As an activist I operated in a helter-skelter fashion, getting involved when asked or when I saw something that triggered my interest. I could be useful by signing petitions, writing letters of support, giving talks to help raise funds or highlight issues with the public. But I was unfocused, helping out when the opportunity presented itself and acting as an individual.
Being high-profile brought some danger. When we were in the heat of the battles over logging, a bullet was fired through the front window of my home, my office was broken into twice to get at my computer; once, in Haida Gwaii, while I was jogging along the road outside the logging village of Sandspit, a truck was turned at me and I was driven into a ditch. Tara and I often felt very vulnerable and alone, and we worried about our children's safety.
During my fourth and last year (1978–79) as host of Quirks and Quarks, Anita Gordon had become the producer, and she continued in that role when Jay Ingram took my place. In 1988, with environmental concern making headlines, Anita asked me to host a CBC Radio series on the subject. I agreed, and we received the go-ahead to do five shows that were broadcast in a series called It's a Matter of Survival. Traveling to conferences in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, I interviewed for the program more than 150 scientists and experts from many countries and fields about environmental problems and how the world would look fifty years hence if we carried on with business as usual. Most of those interviews were conducted in an intense period of about four months, and I could suddenly see with crystal clarity that the very life-support systems of the planet were being destroyed at a horrifying rate and on a grand scale.
This new perspective galvanized me with a sense of urgency that has only increased over the years. The radio series conveyed the magnitude of the problem as well as the uplifting message that by acting now we could avoid the fate we were heading toward. The series evoked an incredible response. More than sixteen thousand letters came in, most ending with the plea, “What can I do?”
Until then, my standard response to such a query had been, “I'm just a messenger telling people about the crisis that is happening. I'm afraid I don't have all the solutions.” But this time Tara said, “David, we've been warning people about the problems for years. This response shows we've reached a lot of the general public, but now people feel helpless because they don't know what to do. You've got to go beyond the warnings and start talking about solutions.”
I didn't like assuming that responsibility, but I could see she was right. It's one thing to hear a dismaying report, but it's another thing altogether to track down experts, organizations, and articles that might offer answers. In raising the alarm, I now also had to provide something that would help people take action if they were so motivated.
This truth was brought home to me by another experience. Noam Chomsky, the famed linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the strongest critics of American foreign policy, gave a talk to a full house at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver. I chaired the event, and like the audience, I was enthralled by his analysis and insights. But during the question-and-answer period, he refused to recommend courses of action, organizations, or even books to read, saying that people had to find the material and make up their own minds. That helped me to realize that Tara was right: by informing and alarming people, I had a responsibility to suggest potential answers.
As well, many of our friends were anxious about strains on our ecosystems and had begun to challenge us to lead an initiative, perhaps to found a new organization. With their help, Tara and I drew up a list of about twenty “thinkers” who were committed to environmental issues but who had diverse skills and points of view; we invited them to a weekend retreat to discuss whether we needed a new, solution-oriented group. About a dozen people could make it, and in November 1989 they gave us three days of their precious time.
We gathered in the idyllic setting of Pender Island, one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland. The lodge where we met was close to the ocean and had an orchard and paths we could wander while discussing ideas. Tara and I were pretty naive about how to run such a meeting; at first we had no facilitator or written agenda, only questions and a sense of urgency. Luckily, Vancouver writer Stan Persky, known for his incisive analysis and his expertise at meetings, took over as chair.
I talked about my sobering and motivating experience working on It's a Matter of Survival and the enormous public response it received. Then I asked two questions: “Is there a need, an important role, for yet another environmental organization? And if the answer is yes, what would its focus be and how would it differ from other groups?”
The brainstorming participants were outspoken and irreverent, leading to vigorous, productive sessions. We agreed that most organizations we knew had sprung up as a result of a crisis — to oppose the spraying of a school yard with herbicide, to fight a factory polluting the water, to protect a treasured forest about to be clear-cut. But each crisis is merely a symptom or manifestation of a deeper, underlying root cause. Even if each crisis is resolved, we are no closer to long-term balance with our surroundings unless we get at the cause. An organization was needed to focus on root causes, so that steps could be taken to produce real change.
We agreed it should be a science-based organization. We would not do original research or give out research grants, but we would use the best scientific information available and hire scientists to help write or edit the papers we wanted to produce. Further, we would emphasize communication: we would learn how best to deliver this top-quality information to the public. Successful communication would be as important as the science itself. I have always believed this, which is why, as a scientist, I chose to go into television.
At the meeting on Pender Island, we also decided not to accept government grants or support — a decision that had enormous ramifications. Such support can become a substantial part of an organization's budget. But government priorities change easily; organizations are often told they could qualify for further grants if they would just shift their focus — and before anyone realizes it, the promise of continued funding is directing activities. We also decided that if companies offered us money, they would have to demonstrate a genuine commitment to environmental sustainability before we would consider accepting funds.
In the early days of the organization, the decision to abstain from government support made life difficult. We could have had several employees paid by Canada Manpower (the federal employment insurance system at the time) and grants to help us get up and running, but we chose to use only the money Tara and I were putting in. We stuck to that decision, and it gave us the freedom to speak out without worrying about jeopardizing our funding.
The group at Pender Island then decided the name of the organization should be the David Suzuki Foundation. I objected. It seemed conceited, and I was not in this endeavor to be remembered in perpetuity. It would also be an enormous responsibility to ensure that an organization carrying my name remained true to the values I believed in, as also shared and expressed by those at our retreat.
The counterargument was twofold. First, my profile in Canada had been built up over many years of working in science and the media and of speaking out, so my name would immediately tell people what the foundation stood for. If we named it the Pender Group, for example, we would be starting from scratch. Second, it might be possible to translate the reputation my work had created into fuel for the new organization. The viewers and readers who liked my work might send funds to support the initiative. It was a long debate, lasting many months, but in the end I had to acquiesce.