oil and coal while the rest of the world switches to renewable energy. The demand for fossil fuels will dry up as the reserves become depleted. Where will that lead us?

And yet, we still have people saying it would cause too much hardship to act, or that it would be dangerous or divisive. Are we really that selfish? Well, not everyone is. It’s been heartening to see so many people, especially young people, taking to the streets and Parliament Hill, writing to MPs and prime ministers, and joining campaigns to urge governments to be part of the solution to global warming.

Millions of people turned out recently for more than 5,000 International Day of Climate Action events in 180 countries. The message was loud and clear: We expect our political leaders to work for the benefit and security of all of the world’s people when they meet in Copenhagen in December to work on a climate change agreement to continue and strengthen the Kyoto Protocol.

What these people realize is that the price we will pay to fight climate change is a good investment in a healthy and prosperous future. Some of the costs include investments in public transit and renewable energy, in programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in other parts of the world, and in helping people cope with higher transportation and home-heating costs during the time of transition.

The Globe and Mail, and others, may think all of this is “unsaleable and dangerous”, but it’s only dangerous to those who insist on staking their future on polluting, unsustainable non-renewable resources, and it’s only unsaleable to those who don’t care about the future. We can’t afford not to take action. We can’t afford to let our leaders let us down. We must continue to tell them that we expect them to work for us in Copenhagen.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Comments

23 Comments

Herbie2

Nov 3, 2009 at 5:23pm

The David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute and the World Wildlife Federation, are only a small group of the environmental hype institutions, who must maintain a public hysteria in order to achieve donations to continue to fund the outrageous salaries of their leaders. There is no scientific evidence that global warming is caused by humans, only guesses which grease the financial contribution wheels. There is no doubt that our climate is warming, just as it has numerous times in past millennia, and it certainly will cool down again as it has in repeated ice ages in the past. But for people like Suzuki to admit that what we are experiencing is nothing more than natural cycles, would disrupt their financial gravy trains.

Meme Mine

Nov 3, 2009 at 5:30pm

Dr. David Suzuki, for a retired fruit fly breeder you are one smart guy. Ya, we know it, we get it. You da man. Ok? You are also the man who single handedly converted nature lovers into global doomers who spend their time worrying and or desperately trying to “save” the “sick” planet. Nice job! Why not take us all back few MORE thousand years of fearing the unknown while you are at? The end of the world is kinda the last scenario in anyone’s bag of threats don’t ya think? What’s worse than death? You can’t raise the stakes after threatening us with death of the planet Earth. You are all in here Buddy. All in. You better show us a crisis soon because cooling trumps predicted warming every time. History says fear is always a temporary motivator so it’s truthful to say Dave that this CO2 theory is not sustainable for another 23 years. You have milked this thing long enough so come clean and just say that “more research is needed into understanding climate” blablaba.
EnvironMENTALism is heading for a cliff because we know you CAN’T come through with the goods like you said you would, a promise of climate crisis. And suggesting bad weather is climate change is foolishly transparent and worn out.

kevin

Nov 3, 2009 at 5:50pm

Thanks for these comments Mr. Suzuki. People need to hear from individuals such as you as much as possible over the next few weeks. We all need to urge this Harper government to act diligently on our behalf in Copenhagen. I am encouraged that the projected cost have been exposed for us all to see. It will be a change for all of us, and for some who are reliant on industries and practices that can not exist in a sustainable environment, it will be a major challenge. However, it must be done. The climate change data is clearly showing that the problem is getting worse as each day of inaction passes.
I would like very much to see a "plain language" synopsus of what a zero carbon Canada would look like. This could be the clincher for many folks, because it is hard to imagine what this would look like.

Eric Chris

Nov 3, 2009 at 6:48pm

Fine David, thanks, I agree; we need to reduce GHG emissions or we might lower the pH of the oceans to the point where we kill everything on this planet:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-07-05-ocean-acidity_x.htm

You are on GCAT; do something and convince the Mayor to ban the 99 B-Line diesel buses from the #17 zero emission hydro-electric trolley bus route and convince him to ban all the other diesel buses from the rest of the zero emission trolley bus routes in Vancouver. It may only be a symbolic gesture to ban these diesel buses but if we all do what we can, it will make a difference.

It can’t be that hard: you stand up in the next GCAT meeting and say, enough, you lousy two faced politicians! Get those stinking diesel buses off the trolley bus routes in Vancouver!!

Otherwise, you and the rest of the GCAT members are going to keep looking like a bunch of pansy assed hypocrites crying about reducing GHG emissions while sucking up to TransLink to keep the peace. You’ve been swimming with two faced politicians for so long that you’ve forgotten what it takes to be true to your convictions.

