David Suzuki's air travel restrictions -- only one-and-a-quarter times around the globe this year
The David Suzuki Foundation responded to a survey to an NGO researching just how environmental groups were reducing air travel. But the travel itinerary of David Suzuki shows little sign of being throttled back.
Indeed, he's been traveling farther in recent years.
One of the wonders of the modern world is air travel. There is no point on the planet more than a few hours away from any other point.
Of course, that must be a bad thing:
When it comes to climate change, aviation and our flying habits are at the leading-edge of the "Party's over" issue. Until something significant and noticeable is done about flying, all the metaphorical alarums and exhortations in the world are as nothing compared to the overwhelming sense that it's still really business as usual.
Yes, when it's time to kill a good time and declare a party over, then your best bet is to invite an environmentalist over.
Anyway, the NGO Air Travel and Carbon Accounting Survey contacted environmental organizations in the fall and winter of 2006 to have them answer the question of how they planned to reduce the negative impacts of air travel.
Here's what Paul Lingl of Canada's David Suzuki Foundation had to say:
David Suzuki Foundation (Canada)
Contact: Paul Lingl, paul@davidsuzuki.org1. Does the Foundation have a carbon accounting system (tracking its own greenhouse gas emissions)? If so do you publish the results?
We do have a carbon accounting system. You can read more about it here:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/What_You_Can_Do/carbon_ neutral_office.asp
and
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/What_You_Can_Do/carbon_ neutral.asp
In terms of publishing the details, we will begin to do that in our Annual Report, beginning with the next one.2. What's the Foundation's policy on air travel (given the impact on climate) and do you have any targets in this respect?
We do not have a specific policy regarding air travel, except to use it as little as possible, and then offset the emissions we do generate (as per above). In the next few months, we will be creating further reduction targets in terms of CO2 from flights. Right now, we are working on a reduction plan for our electricity use.
3. Have you found ways to do business while reducing air travel, and if so with what results? (If you'd like to share any successes for others to maybe learn from, please do)
We have begun to avoid meetings/conferences when air travel is required and instead asking for minutes & conference proceedings instead. We also participate in most meetings via conference call. We have also recently ordered a new video conferencing system that will allow better interactions with out-of-town colleagues.
So I decided to check out just how well things have gone for David Suzuki, now that the party's over. I used the newsletter archives to plot his travel for a few sample years.
Here's his travel itinerary for 2003:
Kingston, ON
Washington, DC
Hamilton, ON
Vancouver, BC
Charlottetown, PEI
St John's, NL
Halifax, NS
Fredricton, NB
Lethbridge, AB
Pittsburgh, PA
Toronto, ON
Boston, MA
Lindsay, ON
I've stripped out the dates, and just calculated the straight line distance between the points. I've actually underestimated his travel, since for trips separated by weeks, David Suzuki is likely to fly back to Vancouver, then from Vancouver to the next destination.
So with that break in his favour, I've calculated 16,134 miles of travel.
Now Paul Lingl said in the fall of 2006 that they had already begun to restrict air travel. So what happened in 2005?
Toronto, ON
Anchorage, AK
Montreal, QC
Hamilton, ON
San Francisco, CA
Toronto, ON
Thunder Bay, ON
Eugene, OR
Ottawa, ON
Vancouver, BC
Montreal, QC
That is a total of 26,316, or an increase of 26% over 2003.
Not so good. But then they had only started to work on the new plan. What about 2007, when the travel restrictions were in full force?
Vancouver, BC
Cornwall, ON
Ottawa, ON
Montreal, QC
Ottawa, ON
Edmonton, AB
San Antonio, TX
Flint, MI
Pelee Island, ON
Barrie, ON
Victoria, BC
San Francisco, CA
Ottawa, ON
Vernon, BC
Waterton Park, AB
Whistler, BC
Ottawa, ON
Toronto, ON
Montreal, QC
Total travel distance of 24,325 miles. But that list started in April, and did not count the 5,865 miles covered by his recent "If I was Prime Minister" tour. Add that on, and you have 30,190 miles logged.
More travel, not less. A lot more travel.
Of course, not all the trips are by air, but plane, train, or automobile, it's still gas. And what about the promise to stop traveling altogether when possible? Video-conferencing and minutes of meetings and so forth?
This is probably one of those cases where David Suzuki is too important to simply appear by video. He has to be there to press the flesh and rest up in a fine hotel before getting on a plane (business class, of course) to fly across the continent to continue to spread the word. I would expect that people like Paul Lingl will take up the slack and never travel on business on behalf of the Foundation.
For them, the party is well and truly over. But not for David Suzuki, who's partying ways means he's done the equivalent of circling the globe, and then a quarter more again.
Maybe, though, he really is restricting himself. His destinations in 2000 included Australia (to sign books) and Norway (for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment), as well as all points in North America, for an astonishing 40,000 miles of travel. I guess making sacrifices on behalf of the environment is a relative thing.
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Comments
I'm gonna save this damn earth even if I hafta destroy it... I swear!
Posted by: Real Conservative at March 23, 2007 02:23 AM
You misunderstand, Steve - David Suzuki is a card-carrying ANGEL! He doesn't NEED a jet to fly to all these places - he has wings of his own!
So, Suzuki's globetrotting causes no greenhouse gas emissions from a jet at all; depending on what he had for breakfast, he doesn't even fart that much.
