A neighbor to the north
Nice long article on Canadian environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki from the
Orato Website:
The Sad Legacy Of David Suzuki
A religious fervor for protecting nature has transformed Canada’s leading environmentalist into an emotional bully intolerant of scientists who don’t see things his way. Over the years I’ve heard and read statements by David Suzuki that are too often misleading or incorrect, especially about climate. He, and many like him, claim natural events are unnatural thus guaranteeing that they appear right. What he conveniently overlooks, and may have learned had he remained a scientist rather than becoming an activist, is that nature and climate frequently change dramatically and in very short time periods.
Suzuki gets away with this misinterpretation by fully exploiting the false authority of his claimed and cultivated position as a scientist and environmentalist. He does this despite the fact that he deliberately abandoned his university research position in the 1980s and has no more qualifications as an environmentalist than many of us.
Indeed, it is arrogant for people such as Suzuki to claim that they are environmentalists as if it were some sort of exclusive club, inferring they care and the rest of us don’t. It is more likely he, and those who work with him, are pushing a political agenda to create the world they want. H. L. Mencken, one of the most influential American writers of the early 20th century, said, “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
Suzuki’s image is being increasingly tarnished as evidence accumulates against his positions and statements. This was bound to happen with climate because he ignores the standard scientific method, which tries to disprove hypotheses. As Richard Lindzen said about the hypothesis that human addition of CO2 would cause significant global warming; the consensus was reached before the research had even begun.
A bit more (on stability and spin):
In February Suzuki stormed out of an AM640 Toronto radio interview when interviewer, John Oakley, made the accurate observation that global warming science is not a “totally settled issue.” Besides Suzuki’s aggressive behavior, his promotion of certainty in a field scientists understand to be immature, is counterproductive to climate research. If the science is settled then why is there literally a deluge of scientific papers coming out on the topic? If the science is settled, then this all must be an enormous waste of money.
Suzuki raised the spin to a professional level when he teamed up with James Hoggan of Hoggan and Associates, one of Canada's largest public relations firms. According to Hoggan’s Web site, “Hoggan has provided strategic communications services to the DSF [David Suzuki Foundation] for more than 15 years, providing communications advice on salmon farming, climate change, forest preservation and international conservation projects.
Seven pages (short pages) but well worth reading if you are concerned about the environment. Suzuki is a fraud, a showman and an entertainer. He is not a scientist despite having done this once earlier in his life.
Hat tip to
Junk Science for the link (August 1st entry -- they don't support permalinks)
Posted by DaveH at August 1, 2007 9:14 PM