This from Joseph C Ben-Ami http://www.canadianvalues.ca/issues.aspx?aid=267 summarized below from The London [Ontario] Fog Blog:
David Suzuki on the John Oakley show:
A little fact checking exposes David Suzuki as a charlatan. (HT: Musing)
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Niayah da da Niayah da, I know something you don’t know, I know something that you don’t know—-and I’m NOT telling! Publicly that is.
OK, OK, I’ll tell you my secret. But only if you promise not to tell the Royal Bank of Canada I told ya cuz then they won’t give me any more awards and they’ll stop giving my Suzuki Foundation ANY more money, OK? If I spill the beans and ruin their plans to fill up Canada with 400,000 consumers each year as their Chairman wants (150,000 more than the current intake) then I will be off their Christmas list.
But I have told some people privately, so I might as well tell you. But promise not to tell anyone else? Promise, promise, promise? Cross your heart and hope to die? OK, here is my secret:
Industrialized countries are “way overpopulated”. (October 15/08) And Canada is an industrialized country.
Bringing in more and more people from low consuming countries to convert them to high consumers is “nuts”. (Oct. 21/08)
In other words, immigration is a wrong-headed, crazy policy for Canada, a decisive catalyst in the degradation of our environment.
VP of Biodiversity First
Has the David Suzuki Foundation been taking corporate bribes to ignore the environmental impact of immigration-driven population growth in Canada?
On January 10th, 2008 the Government of Canada accepted the ”RBC Submission To The Competition Policy Review Panel” where Royal Bank of Canada asked for Canada’s Minister of Immigration to increase immigration intake levels to 400,000 immigrants annually: “immigration targets should be raised to between 300,000 and 400,000 immigrants per year to help meet future labour shortages”
www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/cprp-gepmc.nsf/vwapj/Royal_Bank_Canada.pdf/$FILE/Royal_Bank_Canada.pdf
It appears that RBC has rewarded David Suzuki for ignoring immigration as an environmental concern.
In the 2005-2006 report, “RBC Foundation” gave The David Suzuki Foundation a gift of “$5000 AND ABOVE” and in 2006-2007 “RBC Foundation” and “RBC Dominion Securities” each donated to The David Suzuki Foundation.
To ensure that high immigration levels would not be criticized by the environmental establishment, RBC also gave money to The Nature Conservancy of Canada.
Here from the David Suzuki Foundation are both the 2005-2006 report and the 2006-2007 report:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/dsf-ar0506-final-web.pdf
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/DSF_AR_0607_AG.pdf
In the 2007 report they say:
“We wish to give special acknowledgement to donors who have so kindly contributed gifts of $1,000,000 or more to support the work of the David Suzuki Foundation:
Stephen R. Bronfman Foundation
Patrick and Barbara Keenan Foundation
the Lefebvre Charitable Foundation
Power Corporation of Canada”
We must find out who these donors are connected to.
Power Corporation of Canada? Is that the same as Powerwise? I read an article recently where Suzuki said that he and his foundation didn’t take money from Powerwise despite appearing on TV commercials for them.
I looked them up here: http://www.powercorporation.com/index.php?lang=eng
It says:
“Power Corporation of Canada is a diversified international management and holding company with interests in the financial services industry in North America and Europe. Through affiliates, Power Corporation of Canada holds diversified industrial interests in Europe and China.”
Looks like Lefebvre Charitable Foundation is John LeFebvre of a big LeFebvre Financial Services firm:
http://www.lefebvrefinancial.com/
http://arachnode.net/blogs/washingtonpost_com/archive/tags/John+Lefebvre/default.aspx
http://johnlefebvre.info/Saltspring+Island
Looks like Stephen R Bronfman is on David Suzuki Foundation’s “Board of Directors”
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/About_us/Board_of_Directors.asp
This from the “CANADIAN ENVIRONMENTAL GRANTMAKERS CORPORATION”:
“The Stephen R. Bronfman Foundation
Nancy Rosenfeld, Executive Director
The Stephen R Bronfman Foundation
1170 Peel Street, Suite 800
Montreal QC
H3B 4P2
T: 514-878-5251
F: 514-878-5293″
http://www.cegn.org/membership/contactInfo.html
(The CEGN looks like a front for corporate interests and donations to be funnelled through seemingly innocent names)
http://ctr.concordia.ca/2003-04/jan_29/14/
Here’s something on the Patrick and Barbara Keenan Foundation:
http://www.stmichaelshospital.com/foundation/keenans.php
http://www.philanthropymagazine.com/Articles/9-2-Keenan.htm
http://www.rom.on.ca/exhibitions/handson/biodiversity.php
Here’s the wishy-washy Suzuki quote for the day:
“There’s a place for us all in the jigsaw puzzle of sustainability. And when it all comes together, it will be a beautiful picture indeed.” — Dr. David Suzuki
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Donation_Centre/EO_Wilson_Circle.asp
So a sustainable world has room for 6.7 billion people? I don’t think so.
