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The War on Climate Scientists from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
Here is an outstanding interview by Bill Moyers: This week on Moyers & Company, scientist David Suzuki on capitalism and climate change. David Suzuki is a geneticist, zoologist, author, broadcaster, who calls out the politicians who are willfully deny science, and believes the fossil fuel industry is imitating the fossil fuel industry and seems "recklessly determined to minimize or deny the reality of global warming, as well as undermine the authority of scientists," just as the tobacco industry was after they knew smoking caused cancer.
“This is a very effective thing that we know has been done by the tobacco industry [and] it’s being done by the fossil fuel industry… You attack a person on the basis of their trustworthiness, their ulterior motives, anything to get away from dealing with the issues”
For Suzuki, it’s a tactic he’s personally confronted as a result of his outspoken views on climate change and government collusion with the petrochemical industry. Although he’s considered Canada’s most admired figure, Suzuki has been the target of relentless attacks from his nation’s prime minister, corporations and right-wing ideologues.
“The fossil fuel industry knows that fossil fuel use is at the heart of climate change,” Suzuki says. “But the problem is their job as CEOs and executives is to make money for their shareholders, and they’ll do it.”
One reason this interview may be even more important than it first appears is the credibility David Suzuki and Bill Moyers bring to these issues. So this interview seems important to me.
Here's a chilling section of the transcript where David Suzuki and Bill Moyers talk about the famous book about the tobacco industry called The Merchants of Death as well as the Government of Canada closing down libraries and throwing out books and reports on Climate Change. The transcript of the full 24 minute interview is available at the link at the top of the post. - HD
Bill Moyers asks Suzuki about The Merchants of Doubt and how the tobacco industry sowed the seeds of doubt.
DAVID SUZUKI: You sow doubt. Since the 1990s the fossil fuel industry has known just as the tobacco industry knew years before they finally admitted it, that smoking caused cancer, the fossil fuel industry knows that fossil fuel use is at the heart of climate change.
But now the problem is their job as CEOs and executives is to make money for their shareholders, and they'll do it. And if they begin to frame the discussion a different way, the chances are they'll be booted out of their position. So they've got no choice.
Then Suzuki notes that Canadian Government is coming down hard on envirnmentalists:
DAVID SUZUKI: Our government has come down hard. So environmentalists are called enemies of Canada-- ...
DAVID SUZUKI: By the prime minister, well, his mouthpieces, his various ministers. We are called radical extremists. We have one minister who said you have these extremist terrorists like Bin Laden, and environmentalists. So that's how we're being demonized by being lumped in as terrorists.
DAVID SUZUKI: And this is a very effective thing that we know that it's been done by the tobacco industry, it was done by, it's being done by the fossil fuel industry. If you attack a person on the basis of their trustworthiness, their ulterior motives, anything to get away from dealing with what the issues they're raising.
Then, oh, but those darn scientists, they keep speaking out. So shut them down. We have fired a huge number of scientists working for Environment Canada.
BILL MOYERS: Well, I did read that the government, your government has closed libraries in the Department of Oceans and--
DAVID SUZUKI: Fisheries and oceans.
BILL MOYERS: --Fisheries and Oceans in--
DAVID SUZUKI: That's right. Actually thrown out manuscripts into the garbage.
BILL MOYERS: That’s like the burning of books.
DAVID SUZUKI: --exactly, exactly. And they've muzzled the scientists that work for the government. Scientists cannot go out and talk to the public about what they are finding in their area of expertise. They have to go through the government and be vetted by the government in terms of what they can say.
DAVID SUZUKI: That really sends a chill through the scientific community. Because other scientists who aren't working for government but are in universities depend on government grants in order to carry out their research, much more cautious in speaking out.
