David Suzuki still believes change is possible

For more than half a century, David Suzuki has inspired people around the world to embrace nature and treat the Earth as they would their mother: with the deepest love, admiration and respect. At 90 years of age, the world-renowned scientist, author and longtime host of CBC’s The Nature of Things remains Canada’s most powerful voice calling for environmental justice and planetary health.

Suzuki spoke to Nate Smelle in St. Catharines, Ont., in March during a stop on “David and Tara’s Stronger Together Tour,” a series of immersive events and theatrical performances headlined by Suzuki and his wife, Tara Cullis, highlighting a lifetime of shared activism.

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NATE SMELLE: I’ve felt inspired by your words on many occasions, but I was surprised to see that you and Tara were presenting a play focused on your love story. How is your love for each other interconnected with your love of nature?

DAVID SUZUKI: We share a dual love of nature through our own very different backgrounds. Our responsibility as adults is to receive the world from our ancestors and to care for it so we can pass it on to our children. We’ve done a lousy job with that, so I think Tara and I are really united by the mutual concern about the world that we’re leaving for our children.

NS: It’s like when you love something, you want to protect it.

DS: Of course. I think the fundamental problem we face is that, for most of human history, we knew we were deeply embedded in nature and utterly dependent on it. Indigenous people around the world still retain that sense that we are a part of nature. If you go to an event in an Indigenous community — whether it’s a funeral, a marriage or the birth of a baby — you’ll hear prayers and songs thanking their Creator for nature’s abundance and generosity. In acknowledging their gratitude, there’s always a reciprocal commitment. That’s what’s missing today in everything we do. When we pollute a river, we don’t think about all the things that live in the river. What’s needed is a reciprocal obligation or responsibility to care for the things we’re dependent on.

NS: What would this care look like in practice?

DS: The challenge we face today is that 85 percent of Canadians live in cities. And in a city, your highest priority is your job. You need a job to make the money to buy the things that you want. And so we come to think, “The economy is the source of everything that I need.”

We saw the ultimate expression of that mindset in Canada when Stephen Harper was prime minister. For 10 years, the message was, “We can’t do anything about global warming. That’s crazy economics!” He elevated the economy above the very atmosphere that gives us air to breathe and gives us weather, climate and the seasons. That’s the madness we’re in now: that the economy is more important than the air. And the ultimate expression of that is U.S. President Donald Trump, who says climate change is a hoax.

NS: And there’s no accountability for those types of statements.

DS: Exactly. If you say, “Mr. President, what’s your evidence?” he’ll say, “That’s a bad question! You’re a nasty person!”

NS: I’ve noticed a rise in misinformation and conspiracy theories that began in 2016 with Trump’s first campaign, but then really ramped up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, we’ve seen people like Trump, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg using their wealth to spread misinformation and hate-fuelled lies. What are your thoughts on this, knowing they also have the power to actually do something positive?

DS: Money is everything now, and that’s what matters. And rich people are now controlling the very media through which we are informed. Elon Musk owns Twitter (now X) and has created an outlet that is filled with racism and all kinds of bad stuff. Larry Ellison, another multibillionaire, is buying CNN. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post. Rupert Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal. It’s really a frightening situation.

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NS: Musk once said, “The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy.” It seems to me that these words have the potential to absolve people of responsibility when it comes to protecting the Earth and each other. If empathy is a weakness, as he claims, why should we care about the people downstream or the stream itself?

DS: Empathy, I think, is one of the great attributes of our species. For us to sit here in Canada, see what’s going on in remote parts of the world and feel a response — no other animal does that. Our empathy is the great thing that unifies us.

NS: Watching the footage of the plumes of toxic smoke rising from the oil wells in Iran right now, I feel like it’s a moment where a little more empathy — for both people and the planet — would go a long way. What do you think the environmental impact of this war will be?

DS: When you look at the amount of energy used by the military, it’s all so crazy. The United Nations was set up as a result of the Second World War. The world was sickened by the amount of death and destruction. At that point, we could have eliminated war altogether if we had said to every country in the world, “Look, whatever your military budget is, cut it in half and give that half to the United Nations to support an army made up of people from all of the nations.” Then that army could have gone internationally and enforced peace around the world.

The U.S. military budget is monumental — bigger than the entire GDP of most countries. Every bullet fired is money into the pocket of that industry.

NS: I saw a recent statistic highlighting how $11,500 has been spent every second during this war so far, money that comes from the American taxpayer. Every second!

DS: It’s over a billion dollars a day. If these ships in the Strait of Hormuz are sunk and burned, all that oil ends up as greenhouse gas. It takes one big tree a year to remove one gallon of gas from the atmosphere. Every time I look at those ships, I think about how all of that is going to have to be dealt with. It’s just adding to the blanket of greenhouse gas.

David Suzuki and his wife, fellow environmental activist Tara Cullis, explore their love for each other and the planet. (Photo by Jennifer Roessler)

NS: What do you want the audience to take away from this tour?

DS: For me, there are two things. One is what two people who come together and happen to fall in love can do as a team. But to me, the play surprisingly became a demonstration that someone like me is just a figurehead. My ability to do things is made possible by others — you can see, Tara is the brains and the beauty. A movement is made up of all kinds of people who, added together, can do something.

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Nate Smelle is a writer in Bancroft, Ontario.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It first appeared in the July/August 2026 issue of Broadview with the title “A Crisis of Care.”