Influential hippie broadcaster, author and environmental academic David Suzuki has warned Australians against the perils of dismissing climate change in an address delivered last weekend at this year’s Jack Beale Lecture on the Global Environment at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
In light of the government’s controversial disbanding of the Climate Commission, the award-winning Canadian environmentalist invoked the Good Samaritan Law (just substitute a defenseless fat guy for a defenseless mother Earth) and said it was negligent, ignorant and irresponsible to ignore the findings of science (#factsonly) when shaping and discussing environmental policy.
“There is in Canada a legal category where people can be sued and thrown in the slammer, called wilful blindness,” he said. “If people in positions of power deliberately suppress or ignore information that is vital to the decisions they’re making, that is wilful blindness. I call it more than wilful blindness. I call it criminal negligence because it’s a crime against future generations, to avoid facing the reality. That is what Mr Abbott is doing, by cancelling the (Climate) Commission, by firing Tim Flannery. It is criminal negligence through wilful blindness.”
“How can we make truly informed decisions if the scientific community
itself is shut down?” he continued. “I say to you, that in your society scientists
better be up on the ramparts making sure you don’t fall on the path that
Canada is on right now. When politicians are relieved of having to pay
attention to real information – to science – they can base their
decisions on what: the Koran? the Bible? My big toe has a bunion?”
“As a Canadian, I beg Australians to think hard on what’s happening in Canada, and please avoid that in your country.”
Watch his lecture in full below…
