David Suzuki will be in Fredericton the first weekend of May to discuss the state of the environmental crisis and what can be done about it

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Canada's best known environmental activist, David Suzuki, is coming to Fredericton.

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CHANGE OF PLANS: becoming the face and voice of the green movement wasn't the life david suzuki had planned - he was going to be a hotshot geneticist. then he read a book called silent spring by Rachel Carson which talked about the unexpected effects of pesticides. he calls this the turning point of his life.

He will be a featured speaker at a weekend event called The Sacred Balance.

Suzuki will be discussing the earth's state of environmental crisis and what can be done about it.

In a phone interview with The Daily Gleaner from his office in Vancouver recently, Suzuki shared some thoughts about the problem as he sees it.

"We have to set the bottom line which is clean water, clean air, clean soil and biodiversity...We need to reassess the way we do everything," he says.

"The problem right now is we regard the economy as the bottom line. If the economy isn't doing well we figure then there's nothing we can do about anything else.

"If you don't have clean air, clean water and clean soil that gives us our food how can we possibly be healthy? The idea that we use the air, water and soil as a garbage can is just crazy, it's suicidal, but that's what we're doing."

Most people have accepted they have to pay to put things into landfills but, he says, they get upset about the idea of having to pay a fee for the emissions they put into the air.

British Columbia, he notes, was the first province to impose the first carbon tax.

Some provinces, he says, are making changes to help stop the damage and reverse behaviours which add to climate change.

"Four provinces that have been very progressive have been Quebec, B.C., Ontario and Manitoba."

Suzuki is less pleased with what's happening in this province.

New Brunswick, he says, is at the back of the eco-friendly pack because of coal-fired and nuclear power generation here as well as other issues including forest clear-cutting.

"We have to ask what kind of a New Brunswick and a Fredericton would we like 25 years from now?"

Suzuki envisions a country covered in forests where there is a thriving logging industry thanks to selective tree cutting rather than clear-cutting.

He sees a country where it would be possible to drink or fish from any lake and river without health worries and where the air is clean and 15 per cent of kids don't get asthma.

"When you put it that way everybody agrees. We believe this can be achieved. We call it sustainability within a generation," says Suzuki.

"I think that's what we've got to be doing. We have to start looking ahead and saying where are we going and what do we want."

The need to reduce our energy consumption and protect the environment is a message this man has been talking about for more than 30 years. While he is pleased to see a change in attitude on the part of many, he says, it is frustrating this has taken so long.

The environment was top on the federal government's agenda 20 years ago. Back then the environment minister was Lucien Bouchard who said the priority of his department was global warming, Suzuki recalls.

"His exact words to me were 'It threatens the survival of our species and we've got to act now.'"

But within a couple of years there was an economic recession and the environment took a back seat to the economy.

"What frustrates me is that Canada, in the 1980s, was trying to be the leader in the green movement but has gone completely backwards ... to me the frustrating part is the reluctance of people to really do the right things. Our government has turned its back on the Kyoto protocol."

The only way political leaders will change their agenda to make the environment a priority, Suzuki says, is when people demand it.

"Until last year Mr. (Stephen) Harper didn't believe that global warming was real," he says.

"It was the public yelling and screaming that forced him to say 'OK climate change, we've got to do something about it.'"

Suzuki says he hopes Canada will renew its interest and involvement in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to reach Kyoto targets to stop global warming.

Today all three US presidential candidates are making a lot of 'green' campaign promises. But back in 1988 former president George W. H. Bush made those promises, too, Suzuki recalls.

"He said: 'If you vote for me I'll be an environmental president.'

"There wasn't a green bone in his body. He said that because America wanted it. The minute he was elected he showed he didn't give a damn."

Now that the U.S. is headed into another recession, Suzuki fears the environment may be ignored in favour of money matters once again.

But other countries are taking measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without any negative repercussions to their economies. Suzuki is impressed by what's happening in Germany.

"It is one of the top four industrialized countries in the world and it is 20 per cent below 1990 levels in their emissions.

"And here's Canada over 30 per cent above 1990 levels. It's shameful. And the Germans show it can be done and the economy can remain strong."

Over the past 150 years 30 per cent more carbon dioxide has been added to the atmosphere. And each year another 50,000 species on this planet become extinct.

While there is nothing that can be done to reverse this fact, Suzuki says people can make a commitment to change their personal behaviours so they are no longer adding to the problem.

"All we can do is say are we going to keep on adding to the mess or are we going to try to stabilize it where we are now and hope things will heal themselves."

Becoming the face and voice of the green movement wasn't a life he'd planned for himself back in 1962 when he was an assistant genetics professor at the University of Alberta.

"I didn't know a thing about the environment. I wanted to be a hotshot geneticist."

Then he read a book called Silent Spring by Rachel Carson which talked about the unexpected effects of pesticides which, he says, was the turning point of his life.

Thanks to a show called The Nature of Things, which first aired in 1974, Suzuki became a household name in this country.

Now he appears on TV in ads about energy conservation. These ads approach this very serious issue in a humourous way and people see how they can reduce their energy consumption and save money too.

The ads are making a difference, he says.

Millions of Canadians are now buying energy efficient compact florescent light bulbs and replacing older, energy wasting appliances with newer, energy saving ones. The latest TV ad involves children talking about their parents' energy wastefulness.

Suzuki says he's pleased children understand the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions but he says it's a bittersweet victory.

"Because the kids know the world is changing and that it's their future that's at stake."