Oct 6, 2016

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki   • Humans are the world’s top predator. The way we fulfil this role is often mired in controversy, from factory farming to trophy hunting to predator control. The latter is the process governments use to kill carnivores like wolves, coyotes and cougars to stop them from hunting threatened species like caribou –...

Sep 1, 2016

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki   •  Humans are fast becoming city dwellers. According to the United Nations, “The urban population of the world has grown rapidly from 746 million in 1950 to 3.9 billion in 2014.” Sixty-six percent of us will likely live in urban environments by 2050. The number of mega-cities (more than 10 million inhabitants) is...

Jul 15, 2016

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • I’ve always had a soft spot for Adelaide in South Australia, a city built more on a human scale where downtown can be easily navigated on bike, foot or tram. For me, Adelaide’s greatest attraction is a huge market right in the city’s centre. When I first visited Adelaide in 1993, I met Mike Rann, a young, charismatic...

Jun 2, 2016

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • The digital revolution is breaking new ground every day. Technology has a way of doing that. I remember when Hewlett-Packard introduced its first “laptop” computer, which stored a page and a half of writing. It revolutionized my life as a newspaper columnist. I never imagined the steady advances that would lead to...

May 7, 2016

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • For the most part, our brains didn’t evolve in cities. But in a few decades, almost 70 percent of the world’s people will live in urban environments. Despite the prosperity we associate with cities, urbanization presents a major health challenge. Cities, with their accelerated pace of life, can be stressful. The results...

Apr 1, 2016

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki •  When Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in June 1914, no one thought, “Uh-oh, World War I is starting.” We only recognize the significance of events in the context of history. I recently had a day like any other except it made me wonder if we’re on the verge of historical change. On March 2, 2016, I...

Mar 1, 2016

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • The agreement between government, industry, First Nations and environmental groups to protect much of the Great Bear Rainforest should be celebrated. The deal makes almost 85 percent of the forested land base in this massive region on BC’s coast off limits to logging. Forestry in the remaining 15 percent will follow...

Feb 1, 2016

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • My grandparents came here from Japan at the beginning of the 20th century. Although it would be a one-way trip, the perilous journey across the Pacific was worth the risk. They left behind extreme poverty for a wealth of opportunity. But Canada was different then, a racist country built on policies of colonization,...

Jan 1, 2016

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • When our children’s children look back to what we did to keep our planet livable, they may see this year’s United Nations climate conference in Paris as a turning point. The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) may have been our last chance for a meaningful agreement to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy before...

Dec 1, 2015

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • Across Canada, towns and cities face a one-two punch: aging infrastructure and the extreme weather climate change brings. Unless we do something, many of our roads, railways, transit lines, bridges, stormwater pipes and other built structures could become obsolete. Our newly elected federal government took up the...