David Suzuki tells it like it is

Huge long quote following, but it's all so bang-on and timely:

[David Sukuki's] less than thrilled with the state of the world. The recent ascension of the right is not providing much comfort. “The thing that just terrifies me,” he said, “is trying to imagine George Bush or Ralph Klein or Stephen Harper, Stockwell Day, or [Nova Scotia MP] Peter MacKay trying to really understand what exactly is global warming. Or what is a stem cell. If you can’t at least be literate enough to understand the basic principles, then you end up making decisions for purely political reasons. And that’s what’s really terrifying. These guys are still convinced by the skeptics, the people paid for by the fossil-fuel industry, that global warming is bullshit. And they don’t have the ability to judge for themselves.”

An activist concerned about palace politics might second-guess such public comments, but Suzuki doesn’t think the Conservative federal government has any interest in collaboration with environmentally minded groups like the Suzuki Foundation anyway. Or any clear plan at all, for that matter. “Harper’s turned me down,” he claimed. “As soon as he got elected, I wrote him a long letter and I said, ‘You know, the best environmental prime minister we ever had was a Tory. That was Brian Mulroney.’ Now, I didn’t say the reason was public interest was so high he had no choice—he didn’t give a shit about the environment. But I was saying, ‘Tories have a great record and I hope you’re going to follow in his tradition. And we have this thing of Sustainability Within a Generation [www.davidsuzuki.org/WOL/Sustainability/], and I’d love to have the opportunity to meet you and explain it to you.’ Well, he turned me down. He sent the word back to the foundation: no. Now, [Environment Minister Rona] Ambrose, when she was appointed, within two weeks called the office and asked if she could come and visit. I thought that was great. She did come and visit. But let’s face it: they’re all totally subservient to Harper. He’s calling every shot.”

And what are Harper’s plans for the environment? Given his actions to date—appointing chief energy guru Gwyn Morgan as public-accountability watchdog; undoing Canada’s obligations under the Kyoto Protocol; and, most bizarrely, allowing oil-patch MP Ambrose to order Environment Canada scientist Mark Tushingham to keep away from the launch of his own global-warming thriller, Hotter Than Hell—there’s little cause for optimism.

“Harper claims that he’s going to develop his own plan,” Suzuki said. “The thing that’s really outrageous is he has no plan. We’ve got this from Ambrose’s assistant now. We were talking to him, ‘Are you doing this? Considering a carbon tax?’ ‘Nothing yet, we’re open to everything.’ In other words, they don’t have a fucking clue. I think it’s outrageous that he’s coming in, gutting Kyoto, and he’s acting like he’s going to substitute something and he doesn’t have an idea.”

We're forked until we get a new non-Conservative government.