By JOHN GARDNER
The problem with the environment is economics, says Professor David Suzuki.
The world model which uses economy as its primary focus has little to do with reality.
"This is nuts," he says, a phrase the veteran Canadian environmentalist uses a lot in his analysis.
Professor Suzuki, author of more than 30 books and the man behind television series such as The Secret of Life and A Planet for the Taking, is due in New Zealand for speaking engagements in Auckland and Wellington and to promote his latest book, Good News for a Change.
The message is, he says, to counter the criticism that environmentalists are all a bunch of doomsayers.
"We've got to give people a sense of hope."
When he set out on the project with co-author Holly Dressel he was not sure there would be enough cheerful material but was delighted to find "thousands of things going in the right direction".
But this does not change his overall message about the seriousness of the environmental problem. "The problem is the economy that externalises the rest of the world."
More in sorrow than in anger, he describes attending an economics course in which he asked the professor, "Where in the diagram of the economy do you put the ozone layer or where do you put topsoil or deep underground aquifers?"
"His answer was, 'Those are externalities. They are not in the economic equation.'
"So if you externalise the real world we depend on for our very survival you've invented a construct that's got nothing to do with the real world and that I think is at the heart of what the problem is. We don't have a factor for what nature does to keep us alive."
He rejects the suggestion that only if you get the economy right can you afford to tackle environmental problems.
"I have had huge arguments in Australia about that.
"The environment is everything. The biosphere, the air, water and land where life exists is everything. It's not that the economy is everything in our pie diagram. The economy is a tiny part within the biosphere.
"We've got this model that's all wrong. We think that as long as the economy keeps growing for ever we can afford more and more for the environment. But the real model is that the biosphere is limited. It can't grow any more."
The global economy is a juggernaut going in the wrong direction, Professor Suzuki says, but it has captured politicians and scientists alike.
"I think the economic climate is wrong. I think globalisation now represents the greatest threat not only to local communities but to local ecosystems and the global economy is now being driven by the very people we elect to look out for us.
"So there is this terrible alliance between our politicians and the private sector leaders who are driving an agenda that has got nothing to do with the wellbeing of society or the environment."
Professor Suzuki dismisses with scorn any suggestion that the way for poor nations to protect their environment is to be developed and become wealthy.
"It's always claimed by economists that we need to have a growing economy so that the wealth will trickle down to the poor, and this is the biggest lie that I can imagine. Because it's very, very clear over the last 40 years with all of this growth, wealth has been flowing upward, not down."
The World Bank two years ago said that one billion people in the world struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day, and three billion - half the population - live on less than two dollars a day. "This at the very time when we have 500 multibillionaires and we have 2 1/2 million multimillionaires in North America alone and yet half the world is living on $2 a day.
"I think there's something fundamentally wrong when we in rich countries are still saying we can't afford foreign aid. We've got to keep this economy growing."
Professor Suzuki says the people of the poor nations know that issues of clean air, clean water and arable soil are absolutely crucial to their survival.
"The problem is that they have been overrun by a paradigm of the power of science and technology: that what we need is modern methods to get these poor people into the global economy so they can begin to benefit as the rich countries are. Well, this is nuts.
"You cannot go into countries like India, Pakistan, PNG or Brazil and try and sell them a model of development and progress that works in Europe or North America.
"These are radically different countries, different ecosystems, different social conditions and we're trying to ram a single notion of progress down their throats."
But the global model of a constantly growing economy is, he says, out of control and politicians have let it happen.
"Godammit, we need people in there representing us and balancing that drive to maximise profits but we've been overwhelmed by this idea that the economy is everything. We've got to get out of that loop because it is taking us right down the tube."
Professor Suzuki, who says he prefers to consider himself a scientist rather than an environmentalist "although one with a very strong criticism of much of what is passing for science today, especially in areas of applied science", sees some of his colleagues falling into the money trap.
"Scientists, especially in biotechnology, have bought right into all of this stuff. My colleagues are suddenly making huge amounts of money by creating biotech companies."
His indignation and contempt are palpable, as is his scorn for political hesitancy over the global warming issue.
Told of reservations in New Zealand about this country's getting ahead of our competitors in signing the Kyoto accord, he explodes.
"New Zealand's actions have been absolutely scandalous. If I was a New Zealander I would be ashamed of your country's position, as I am of Canada and Australia.
"Canada and Australia have been two of the countries bellyaching like mad - Australia snivelling all the time about how difficult it is. I land in Australia and I can't believe it. They have something that is free called sunlight. You go to Sydney and you don't see solar panels everywhere and that country is bellyaching about meeting the Kyoto targets?
"I think it's absolutely reprehensible. I think it's humiliating, especially a country like New Zealand, given the forests you've got and the water you've got. There are all kinds of alternatives."
The argument over whether mankind is the main contributor to global warming is dismissed as irrelevant. The evidence of the global warming phenomenon is now so overwhelming and mounting that any steps to modify it have to be acted upon.
Professor Suzuki describes in scatological rather than academic terms how scared we should be. "It's much worse than we ever thought."
To suggestions that the global warming message, like other environmental warnings, may be losing impact because of repetition, like the boy who cried wolf, Dr Suzuki is incredulous.
"If warnings become louder and more urgent surely the thing not to do is say, 'I've heard this before. I'm tired of it'."
The point of the fable of the boy who cried wolf is, he insists: "The wolf came. The wolf came."
Good News for a Change is published by Allen and Unwin at $36.95.
David Suzuki will speak at Dymock's bookshop, Auckland, at 5 pm on March 14.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
United Nations Environment Program
World Meteorological Organisation
Framework Convention on Climate Change
Executive summary: Climate change impacts on NZ
IPCC Summary: Climate Change 2001
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