Evil Eye

Nov 3, 2009 at 9:30pm

Suzy, like Mikey and the Zalm, I wish you a long happy retirement out of the public spotlight. One tires of Media mavens and since you support run-of-river power production and its destruction of rivers and associated wildlife, you have no credibility.

Good bye, Adiós, see ya later.

Bought and Paid For

Nov 4, 2009 at 1:02am

kevin wrote: "We all need to urge this Harper government to act diligently on our behalf in Copenhagen."

Good luck with getting that to happen Kevin, your just about as likely to see Suzy speaking out about Gordon Campbell's fish farms, run of river projects, or forestry practices.

RodSmelser

Nov 4, 2009 at 9:44am

From what appears in this article, it would seem that Dr Suzuki believes that further urgent action is needed on carbon pricing. Yet last May and last Fall his Foundation told voters that if they just voted Liberal the Green Shift and the Carbon Tax would take care of a large part of the issue. If there's now so much more to do, I guess that's because the Liberals only won the provincial election, but lost federally. Yeah, ... that must be it!

Question 1: Given that the new Liberal Leader, Michael Ignatieff, has explicitly rejected the Green Shift or any other kind of carbon tax, why hasn't David Suzuki or his principal agent, Liberal Jim Hoggan, condemned Ignatieff in the same terms that Suzuki condemned Carole James and Jack Layton? Could it be pure, raw party politics? Perish the thought! David Suzuki and his Foundation are environmentalists, they would never be influenced by any gross partisan or electoral considerations!

Question 2: In the Spring the Suzuki Foundation was ecstatic that BIll C311, the Climate Change Accountability Act, had passed Second Reading. They publicly took credit for the bill's passage at that stage and promised to keep their followers informed about the progress of this "important" legistlation:

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blog/DSF1_04020902.asp

Yet on Wed, October 21st when this bill came up for Third Reading the majority of Liberal MPs voted with the Conservatives to send this Act back to committee for more study. Jack Layton had asked that the bill be passed and proclaimed at once, in advance of the Copenhagen Conference that David Suzuki agrees is important. What is the Suzuki Foundation's reaction to that vote, and specifically to the Liberals' reversal of position from the vote in the Spring?

As you would expect, there is nothing on the Jim Hoggan/David Suzuki website on this matter. Nothing at all.

The Foundation whose celebrity leader had no hesitation saying in last Fall's federal election that he was "ashamed" of Carole James for not supporting the BC Carbon Tax has no harsh words whatsoever for Liberals who voted against an act his Foundation said was important and which they took credit for getting passed.

You would think that by now it must be crystal clear to any reasonable and honest person that the degree of political independence practiced by the Jim Hoggan/David Suzuki Foundation is not only a matter of public record, but is in fact blindingly obvious.

And yet there are those in the advertiser-dependent commercial media who feel they have to play the celebrity game, be it David Suzuki the broadcaster or Tzeporah Berman the ex-model. They will continue to portray the Hoggan/Suzuki Foundation as politically neutral, an environmental group rather than a Liberal and business lobbying network.

Rod Smelser

Meme Mine

Nov 4, 2009 at 11:31am

You Global Warmers are former nature lovers fooled into being global doomers who spend their time worrying and or trying to “save” the “sick” planet. Nice job! Why not take us all back few MORE thousand years of fearing the unknown while we are at?
SAVE THE PLANET you say. The end of the world is kinda the last bullet in anyone’s bag of threats don’t ya think? What’s worse than death? You can’t raise the stakes after threatening us with death of the planet Earth. You are all in here Buddy. You have bet everything, the house and the farm. There is no going back now as you are: All in! You better show us a crisis soon because cooling trumps predicted warming every time and this public belief in this mistake can’t last much longer. History says fear is always a temporary motivator so this CO2 theory is not sustainable for another 23 years. You have milked this thing for what ever misguided reason long enough, so come clean and just say that “more research is needed into understanding climate” blablaba.
EnvironMENTALism is heading for a cliff because we know you doomers CAN’T come through with the goods like you global warmers said you would, a promise of climate crisis. And suggesting bad weather is climate change is foolishly transparent and worn out and its been 23 years for God’s sake. Stop this insanity now we deniers demand the IPCC renounce this theory and work on a new generation energy development.
The smoggy 70’s are gone, Rachel Carson rules and now is the time to put this CO2 mistake aside so we can all come together to protect, preserve and respect our planet and face the future of progress with some dignity, not this fearing the unknown, assuming the worst and fighting a non existent enemy of climate change.
It’s not so far fetched to say that the likes of Al Gore and David Suzuki could be charged with for intetionaly holding our contries needlessly on a collision course with death for almost a quarter century.
Let it go.

Kuan

Nov 4, 2009 at 12:25pm

I've never seen David reply to comments. What gives?