By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
Vol. 11, No. 42
In 1992, I attended an event that filled me with hope. Canada and the rest of the world had just signed a climate change treaty at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. I remember being optimistic that the world could come together to fight the greatest threat to our planet and our own survival. We had done it before in overcoming other threats, like defeating Nazism in Europe and beating back horrific diseases like polio that once maimed and killed tens of thousands of people each year.
When Canada signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty, we had not yet begun to experience the full consequences of climate change. There were no news reports of starving polar bears in the Arctic, the mountain pine beetle had not yet turned B.C.’s forests crimson, and we weren’t facing a rapid increase in infectious diseases, like Lyme disease, that are exacerbated by warming temperatures.
Dr. David Suzuki
Dr. Faisal Moola
The world’s richest countries appear to be taking climate change seriously. At their recent meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, G8 countries agreed that global warming should not exceed two degrees Celsius, on average, over the pre-industrial temperature. The European Union, along with more than 100 other countries, heeded the advice of climate scientists some time ago in committing not to breach the threshold – but it took this meeting to get Canada, the U.S., and Russia on board.
The few North Atlantic right whales left in the world visit the waters off Canada’s East Coast every summer and fall. They’re big animals, weighing up to 80 tonnes and measuring up to 18 metres. But even though the whales enjoy prolonged multi-partner mating and the males have the biggest cojones in the animal kingdom, they’re slow breeders and haven’t been able to increase their numbers much above 400 for some time.

