David Suzuki Privately Admits Canada's Immigration Is Too High

In an October 21, 2008 e-mail, David Suzuki privately admitted that Canada's immigration is too high, but he still hasn't said so publicly. (See e-mail exchange below)

David Suzuki also doesn't suggest any solutions for reducing our population to a sustainable level or stress the need to do so in public.

Suzuki did not explain why he publicly only focuses on reducing per capita consumption instead of stopping population growth.

Doesn't Canada's problem of unsustainable exponential population growth warrant any solution ideas from the David Suzuki foundation?

Why is David Suzuki and his foundation not taking the problem of the size and growth of our population seriously? The question remains unanswered. Possible reasons can be surmised and those reasons do not flatter Mr Suzuki or his organization. For example:

1) Perhaps David Suzuki has corporate donors who do not want him to inhibit population growth which would hurt their profits.
2) Perhaps David Suzuki feels insecure identifying population growth as a chief threat to quality of life because Mr Suzuki has an unsustainable 4 children of his own. However, Robert Bateman has 5 children and still had the courage to make a statement on overpopulation.
3) Perhaps David Suzuki is worried about losing money, popularity, and influence by being too controversial and therefore wants to focus only on easy ways of reducing per capita consumption, even though that is ineffective in the face of rising population.
4) Perhaps David Suzuki is too cowardly to publicly state that Canada's immigration is too high for the health of our environment because his parents were immigrants. However, my parents were immigrants too, and I haven't been afraid to stress the need to limit immigration to respect ecological limits.

David Suzuki regularly goes beyond presenting the sorry state of the environment by suggesting feckless solutions like changing our lightbulbs, switching to hybrids or reducing AC usage.

On www.davidsuzuki.org he says:

"What you can do Right Now
1. Stop global warming
2. Take the Nature Challenge
3. Go Carbon Neutral
4. Protect our Oceans
5. Read our newsletter
6. Go Pesticide Free "

He could have just as easily said:

What you can do Right Now
1. Stop Canada's population growth
2. Reduce immigration intake
3. Please do not reproduce
4. Tell others about the need to reduce our numbers to sustainable levels

Brishen Hoff, October 22, 2008


---- START OF E-MAIL CORRESPONDENCE ----
(forwarded to the Biodiversity First mailing list)

From: Salonius, Peter
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 09:11
To: 'contact@davidsuzuki.org'
Subject: Population Reduction

Please pass this COMMENT on to David Suzuki regarding the interview

published in the October 15 issue of New Scientist

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We finally have a definitive statement from Dr. Suzuki about the fact that we have far overshot the Earth's carrying capacity as he says:

"We're way overpopulated".

However, as Dr. Suzuki describes the activities of the David Suzuki Foundation:

"We have divided foundation activities into nine areas, such as energy, waste, water and food, with targets we believe are achievable in 25 years"

-- it is apparent that the necessity of reducing population levels to a fraction of current numbers, in order to bring human pressures on the Earth's carrying capacity into balance with Earth's long-term productive capacity, does not yet warrant his concentrated attention.

-----------------------


Peter Salonius


From: Elois Yaxley [mailto:elois@newdata.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 11:16
To: Salonius, Peter
Subject: Reply from David Suzuki

Dear Mr. Salonius:
The opportunity for a country like Canada is that we are hyperconsumers. After all, population impact is a function of number and consumption per person. The challenge for Canada is to stop this crazy notion that we've got to keep the economy growing by adding more people. Canadians are having less than 2 children per couple so to keep the economy climbing, we bring more and more people from low consuming countries and convert them to high consumers. This is nuts.

David Suzuki

---- END OF E-MAIL CORRESPONDENCE ----