Here’s the DSF’s Nature Challenge list according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki_Foundation:
-Reduce home energy use by 10%
-Choose energy-efficient homes & appliances
-Don’t use pesticides
-Eat meat-free meals one day a week
-Buy locally grown and produced food
-Choose a fuel-efficient vehicle
-Walk, bike, carpool or take transit
-Choose a home close to work or school
-Support alternative transportation
-Learn more and share with others
“In consultation with the Union of Concerned Scientists the Foundation researched the most effective ways to help conserve nature and improve our quality of life, and invited the public to embrace them in their daily lives.”
So the “most effective ways to help conserve nature and improve our quality of life” does not include reducing your reproduction or advocating immigration reduction to stop human expansion?
This suggests that the “Union of Concerned Scientists” may also be in denial of the population factor, just like the David Suzuki Foundation.
December 17, 2008
Filed under David Suzuki's Cowardice, David Suzuki's Hypocrisy
On November 21, 2008 I phoned The David Suzuki Foundation and spoke to Ms Shannon Moore.
I told Ms Shannon Moore that I believe it is inexcusable in today’s age of extreme human overpopulation for an environmental organization to not present solutions to stop and reverse population growth loud and clear on their website.
The logic I explained to Ms Shannon Moore is as follows:
FORMULA:
Environmental Impact = Population X Per Capita Consumption
ASSUMING THAT:
The David Suzuki Foundation intends to propose effective solutions for stopping humanity’s Environmental Impact from increasing.
GIVEN THAT:
The David Suzuki Foundation has repeatedly proposed reducing Per Capita Consumption but never proposed reducing Population.
THEREFORE:
The David Suzuki Foundation is fundamentally flawed because no matter how much Per Capita Consumption is reduced, Environmental Impact will increase until Population growth is stopped.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
1) If the David Suzuki Foundation’s goal is to reduce humanity’s Environmental Impact, stopping Population growth is required.
2) Since humanity has deeply overshot the earth’s long-term productive capacity, reducing our Population to a tiny fraction of its present level is in our best interests.
3) Reducing our Population is easy to achieve one country at a time by lowering immigration intake and implementing a taxation-and-bonus system designed to lower the birth rate.
FURTHERMORE:
Designating more acres as protected is not a solution because history has proven that National Parks and Provincial Parks will be compromised by the demands of a growing Population once it has exhausted the resources from non-protected areas. (Every year, more acres are designated as protected, but every year the environment worsens overall.)
Ms Shannon Moore asked me “So you want to reduce Canada’s immigration?”
I replied, “Yes”
She replied, “How does that help reduce the global Population?”
I replied, “By refusing to let other overpopulated countries export their excess Population into our land and by reducing our own Population to inspire other countries to do the same.”
I also explained that immigrants into Canada invariably increase their ecological footprint upon arrival and they also increase their fertility above the global average upon arrival. (See “Canadian Environmental Myths” by Brishen Hoff)
Ms Shannon Moore asked me to send her my solutions via e-mail and promised to forward them to the policy-makers at the David Suzuki Foundation. Here they are:
SOLUTION PROPOSAL #1: (To stop Environmental Impact from growing)
GOAL: To stop our environment from getting worse.
OBSERVATION: If Population growth continues, our environment is guaranteed to get worse because Per Capita Consumption cannot be reduced to zero.
GOAL: Stop Population growth and reduce Per Capita Consumption as much as possible.
OSERVATION: Global Population growth cannot easily be stopped immediately because Population policy resides at the national level.
SOLUTION: We must stop Population growth nationally first in our own country in hopes that other countries will follow our leadership. (“Think globally, act locally!”)
METHODOLOGY: Reduce immigration intake and implement a taxation-and-bonus system designed to lower the birth rate. Outlaw certain forms of conspicuous consumption.
MY PREFERRED SOLUTION PROPOSAL #2: (To reduce Environmental Impact)
GOAL: Increase environmental integrity
OBSERVATION: If Population growth continues, our environment is guaranteed to get worse because Per Capita Consumption cannot be reduced to zero.
