I heard David Suzuki speak tonight at Alumni Hall, UWO. I didn't have many expectations other than to have a few more things to chew on about global warming and climate change. I did want to hear how an infamous person would present this topic and as anticipated, he was a great, dynamic speaker who spoke passionately.
Aside from the political remarks and opinions, which I find amusing because you really have to reach a certain status to so freely vocalize your thoughts while still maintaining respect, his arguments for the need for radical interventions really made me think. He tied together economics and how it has strayed away from the very root of the word - the management of eco - the environment. while ecology is the study of the environment. and how funny it is that we are no longer basing our economic strategies based on the ecology, rather, economics has become an entity within itself, that, ironically, has brushed aside the 'eco' aspects (of the services that nature provides for us the foundation on which our economic successes come from) as 'externalized' - not a part of the equation. there is a need now to internalize, or bring back the 'eco' into the equation...
also this perception that we have that economics will continually grow, and never reach a limit. unfortunately, we live in a finite world, with finite resources... an ever-growing economic curve will, at some point in time, collide with the finiteness of reality and will not be able to grow any further as those resources deplete. what is wrong with steady-state?
and then the reason behind the title of this excerpt: the Suzuki train.
Suzuki heard from another introduction on him, that a politician was asked how to get their attention on issues, and the answer - gather 100 000 students on parliament hill - that will raise the attention.
and then he envisioned a train coming from the east, and a train coming from the west... that picks up uni students as it travels toward Ottawa, all to bring together everyone for one cause....
and I whispered to my friends on either side: the suzuki train! i would hop on that!
i think his name has enough weight on it that ppl would jump on this suzuki train, wouldn't you? If university/college students could spontaneously meet together in front of the white house on the night of the US election to celebrate (some for the sake of bandwagon jumping, rather than really caring about politics), then certainly, something like a heralded suzuki train passing by might actually draw ppl in, wouldn't you think?
apparently, this idea was shared with Mr. Suzuki at the book-signing by my friend, and he loved the idea! his response, and I'm recording this because I'm a little tickled with this idea that he responded to an off-shoot idea of mine: "then you'd all be the Suzuki samurais!"
:)
fun times listening to him.
There is a document called "Sustainability within a Generation" - where they surveyed Canadians of all backgrounds and established the common vision of what was the desired future of Canada, and then, breaking down strategies over the next generation (25 years i think) with goals that can feasibly be met....if we began now. According to this document, it is actually feasible. This idea of feasibility intrigues me, because often the phrases of 'battling climate change' is overwhelming. If we're so in the deep already, is there really anything that we can do to lessen the impact? Are any efforts only going to make a small dent of change, that may be easily wiped out by the greater negative effects? So I might take a read or a look-through... or skim a layperson version if there is one.
Anyways... suzuki train... that is all...
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