Dr. David Suzuki

David T. Suzuki PhD, Co-Founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, is an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster.

David has received consistently high acclaim for his thirty years of award-winning work in broadcasting, explaining the complexities of science in a compelling, easily understood way. He is well known to millions as the host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's popular science television series, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki.

His eight part series, A Planet for the Taking, won an award from the United Nations. His eight-part PBS series, The Secret of Life was praised internationally, as was his five-part series, The Brain, for the Discovery Channel. For CBC Radio he founded the long running radio series Quirks and Quarks, and has presented two influential documentary series on the environment, From Naked Ape to Superspecies and It's a Matter of Survival.

An internationally respected geneticist, David was a full Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He is professor emeritus with UBC's Sustainable Development Research Institute. From 1969 to 1972 he was the recipient of the prestigious E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship Award for the "Outstanding Canadian Research Scientist Under the Age of 35".

David has received numerous awards for his work, including a UNESCO prize for science, a United Nations Environment Program medal and is a Companion to the Order of Canada. He has 26 honorary doctorates from universities in Canada, the US and Australia. For his work in support of Canada's First Nations people, David has received many tributes and has been honoured with seven names and formal adoption by two tribes.

David was born in Vancouver, BC in 1936. During World War II, at the age of six, he was interned with his family in a camp in BC. After the war, he went to high school in London, Ontario. He graduated with Honours from Amherst College in 1958 and went on to earn his PhD in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961.

The author of 52 books, David Suzuki is recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology.

• The Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting the Real Bottom Line

  In the past century, humanity has undergone an explosive change in numbers, science, technology, consumption and economics, that have endowed us with the power to alter the biological, physical and chemical properties of the planet.
  
  It is undeniable that the atmosphere and climate are altered; air, water and soil are fouled with toxic pollutants; oceans are depleted; forests are being cleared; and species are disappearing.
  
  Now that most people live in large cities, our relationship with nature is less obvious.
  
  Computers and telecommunications fragment information so that we can no longer recognize the interconnectivity of everything in the world.
  
  
  Globalization of the economy renders the entire planet a source of resources and all people a market for products, while local communities and local ecosystems are negatively impacted (for example, large scale pig farms are raised in Canada for an Asian market while the water, air and soil surrounding the hogfarms are negatively impacted).
  
  Traditional people refer to the Earth as their "Mother" and tell us we are made of the four sacred elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water.
  
  Today science is verifying this ancient wisdom and defines a different set of priorities that should become our bottomline for the 21st century:
  
        a) We are biological beings with an absolute dependence on clean air, water, soil and sunlight for our well being and survival.
  
        b) The web of all life on Earth (biodiversity) is responsible for cleansing, replenishing and creating air, water, soil and captured sunlight.
  
        c) Diversity at the genetic, species, ecosystem and cultural level is critical for longterm resilience and adaptability.
  
        d) We are social animals with an absolute need for love to realize our full human potential; maximal opportunity for love is ensured with strong families, communities, full employment, justice, equity, freedom from terror and war.
  
        e) We are spiritual beings who need to know that there are forces that impinge on our lives that lie outside our understanding or control; that nature that gave us birth, will persist after we die; that there are sacred places where humans come with respect and reverence.
  
  Human beings are one species among perhaps 10 to 15 million other species on whom we are ultimately dependent for our well being.
  
  Humanity needs to rediscover humility and our place in the world so that we and the rest of life can continue to flourish.

• He is an inspiring speaker who shows where society can make changes that will matter to everyone.
  Penn State University
• The relevance of your views regarding why we have removed oursleves from the natural world and now live in a mosiac of disconnected fragments so that we no longer see what our responsibilities are has given our participants many new ideas to take back to their districts on how to meet these challenges.
  British Columbia School Superintendents Assocation

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  September 2010

  The Legacy

  The culmination of David Suzuki’s knowledge and wisdom and his legacy for generations to come. If he had to sum up all that he has learned in one last lecture, what would David Suzuki say? In this expanded version of the lecture that he delivered in December 2009 and that will be released as a film in 2010, Suzuki, one of the planet’s preeminent elders, explains how we got where we are today and presents his vision for a better future.

  
  
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  April 2010

  More Good News

  David Suzuki and Holly Dressel update their bestseller Good News for a Change, published in 2003 with over 35,000 copies sold, with the latest inspiring stories about individuals, groups, and businesses that are making real change in the world. The authors also present up-to-date information about new, critical subjects not covered in the previous edition, such as energy and the economy. All the stories describe sustainable solutions that already exist and that can be used around the world.

  
  
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  March 2006

  David Suzuki: The Autobiography

  David Suzuki’s autobiography limns a life dedicated to making the world a better place. The book expands on the early years covered in Metamorphosis and continues to the present, when, at age 70, Suzuki reflects on his entire life — and his hopes for the future. The book begins with his life-changing experience of racism interned in a World War II concentration camp, and goes on to discuss his teenage years, his college and postgraduate experiences in the U.S., and his career as a geneticist and then as the host of The Nature of Things. With characteristic candor and passion, he describes how he became a leading environmentalist, writer, and thinker; the establishment of the David Suzuki Foundation; his world travels and meetings with luminaries like Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama; and the abiding role of nature and family in his life. David Suzuki is an intimate and inspiring look at a modern-day visionary.

  
  
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  March 2006

  David Suzuki: The Autobiography

  The first volume of David Suzuki’s autobiography, Metamorphosis, looked back at his life from 1986, when he was 50. In this eagerly awaited second installment, Suzuki, now 70, reflects on his entire life, and on his hopes for the future. The book begins with his life-changing encounters with racism while interned in a Canadian concentration camp during World War II and continues through his troubled teenage years and later successes as a scientist and host of PBS’s The Nature of Things. With characteristic candor and passion, he describes his growing consciousness of the natural world and humankind’s precarious place in it; his travels throughout the world and his meetings with international leaders, from Nelson Mandela to the Dalai Lama; and the abiding role of nature and family in his life. David Suzuki The Autobiography is an intimate and inspiring look at one of the most uncompromising people on the planet.

  
  
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  March 2003

  Good News

  We all know the bad news. We read reports of the damage that industrial development is wreaking on our soil, air, and water. The good news is that thousands of individuals, groups, and businesses are already changing their ways. There is a spontaneous global quest for ways to survive sustainably, and David Suzuki and Holly Dressel show us many of the technologies that we need to realize our goals are already within our grasp.

  
  
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  November 1999

  From Naked Ape to Superspecies

  Human beings have acquired enormous technological muscle power, and - coupled with our numbers and our soaring consumption - we are now having an impact on the planet that no other species has ever had. We are trying to dominate nature, but we are still part of it.  Foresight has always been a key to our survival and we have never needed it more than we do now. As we look ahead to an uncertain future, we have to examine some of our most cherished notions, like the ability of science to give us the power to manage nature, the benefits and hazards of genetic engineering, the real impact of information explosion, and the need to keep the global economy growing forever.

  
  
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  March 1998

  The Sacred Balance

  Inspiring and uplifting, David Suzuki explains our biological needs, which include dependence on air, water, soil, and the sun's energy--and a fifth vital need, the diversity of life itself. Suzuki shows how these elements connect us to each other and to the Earth and how human beings have a genetically programmed need to live with other species. The Sacred Balance offers the seeds of a new direction for us all.