GOAL: Reduce Population and reduce Per Capita Consumption as much as possible.
OSERVATION: Global Population cannot easily be reduced immediately because Population policy resides at the national level.
SOLUTION: We must reduce Population nationally first in our own country in hopes that other countries will follow our leadership. (“Think globally, act locally!”) We must identify an optimum Population for Canada. This will be our target and our ultimate goal. I have done so here. I encourage the David Suzuki Foundation to arrive at their own estimate of what Canada’s optimum Population is and release it to the public on their website.
METHODOLOGY: Reduce immigration intake and implement a taxation-and-bonus system designed to lower the birth rate. Outlaw certain forms of conspicuous consumption.
Sincerely,
Brishen Hoff
President of Biodiversity First
P.S. I have placed this on my blog to create a public record of this inquiry. I feel that this is justified given the severity of our environmental situation and the desperate need for an effective solution: http://ecologicalcrash.blogspot.com/2008/11/policy-change-request-for-david-suzuki.html
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UPDATE (REPLY RECEIVED NOV 21, 2008):
It looks like The David Suzuki Foundation has decided to continue their strategy of polishing the furniture in a burning house. The more the population grows, the more the David Suzuki Foundation will attempt to reduce each person’s footprint all while watching humanity’s total footprint grow.
Apparently their public relations staff have determined that they’ll get more donations if they keep quiet about the fact that the primary cause of environmental degradation is population growth and that population growth is easily preventable with straightforward government policy changes.
An environmental organization that is totally unbothered by exponential population growth? What the hell!?!? And humans are supposed to be the intelligent species? I guess that doesn’t apply to most of us — certainly not the David Suzuki Foundation…
Subject: RE: Policy Change Request For David Suzuki Foundation
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:09:12 -0800
From: contact@davidsuzuki.org
To: brishen_hoff@hotmail.com
Dear Brishen,
We appreciate your concern for nature. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources, or staff available to work on issues that we are not already involved in, and so are unable to focus on the issue of population specifically at this point in time. There are organizations that are already working on this topic, including Population Connection (https://vanmail.davidsuzuki.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.populationconnection.org/).
We encourage you to take further action and campaign for what you believe in. We wish you the best and thank you for your efforts to protect nature. Sincerely,
Contact Coorespondant
The David Suzuki Foundation
2211 West 4th Ave, Suite 219
Vancouver, BC
V6K 4S2
CANADA
Phone: 604-732-4228
Fax: 604-732-0752
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/
Join David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/NatureChallenge/
Please CBC: Put our tax dollars to good use: Fire Dr David Suzuki and hire us a new environmental leader — one who is competent enough to understand the following formula:
Environmental Impact = Population X Per Capita Consumption
Dr David Suzuki is an intellectual fraud because he seems to believe the correct formula is:
“Environmental Impact = Per Capita Consumption”
Dr David Suzuki deserves an ecological dunce cap. Dr David Suzuki fails “Sustainability 101” with a final mark of F-.
I am tired of paying for Dr David Suzuki to fly around the world and present the Canadian public with cowardly and feckless environmental solutions.
Dr David Suzuki is a repeat offender — none of his solutions for Canada’s environmental woes ever involve reversing, stopping or even reducing population growth.
If you don’t believe me, visit Dr David Suzuki’s website and take his “Nature Challenge” where he will tell you how to improve Canada’s envrionment. (1)
While Dr David Suzuki will tell you to limit yourself to a 100-mile diet (no bananas or oranges), use public transportation, insulate your home to R2000, use CFL lights, etc, he will never tell you to have fewer children and protest immigration-driven-population growth. Apparently Dr David Suzuki (in his infinite green wisdom) does not believe that population growth and envrionmental degradation are directly correlated, and therefore there is no reason in his mind to publicly suggest voluntarily stopping Canada’s population growth before nature stops it for us.
Dr David Suzuki has never publicly suggested reducing immigration or pro-natal incentives. Yet if we do not, Canada’s envrionment is guaranteed to get worse.
The latest example of Dr David Suzuki’s environmental illiteracy is “The Suzuki Diaries” aired on the November 16, 2008 CBC Nature of Things.
