by David Suzuki
Last year ended on a sad note, with the accidental drowning death of Rebecca Tarbotton in Mexico, at 39 years of age. Becky was the inspirational executive director of San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network, but her roots were in British Columbia.
By David Suzuki
In 1988, hundreds of scientists and policy-makers met in Toronto for a major international conference on climate change. They were sufficiently alarmed by the accumulated evidence for human-caused global warming that they issued a release stating, “Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war.”
by David Suzuki
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if world leaders resolved to look at life in a different light this New Year? They could follow the example of Bhutan. In 1971, the small country, nestled in the Himalayas between China and India, rejected the idea of gross domestic product as the measure of progress. Instead, leaders focused on gross national happiness.
The idea is finally gaining traction around the world, and I’m humbled and pleased to be involved with a global initiative to promote it.
by David Suzuki
Global trade has advantages. For starters, it allows those of us who live through winter to eat fresh produce year-round. And it provides economic benefits to farmers who grow that food. That could change as oil, the world’s main transport fuel, becomes increasingly scarce, hard to obtain and costly, but we’ll be trading with other nations for the foreseeable future.
Because countries often have differing political and economic systems, agreements are needed to protect those invested in trade.
by David Suzuki
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” These words, attributed to anthropologist Margaret Mead, capture the power that we, as citizens, have to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to protect the environment.
People power just won in Ontario, where Highland Companies announced it was withdrawing its plan to build a massive open-pit limestone quarry in the rural countryside north of Toronto. The controversial proposal — to blast a billion tonnes of limestone from beneath some of the finest farmland in North America — initially drew the ire of a handful of local farmers and residents who faced overwhelming odds to stop it.
by David Suzuki
The race to become leader of the world’s most powerful democracy often seemed disconnected from reality. During debates, the two main candidates stooped to insults, half-truths and outright lies. The overall campaign included appallingly ignorant statements about women.
But the most bewildering disconnect was over the greatest threat the world faces: global warming. Republican candidate Mitt Romney only mentioned it mockingly, and President Barack Obama brought it up in passing toward the end of the campaign and in one line during his acceptance speech.
by David Suzuki
Have you ever thought about the grass that grows in sidewalk cracks? These hardy plants are generally written off as undesirable. They’re routinely trampled, savaged by extreme summer heat, washed out by rainfall and buried by winter snow. To survive these conditions is a testament to the plants’ resilience, but they rarely get much love or attention.
That’s why I’m intrigued with the work of Nova Scotia researcher Jeremy Lundholm and his team at Saint Mary’s University. They’ve been examining plant species in sidewalk cracks and other nooks and crannies in Halifax. Their research demonstrates something simple and surprising: hardy species found in these environments are similar to those occupying nature’s own inhospitable spaces — steep cliffs and barren rock slopes.
We should recognize that urban spaces are in many ways “structurally and functionally equivalent” to natural ecosystems.
While the connection between pavement and cliff face isn’t immediately obvious, it makes sense. Plant species that succeed in sidewalk cracks have similar qualities to ones that have adapted to inhabit crevices in exposed, rocky, windswept places.
As Lundholm says, this sort of research demonstrates that rather than seeing our communities as entirely human-created, unnatural environments, we should recognize that urban spaces are in many ways “structurally and functionally equivalent” to natural ecosystems.
In a recent article forThe Nature of Cities, ecologist Eric W. Sanderson suggests we try to “conceive of cities in their entirety as ecological spaces.” This vision of the city as ecosystem includes all streets, sidewalks, buildings and parking lots interacting in a vibrant ecological mosaic with soil, water, air and “everyone and everything that participates in the great congress of life on Earth.”
Sanderson says looking at the built landscape of our towns and cities this way allows fascinating comparisons: steep cliff and tall skyscraper, parkland and meadow, gutter and stream. The urban environment contains numerous ecological niches that have analogues elsewhere in nature. It’s just a relatively new type of landscape.
Some songbirds have learned to survive in noisy urban landscapes by changing the melodies they use to communicate.
And within this complex urban ecosystem, species are constantly adapting. The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Migratory Bird Center found their subjects often adapt to human environments. Some songbirds have learned to survive in noisy urban landscapes by changing the melodies they use to communicate. They sing higher notes to trump ambient background city noise and deeper notes in areas with many buildings and hard surfaces. Nesting on the ledges of high-rises rather than cliff faces has even helped peregrine falcons adjust to city life and assisted their dramatic post-DDT comeback.
Yet, while some of our feathered friends and crevice-loving plants have been adapting, the speed and scale of urbanization in Canada has pushed many native species to the brink of extinction.
Ducks Unlimited found that over 72 percent of the original wetlands in southern Ontario have been developed, and the region is now home to about one third of the province’s species at risk. In British Columbia, more than 100 imperilled plants and animals are found in the Metro Vancouver area.
While we need to show some love to the current occupants of nooks and crannies, we must also redouble our efforts to bring nature back to the city and enhance what assets remain.
Efforts like the RONA Urban Reforestation program are on the right track. The hardware retailer is helping to green urban spaces with its support for planting thousands of trees in Canada’s cities. This past summer it also started a pilot program aimed at promoting native shrubs and trees through in-store nurseries.
Planting native species in our gardens and communities is increasingly important, because indigenous insects, birds and wildlife rely on them. Over thousands, and sometimes millions, of years they have co-evolved to live in local climate and soil conditions.
Planting native species in our gardens and communities is increasingly important, because indigenous insects, birds and wildlife rely on them.
To find out more about the benefits of planting indigenous species, contact the North American Native Plant Society or check out the excellent Grow Me Instead guides available for several provinces.
Ultimately we need to recognize that while humans continue to build urban landscapes, we share these spaces with others species. Nature surrounds us, from parks and backyards to streets and alleyways. Next time you go out for a walk, tread gently and remember that we are both inhabitants and stewards of nature in our neighbourhoods.
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Communications Specialist Jode Roberts. For more insights from David Suzuki, please read Everything Under the Sun (Greystone Books/David Suzuki Foundation), by David Suzuki and Ian Hanington, now available in bookstores and online.
by David Suzuki
The storm that wreaked havoc on Caribbean nations and the US East Coast in late October offers a glimpse into our future. Along with recent heavy rainfall, flooding, heat waves and droughts throughout the world, it’s the kind of severe weather event scientists have been telling us to expect as global temperatures rise.
by David Suzuki
I’ve always been more interested in organisms that can move on their own than in stationary plants. But when I canoe or hike along the edge of lakes or oceans and see trees that seem to be growing out of rock faces, I am blown away. How do they do it?
by David Suzuki
Why, when so many people oppose the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project, would government and industry resort to such extreme measures to push it through?
The problems with the plan to run pipelines from the Alberta tar sands across northern BC to load unrefined, diluted bitumen onto supertankers for export to China and elsewhere are well-known: threats to streams, rivers, lakes and land from pipeline leaks; the danger of contaminated ocean ecosystems from tanker spills; rapid expansion of the tar sands; and the climate change implications of continued wasteful use of fossil fuels.
The benefits aren’t as apparent.
