7. Walk, bike, carpool or take public transit one day a week
8. Choose a home close to work or school
9. Support alternative transportation
10. Learn more and share information with others
We kicked off the project at events in six Canadian cities: Toronto, London, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver. Each event was sold out, thanks to performances by comedians, musicians, and other celebrities, including some in the media. Tara and I both spoke, and we tried to sign up as many people as possible to do their bit to make a difference. It's working: the current number as I write is more than 140,000, including dozens of mayors, entire city councils, and premiers — with thousands of constituents signing on, no politician could refuse to do something concrete as well.
THE DSF INITIATIVE FOR which we have the highest hopes is Sustainability Within A Generation (SWAG), the name adopted from the title of a report we commissioned in 2003.
David Boyd is a lawyer who headed the Sierra Legal Defence Fund in Vancouver. He is now an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria in B.C.'s capital city and a writer who covers environmental issues from a legal standpoint. His book Unnatural Law explores the way different countries have legislated environmental protection. Though polls indicate the environment is the major concern of Canadians, Boyd found Canada ranks near the bottom in related legislation and performance: it is number 28 out of 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Only Belgium and the United States rate lower.
The DSF contracted David to write a document suggesting how society might achieve sustainability in areas such as waste, energy, food, and water. He cut through divisive issues and came up with a remarkable report that arose from a simple question: what kind of country do we want a generation from now? Do we want a land where the air is clean and there are no longer epidemic levels of asthma? Of course. Do we want to be able to drink water from any lake or river? Naturally. Do we want to catch a fish and eat it without having to worry about contaminants? Sure. Everyone agrees with these goals, so now we have consensus and a target that gives us direction.
If we know that in the long term we want to achieve sustainability, it is helpful to choose a target date. David chose the year 2030 and then divided society's needs into nine areas:
Generating genuine wealth
Improving efficiency
Shifting to clean energy
Reducing waste and pollution
Protecting and conserving water
Producing healthy food
Conserving, protecting, and restoring Canadian nature
Building sustainable cities
Promoting global sustainability
In Boyd's analysis, it is possible to achieve sustainability in each area if we begin to work toward it immediately and aim to reach concrete targets set within specific time frames. The report “Sustainability Within A Generation” has garnered a positive response; when Jim Fulton and I presented it to Canadian prime minister Paul Martin in February 2004, we learned he had already read it and enthusiastically embraced it. He promised to try to exceed our targets in all areas but one — energy.
We had recommended that subsidies to the fossil fuel industry be stopped. The prime minister admitted frankly that such a step would have huge political ramifications in oil-rich Alberta and couldn't be taken. But he did promise to try to level the playing field for renewable energy sources, to which he did commit a billion dollars from the sale of the government-owned oil company, Petro-Canada. After our meeting, the prime minister sent the document to senior bureaucrats with instructions to see how the recommendations could be embedded in government infrastructure, which would ensure that even with changing governments, the basic goal would remain in place.
David Boyd was appointed in 2004 on a contract to advise the Privy Council of Canada, a high-powered body of advisers to the government, where he met regularly with senior civil servants. Politicians change, whereas bureaucrats remain; if civil servants embrace the principles of “Sustainability Within A Generation,” they could help shift government infrastructure and attitude.
I also presented the report to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in Ottawa to a very positive reception. The Australian Conservation Foundation is now writing an Aussie version of SWAG.
In November 2005, John deCuevas, a colleague of Tara's when she taught at Harvard, invited a group of thirty-five funders, scientists, environmentalists, and activists to meet us for a dinner and then spend the following day in discussion at Harvard's Faculty Club. I presented “Sustainability Within A Generation,” which was embraced with enthusiasm. The group recommended that the DSF document be Americanized, and two researchers have been hired to work on this. The group wants to put together a blue-ribbon panel of scientists, economists, athletes, celebrities, and politicians to be ambassadors for SWAG.
“Sustainability Within A Generation” has been a galvanizing and unifying focus within the foundation because all of our projects are tied to the goal of sustainability within its 2030 time frame.
WHEN THE RADIO SERIES It's a Matter of Survival was broadcast in 1988, I was overwhelmed by the speed with which the planet was undergoing human-caused degradation. Since the foundation opened its doors, the signs of danger have been rising.
Human beings are not specially gifted in speed, strength, size, or sensory acuity compared with the other animals we evolved with on the African plains. Our great evolutionary feature was our brain, which conferred memory, curiosity, and inventiveness that more than compensated for our lack of physical attributes. Foresight, the ability to look ahead and recognize both dangers and opportunities, guided us into the future. That was what got us to this moment in time, when we are the most numerous, powerful, and demanding mammal on Earth.
We have been repeatedly warned that we are on a dangerous path. We must not turn our backs on the core survival strategy of our species by subordinating ecological concerns to the demands of the economy, political feasibility, and personal ambition.
The battle to save Mother Earth remains urgent and must continue.
THIRTEEN
RIO AND THE EARTH SUMMIT
IN 1991, SOON AFTER we had established the David Suzuki Foundation, we heard that the Earth Summit was to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. The American zoologist Rachel Carson in 1962 had published her ground-breaking book Silent Spring, about the unexpected consequences of pesticides, and the environmental movement had grown spectacularly through the 1970s and '80s.
The Earth Summit was meant to signal a profound shift, the realization that henceforth humankind couldn't make important political, social, and economic decisions without considering the environmental consequences. But by the time of the meetings, environmental concerns were already giving way to economic priorities.
The period between Silent Spring and Rio reflected the evolution of a remarkable grassroots movement. Greenpeace had been born in 1970 in Vancouver as a result of protest against an American plan to test nuclear weapons underground on Amchitka Island in the Aleutian Islands, off the Alaska Peninsula.