Posted by: Jim at March 23, 2007 05:58 AM
David Suzuki lives on a planet of his own, like the Little Prince. Nothing he does has any connection with what he's prescribing for the rest of us. Because he's special and we're not.
Posted by: 'been around the block at March 23, 2007 07:38 AM
No wonder there's a "David Suzuki Foundation". To help pay for this high-flying hypocrisy. How in the heck did Ghandi or Churchill inspire people before this recent jet-travel era of 40 years?
Posted by: Feldwebel Wolfenstool at March 23, 2007 08:05 AM
David Suzuki is a business, plain and simple. I hope he doesn't have non-profit status, but I suppose he has. The way he panders to the simple-minded make him look like a version of Faux News for Northerners. Hot air abounds.
Posted by: Twolane at March 23, 2007 09:52 AM
Feldwebel Wolfenstool asks a good question: "How in the heck did Ghandi or Churchill inspire people before this recent jet-travel era of 40 years?"
They could read, Feldwebel, and didn't need to be spoon-fed Suzuki-brand pablum, served up with plenty of sweetener. Hey, we're educating illiterates who need to be visually and verbally pandered to, in every medium except the written word: television, the Internet, etc.
G*d deliver us from David Suzuki's Corporate Empire. He's nothing but a modern-day snake oil salesman.
Posted by: 'been around the block at March 23, 2007 10:05 AM
Once could also wonder if Dr Fruitfly is buying his carbon credits from the Goracle, or if he is contemplating setting up a similar shell game here in Canada.
And why is it only us proles are expected to radically revise our lifestyles downward, while the Gores and Suzukis jet around the world, live in multiple (and sizable) homes, and generally try to destroy the western economy?
To quote Maurice Strong: "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring about?"
The term "watermelon" to describe Suzuki and his ilk is so apt.
Posted by: Dagny Taggart at March 23, 2007 11:44 AM
Dagny Taggart:
Cite, pls.? I loath "Fast Morrie" as well as the next non-idiotarian, but I'd like a cite. Thx.
Re: Suzuki
Not a bad tax-free gig for someone with no formal meteorological or climatological training, eh?
Posted by: at March 23, 2007 11:50 AM
Posted by: at March 23, 2007 11:50 AM:
"Re: Suzuki
Not a bad tax-free gig for someone with no formal meteorological or climatological training, eh?"
Is that you, David?
Posted by: AnnieNoMouse at March 23, 2007 12:58 PM
Posted by: at March 23, 2007 11:50 AM - ever hear of Google - why don't you try it. (It works.)
Posted by: terrence at March 23, 2007 02:00 PM
Saint Suzuki is enlightening the masses (ants) on the planet. He MUST travel to raise the consciousness of the ants who have not yet embraced the sacred TRUTH he so selflessly expounds.
Please send holy Saint Suzuki your tithe - AT LEAST ten percent of all your income - you will benefit, and your salvation demands it.
Posted by: terrence at March 23, 2007 02:10 PM
FOAD, terrence. Any quality poster will eviscerate a poster who lobs a quote w/o attribution. Maybe KOS-Net is more to your intellectual capability?
Posted by: at March 23, 2007 04:31 PM
Posted by: at March 23, 2007 04:31 PM:
This is the second time that you have made clear how little intellectual capability you have, as well as what a low quality poster you are.
The Strong quote is VERY easy to attribute - any quality poster could have done in the time it took you to post your "comments".
Posted by: terrence at March 23, 2007 07:50 PM
SuperDave should go spend his time chatting up his fellow countrymen, in that great People's Republic of China...where they are commissioning one new coal fired plant per week, with 600 more in the planning stages for the next few years.
Posted by: Feldwebel Wolfenstool at March 23, 2007 08:24 PM
Get off it, o accountant. Don't doubt for a moment that Suzuki doesn't wish he didn't need to travel. If you want to audit him, go ahead, but the information only distracts from his crucial mission of hope, method in dealing with our peril.
Try doing some constructive.
Posted by: athodyd at March 24, 2007 03:46 PM
His 2006 itinerary also included Australia, which appears to have been mainly to flog copies of his autobiography:
http://www.allenunwin.com/Media/davidsuzukitour.pdf
Posted by: anon at March 24, 2007 05:02 PM
Can you buy cabon offsets with your airmiles points? Of so I think Sooozie is saving the world with his globe trotting ;-)
Posted by: WL Mackenzie Redux at March 25, 2007 10:50 AM
Can you imagine the CBC love fest when Suzuki packs it in? It will be hours of socialism at its best.
Posted by: rod at March 25, 2007 05:52 PM
I would not consider myself a Global Warming Denier, Global Warming is happening. What I am though, is a denier that Human activity is causing it. What I would like to ask David Suzuki is, why is the Moon and Mars going through Global Warming? I don't recall seeing articles at NASA about SUV's parked on either or the Mars rovers being driven off the road. Could it possibly be the Sun, you know, that big orange thing in the sky? Didn't the Earth go through warming, considerably more warming, after all the Ice Ages? I also don't recall seeing fossilized SUVs being dug up. We shouldn't accept anything that these people say without looking at all of the abundant evidence from the past. I mean, we don't take a suspected murderer and throw them in jail without a fair trial, do we?
Posted by: Victor Ward at March 28, 2007 12:34 PM
 
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