David Suzuki versus Justin Trudeau

[Derek 2.0]

In an interview today, climate change activist David Suzuki has spoken about a feud with Justin Trudeau over policy:

During a testy phone call, Justin Trudeau dismissed David Suzuki’s views on the Liberal climate change policy as “sanctimonious crap,” according to Suzuki. Suzuki revealed the contents of the conversation during an interview on SiriusXM’sEverything is Political with Evan Solomon. Suzuki says he fired back, calling Trudeau a “twerp.”

The renowned scientist, broadcaster and activist says Trudeau called him personally June 28, 2015 to talk about the Liberal platform on climate change that was to be revealed the next day. “I didn’t call Justin, he called me,” Suzuki said. “He wanted an endorsement and he wanted to tell me exactly what his program was.”

Suzuki goes on to state:

Suzuki went on to advise Trudeau that taking the target of a 2 degree rise in temperature seriously means 80 per cent of the oil sands has to stay in the ground. Suzuki believes stopping oil sands development will mean “no debate about pipelines or expanding railways or shipping stuff offshore—none of that comes into it.”

Suzuki says this is when the exchange turned nasty. “He said, ‘I don’t have to listen to this sanctimonious crap. I proceeded to call him a twerp.”

So is Trudeau a false idol on the Environment, or is Suzuki over the top? Will this effect some environmental types that wanted to support Justin Trudeau?

Of the three parties and the environment, Suzuki says this in closing:

Suzuki says he has not spoken to Thomas Mulcair or Stephen Harper about their climate change or their plans for the environment. “My feeling is that none of the parties except for the Greens is really taking it seriously.”

Is the Green party truly the only party for those that value the environment?

[Smallc]

Who cares what Suzuki says? I know you don't. Neither do I.

[Argus]

Who cares what Suzuki says? I know you don't. Neither do I.

Suzuki is worth listening to if only to get a handle on what the environmental movement beliefs. He said that 80% of the oil sands would have to be left in the ground in order to meet CO2 reduction requirements. How many NDP members do you think believe the same thing?

And I agree with his assessment of Trudeau - and Trudeau's assessment of Suzuki.

[Derek 2.0]

Who cares what Suzuki says? I know you don't. Neither do I.

How do you know my beliefs on the environment and what opinion I hold of Suzuki? (In my 4+ years of posting on this site, I've rarely commented on environmental policy/climate change)

I think many people, perhaps more so here in BC, listen to him, but might not always agree with what David Suzuki has to say.

[Ash74]

I am actually impressed with JT. Who knew the "twerp" would have the guts for such a stand

[WestCoastRunner]

I am actually impressed with JT. Who knew the "twerp" would have the guts for such a stand

Jt can't possibly take a stand against Suzuki.

[Smallc]

Jt can't possibly take a stand against Suzuki.

Suzuki isn't a god. Trudeau has at least as much political capital as him.

[WestCoastRunner]

Suzuki isn't a god. Trudeau has at least as much political capital as him.

Trudeau has no chance debating Suzuki

[Smallc]

Trudeau has no chance debating Suzuki

Trudeau can set his own policy.

[Evening Star]

So is Trudeau a false idol on the Environment, or is Suzuki over the top? Will this effect some environmental types that wanted to support Justin Trudeau?

When was Justin Trudeau ever any sort of idol on the environment?

[ReeferMadness]

So is Trudeau a false idol on the Environment, or is Suzuki over the top?

Is this statement the ultimate straw dog statement? Has anyone ever (even inside the Liberal Party) called Trudeau an environmental idol?????

You present this as if it's some kind of news. Anyone who has remotely followed Suzuki will understand he has little time for partisan politics and will say what he thinks. And my understanding is that he thinks that mainstream economic beliefs which rely on unending economic growth will kill the planet.

Is the Green party truly the only party for those that value the environment?

The Greens would certainly be more in line with Suzuki's ideas than either the Liberals or the NDP. However, to my knowledge, Suzuki has not endorsed any party.

I don't want to speak for Suzuki, but here's my understanding. Mainstream though (including the large parties, mainstream media, economists, etc) has a tendency to portray the environmental values as tradeoffs where we have jobs and the economy on one side and the environment on the other. In many cases, the environmental casualties are plants or animals for which people have little sympathy (sea stars, lichens, spiders, bats). There is no obvious linkage between the well-being of those species and the well-being of humans. People who are in favour of continued industrial scale development often describe the impact of humans on the earth as insignificant; or make ridiculous analogies (e.g. since CO2 occurs naturally and is required by plants, it's OK for us to triple or quadruple or quintuple the concentrations without adverse impacts).