The Suzuki Diaries was advertised as Dr David Suzuki’s quest to find out how to live sustainably. In it, Dr David Suzuki brings along one of his 5 offspring in his youngest daughter, Sarika Suzuki to travel around the world via fossil-fuel power. (2)
I am not surprised that someone with 5 offspring hasn’t yet figured out how to live sustainably individually or as a society, but I watched most of this program anyway hoping that Dr David Suzuki would finally discover the elephant in the room that is human overpopulation.
The premise of the show was that our environmental saviour, Saint Suzuki and his brilliant young daughter would show us a place that truly exemplifies a sustainable society. (3)
Instead of travelling somewhere with intact biodiversity and a low human population, Dr David Suzuki decided to travel to Denmark, Germany, France and Spain where he praised their industrial wind turbines, solar panels and the “green” buildings of their European concrete jungles. None of these countries are sustainable because their excessive overpopulation has wiped out their biodiversity and required them to be net importers of natural resources.
At one point Dr David Suzuki enthusiastically exclaimed to his daughter Sarika when looking over an industrial solar panel monoculture “You see that? That’s totally free energy!” I guess Dr David Suzuki neglected to notice the loss of farm land that this solar power facility occupies, the maintenance it requires, the battery banks that don’t last forever, the transmission lines, the backup power for when the sun isn’t shining, etc. Sorry, Dr David Suzuki, but there is no zero-impact energy.
Dr David Suzuki hailed Denmark as a world leader for having a whopping 20% of its energy supplied by renewables. Dr David Suzuki then angrily ranted that Canada has no excuse for not creating more renewable energy. What is the point of creating more renewable energy if it will never be enough due to Canada’s huge immigration intake? I wonder if Dr David Suzuki would like an industrial wind turbine within view of his ocean-front estate in Quadra Island, BC?
Would someone kindly persuade Dr David Suzuki to read these four articles. Then we can see if Dr David Suzuki really cares about his children and grandchildren or just protecting his bloated ego from cries of hypocrisy.
a) Immigration Equals Tarsands For Greenhouse Gases In Four Years
b) Technological Advances Won’t Save Us
c) New Hydro Project Consumed In 29 Days Of Immigration To Ontario
d) 18 Specific Ideas For Taking Action Against Overpopulation
When will Dr David Suzuki acknowledge that the earth cannot sustain 6.7 billion people at any level of per capita consumption? Shame on Dr David Suzuki! Will his 5 children each have 5 children of their own, giving Dr David Suzuki 25 grandchildren? How sustainable would that be if we all had as many children as Dr David Suzuki?
Dr David Suzuki is the antithesis of sustainability. Even though Dr David Suzuki is not sustainable himself — he has fathered many children and consumed far more resources than the average Canadian — I would at least respect him if he would have the decency to prescribe to Canadians that we must stop our population growth or we will never be sustainable!
Instead Dr David Suzuki gives us his “Nature Challenge” from his David Suzuki Foundation. I called the David Suzuki Foundation and they refused to divulge the identity and salary of their highest paid employees. They also refused to divulge the identity and amount of their largest corporate donors. I called the Charities Directorate of Revenue Canada and they could only reveal the following:
2007 David Suzuki Foundation:
Total amount in donations: $4,320,976
Other charities gave them: $580,213
Other revenue: $2,068,047 (donations that a receipt was not given for)
Salaries, wages, benefits and honoraria: $2,601,378
I explained to them that it is impossible to assess the integrity of a publicly subsidized tax-deductible charity unless I know:
a) what their highest salaries were and who they were paid to
b) what their largest donations were and who they came from
They told me I would have to contact my MP to have legislation changed so that the David Suzuki Foundation and other NGOs would be forced to reveal this information.
Brishen Hoff
November 17, 2008
(1) http://www.davidsuzuki.org/NatureChallenge/What_is_it/
(2) “Suzuki was married to Setsuko Joane Sunahara from 1958 to 1965, with three children (Tamiko, Laura, and Troy). He married Tara Elizabeth Cullis in 1972. They have two daughters: Sarika and Severn Cullis-Suzuki. Severn, born in 1979, has also done environmental work, including speaking at environmental conferences.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki
(3) http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2008/suzukidiaries/
In an interview with Jo Marchant on October 15/08, he declared that industrialized countries “were way overpopulated”. Canada is an industrialized country. In an email to P. Salonius dated October 21/2008, he remarked, “Canadians are having less than 2 Children per couple so to keep the economy climbing, we bring more and more people from low consuming countries and convert them to high consumers. This is nuts.” Dr. Suzuki has the insight. But he he won’t share it with the wide Canadian public.
