The Blind Utopian Environmentalist
David Suzuki is a Canadian Zoologist. He is probably best known as the host of a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) program known as “The Nature of Things”. While his doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago was on the “lesser fruit fly”, this did not impede his sanctimonious journey in becoming a connoisseur of everything environmental including of course, climate change.
A quote that can encapsulate Suzuki’s leftist political position on man and nature is, “There are some things in the world we can't change - gravity, entropy, the speed of light, and our biological nature that requires clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and biodiversity for our health and well being. Protecting the biosphere should be our highest priority or else we sicken and die. Other things, like capitalism, free enterprise, the economy, currency, the market, are not forces of nature, we invented them. They are not immutable and we can change them. It makes no sense to elevate economics above the biosphere”.
This is emblematic of many environmentalist’s public personas and ideologies. Communism, Maoism, Marxism, Leninism, or socialism in all its varied degrees of collectivism are not immutable either, but Suzuki upholds that evaluation, assessment, and appraisal in silence. On the other hand, he was chastised by The Nation Post, a Toronto newspaper, for owning multiple homes, while promoting minimalism – another duplicitous progressive trait. “Practice what you preach” doesn’t much flourish in their lives – it’s meant for the abidance of others.
But for climate activist Suzuki to overlook communism is also paradoxical considering that communist countries release more than a third of all human carbon dioxide emissions. Before the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in late 1991 the environment, in all respects, was in shambles. The Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986 was included in the Soviet environmental disregard – Chernobyl was in Ukraine, about 50 miles north, of Kiev, however, Ukraine, at the time, was one of the 15 socialist republics of the USSR.
As the linked story “Environmental collapse before Soviet’s fall” states, “During seven decades of Soviet regime, there was a trade-off between economy and environment”, and “With very little regard for future, the USSR continued to run its economic engine, leaving behind a legacy of environmental catastrophe, including desertification and pollution.”
In the USSR turning into Russia not much has changed.
China’s Yangtze River, Eurasia’s longest at 3,915 miles, and the third longest waterway in the world, is also known as the world’s most polluted river. The river's major pollutants include industrial and human sewage, ship waste, agricultural pesticides, and sediment accumulation. The air in Chinese major cities is so contaminated that, when the wind is stagnant, it becomes difficult to see.
In communist countries, there are always oppressive or ruthless tyrants that rise to the top. Their worldly pursuit of economic significance topples their outlook on all aspects of the environment. Why progressive politicians and activists like Suzuki cannot see this or do not want to, is beyond reasonable comprehension.