Suzuki sees the biosphere as a delicate web of interconnected life (which affects and is affected by non-living entities). And humans are part of the web. Disrupting anything in the web has a ripple effect that makes its way through the web, though it sometimes takes years or even decades to do so. So, it's not a tradeoff between the environment and the economy. A healthy environment and biodiversity is essential for the wellbeing of all life, us included. So, we need to find ways to co-exist with the environment. And burning all if the fossil fuels wont cut it.

[Keepitsimple]

Good on Trudeau. If it serves to expose Suzuki for the wild-eyed Kook that he is, great. He, and his environmentalist zealots continue to breathlessly rant on about the dangers of extracting all the oil in the Athabaska Oil sands - when in fact - of the total area of 141,000 square kilometers - less than 4% is commercially viable to be mined. It's infuriating to see such wild exaggerations that serve only to hamper our economy - while Obama continues to rip open mountains to mine coal and export it overseas. What hypocrisy.

1) Alberta's oil sands underlie 142,200 square kilometres (km2) of land in the Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River areas in northern Alberta.

2)Reserves shallow enough to mine (up to 75 meters) are found only within the Athabasca oil sands area. Surface Mineable Area (SMA) equals to about 4,800 km2 and accounts for about 3.4 per cent of total oil sands area.

3) In 2012, oil sands accounted for about 8.7 per cent of Canada's GHG emissions and about 0.1% of global GHG emissions

Link: http://www.energy.alberta.ca/oilsands/791.asp

Edited September 27, 2015 by Keepitsimple

[Derek 2.0]

When was Justin Trudeau ever any sort of idol on the environment?

I don't know that he was, but he attempted to paint himself as such.

[Derek 2.0]

Is this statement the ultimate straw dog statement? Has anyone ever (even inside the Liberal Party) called Trudeau an environmental idol?????

I think the Liberal party try to present themselves as such.

You present this as if it's some kind of news. Anyone who has remotely followed Suzuki will understand he has little time for partisan politics and will say what he thinks. And my understanding is that he thinks that mainstream economic beliefs which rely on unending economic growth will kill the planet.

As a result, environmental policy is hardly embraced by mainstream political parties.......imagine if Suzuki did lend himself to politics? His presence alone within the political process would further the environmental conversation.

-------

To the rest of your post, I'm not prepared to debate it, fore or against, but I will say this, the environmental movement isn't going to achieve their own agenda divorced from mainstream politics.

[Evening Star]

I think the Liberal party try to present themselves as such.

I'm not sure that having an environmental policy makes you an environmental idol.

[Derek 2.0]

I'm not sure that having an environmental policy makes you an environmental idol.

Would you agree that would be subjective......alas, per Suzuki, Trudeau isn't a friend of the environment....who knew?

[ReeferMadness]

Would you agree that would be subjective......alas, per Suzuki, Trudeau isn't a friend of the environment....who knew?

Ummm.... just about anyone who follows what David Suzuki has been saying?

I get it. You Harper supporters think that anyone who doesn't support him is on one big team (the "left"). I don't think Suzuki has ever been in league with Trudeau and I would say that if Trudeau really though Suzuki was going to endorse him, he didn't know Suzuki very well either.

You don't seem to get it. Suzuki is a scientist and sees the way that scientists see them, not the way politicians see them. Suzuki says that in order to to keep our climate to within 2 degrees of warming, 80% of the known fossil fuels will need to stay in the ground. When Linda McQuaig said that most of the tar sands couldn't be produced, she was simply stating the scientific position.

So, from Suzuki's standpoint, Trudeau and Harper are much closer from an environmental policy perspective than Trudeau and Suzuki would be. And that's why I'm completely unsurprised to hear Suzuki tell Trudeau he's out to lunch.

[ReeferMadness]

Trudeau has no chance debating Suzuki

That's true but not really relevant. Science has played almost no role so far in the election. Hardly anyone cares.

Most people are simply oblivious to just how great the gap between the policies of the main parties and what scientists say is acceptable. It's crazy.

[WIP]

In an interview today, climate change activist David Suzuki has spoken about a feud with Justin Trudeau over policy:

So is Trudeau a false idol on the Environment, or is Suzuki over the top? Will this effect some environmental types that wanted to support Justin Trudeau?