But wait. If not sharing the truth about population growth makes HIM a liar, what does it make those of us who won’t share the truth about Dr. Suzuki?
Filed under David Suzuki's Cowardice
Why pick on poor David and not the Pope? Because the Pope is not holding himself up as the leader and paragon of environmentalism, that’s why. A true leader should walk the talk. A follower can be forgiven for having lower standards. If Nader can live a Spartan lifestyle, so can Suzuki. If Robert Bateman has the courage to stick his neck out publicly on overpopulation in Canada, so should Suzuki. Or he should get off his pulpit and sit down in the pew with the rest of us. Not preach chastity while ducking into the whore house, as one so graphically put it. A Green Icon should not own two waterfront homes and commute between them. He should not pump raw sewage from his island home into the bay and then title a book called “David Suzuki’s Green Guide”. He should not recommend on page 98 of this book that people not fish, then go to the Queen Charlottes and over-fish with his native friends as a guest so that he could do so, while telling CBC listeners that they are living beyond their limits. He should not tell people to live on a “100 mile diet” while buying tropical fruit in the local Heriot Bay store. He should rack up so many air miles and burn up so many carbons. He should not have sired five children whose green house gas emissions should exceed 100 metric tonnes annually if theirs is the Canadian average. He should not, therefore, be a hypocrite.
But more important than that, Dr. David Suzuki should not be a coward and a liar, a liar by Mark Twain’s definition. Twain said that if you were in possession of a truth, but did not share it, you were a “silent liar”. Suzuki has intimated privately on many occasions that he knows that industrialized countries are “way overpopulated”, and that Canada is “nuts” for injecting people from countries of low consumption into this “hyper-consuming” economy just to make up for a falling birth rate. That he will not go public with this critical insight can be nothing more than a symptom of cowardice, of a deference to political correctness and fear of losing his 4 million dollar yuppie donor base and CBC fan club.
Why should the CBC play the same tired old record? For the reason they won’t play any other record that doesn’t sing a pro-growth tune. Oh, but Suzuki was against growth, you say. He even quoted Paul Ehrlich, “growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”. But Elizabeth May uses that quote as well. But these people will not publicly renounce immigration. In fact Ms. May wants 330,000 worth of immigrants or more per year. How can you want to fuel the economy with that many consumers every year but be against growth? What these people are against is logical consistency and breaking taboos. To be against growth one must be against population growth. No consumer, however “green”, can cut his consumption to zero. Immigration presently accounts for 70% of Canada’s population growth and that percentage is climbing like a rocket ship. If you are sincere in your rhetoric against growth, you are opposed to immigration and you say that publicly. Private confessions don’t count. And you can therefore guarantee that you won’t be hired as the next host of the Nature of Things.
Filed under David Suzuki's Hypocrisy
IT IS ONE THING TO SAY THIS PRIVATELY:
“The opportunity for a country like Canada is that we are hyperconsumers. After all, population impact is a function of number and consumption per person. The challenge for Canada is to stop this crazy notion that we’ve got to keep the economy growing by adding more people. Canadians are having less than 2 children per couple so to keep the economy climbing, we bring more and more people from low consuming countries and convert them to high consumers. This is nuts.”
Dr. David Suzuki to Peter Salonius October 21/2008.
BUT IT’S ANOTHER TO SAY IT BEFORE A CANADIAN AUDIENCE:
On September 22/06 an Australian radio interviewer asked Dr David Suzuki point blank, “Are you saying that Australia is overpopulated?” He replied bluntly, “you bet!”. Dr. Suzuki had the courage to make that statement about Australia to an Australian audience. But is he ready to make such a statement about Canada to a Canadian audience? If Robert Bateman is, why not him? It seems that he is getting warmer. On October 15/08, in an interview with Jo Marchant, he declared that industrialized countries are “way overpopulated”. Canada is one such country. Mark Twain once said that if you know something to be true, but won’t share it, you are guilty of a Silent Lie. Dr. Suzuki is in possession of an important truth. Why should only Australians get to hear it?
DR. DAVID SUZUKI: PART OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOLUTION, OR PART OF OUR CHALLENGE?
It is time for environmental groups to once again acknowledge the crucial role that immigrant-driven population growth plays in environmental degradation. We can’t focus on per-capita consumption, for the environment only cares about TOTAL consumption.
Biodiversity First Canada
Filed under David Suzuki's Cowardice
Why is David Suzuki silent on Canada's overpopulation? 