Trudeau is just one more in a long line of politicians who think environment is just one more issue to worry about, try to use for advantage, or just demagogue with empty useless rhetoric (I think that would describe most of his climate policy speech from June). Nobody is voting/not voting Liberal because of environment! Most will likely be voting Liberal or NDP to stop Harper before he does any more damage.

Of the three parties and the environment, Suzuki says this in closing:

Actually, that 2 degree target is the product of international political compromise and expediency. The original target in the earlier UN climate summits was one degree....not two. But too much time was wasted, and it was realized that one degree, and even 1.5 degrees (the benchmark demanded by third world nations faced with devastation by coastal flooding) would not be supported by the rich industrialized world powers....so 2 degrees is the goal...even though the only way the world will likely meet that target is by way of economic collapse....which is possible if anyone's noticed the fall in global demand for oil and other commodities for the past year or so. That tarsands that David Suzuki wants left in the ground, is much more likely to stay there if the developers can't find enough new money to finance further expansion, than any sort of political accommodation to meet environmental goals.

Is the Green party truly the only party for those that value the environment?

They are the only party that realizes we are part of and dependent on the environment/not in control of these processes.

[-1=e^ipi]

So is Trudeau a false idol on the Environment, or is Suzuki over the top?

Both. They are both idiots.

Btw, the 2 C target has zero scientific or economic basis.

[Argus]

Most people are simply oblivious to just how great the gap between the policies of the main parties and what scientists say is acceptable. It's crazy.

Because most of you on the Left are oblivious to what the public reaction would be if your politicians were honest about the economic damage you want to inflict on them.

[Shady]

How does Suzuki arrive at his hypothesis? Where does he get the 2 degrees from? And how does he come up with the 80% number? Why not 85% or 75%? How does he arrive at 80?

[GostHacked]

Because most of you on the Left are oblivious to what the public reaction would be if your politicians were honest about the economic damage you want to inflict on them.

Because that NEVER happens with the right? Right? You guys still think there is a difference between the left and the right? It's a delusional stance, but if it works for you....

[WIP]

How does Suzuki arrive at his hypothesis? Where does he get the 2 degrees from? And how does he come up with the 80% number? Why not 85% or 75%? How does he arrive at 80?

So, all these years you've been claiming global warming ended in 1998 and using an edited Phil Jones quote for a signature line, and you've actually never read anything that actual climate scientists are saying!

From a Carbon Brief blog commentary on the research paper published in Nature late last year:

Meeting two degree climate target means 80 per cent of world's coal is "unburnable", study says

Unburnable carbon

In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculated how much carbon we can emit and still keep a decent chance of limiting warming to two degrees above pre-industrial levels. This is known as a carbon budget. Two degrees is the internationally-accepted point beyond which climate change risks become unacceptably high.

As of 2010, we could release a maximum of about 1000 billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide and still have a 50:50 chance of staying below two degrees, according to the IPCC.

Today's paper compares this allowable carbon budget with scientists' best estimate of how much oil, gas and coal exist worldwide in economically recoverable form, known as "reserves".

Were we to burn all the world's known oil, gas and coal reserves, the greenhouse gases released would blow the budget for two degrees three times over, the paper finds.

The study notes that proposed techno-fixes like carbon capture and storage are years away from reaching the point where they would have a significant impact on slowing carbon increases; and the energy and related costs would likely still make burning less carbon the only alternative to breaking through that 2 degree target.

What happens if Planet Earth blows right past 2 degrees? Past history indicates that carbon spikes from natural causes and increased temperatures are periods of extinction. But, when it comes to how much carbon can we burn/ how much do we have to leave in the ground.....these are at best - educated guesses, because the climate research on past events of Abrupt Climate Change, indicate temperatures can rise very quickly...in just a few decades during warmer periods when stored carbon in oceans and permafrost are released into the atmosphere.

It's a matter of percentages of risk, and the higher we turn the dials - the greater the risk. So, a 50:50 chance of blowing right past that 2 degree margin and starting a cascade of runaway climate change is already a coin toss on the odds of ending civilization and setting up eventual human extinction.

[Shady]

Because that NEVER happens with the right? Right? You guys still think there is a difference between the left and the right? It's a delusional stance, but if it works for you....

There most certainly is a difference.