David Suzuki Essay Example for Free

David Suzuki Essay David Suzuki is an award-winning environmentalist, scientist and broadcaster. He also dabbles in radio and television series that go into detail about the complexities of the natural sciences in an easy and fascinating way. Finish Intro Paragraph – any tips, mother? David Suzuki is first and foremost, a geneticist. He graduated from Amherst College in 1958 with an honors degree in biology. He moved onto graduate school at the University of Chicago with a PhD in Zoology. Suzuki’s first academic position was an assistant professor in Genetics at the University of Alberta. After his assistant practices at Alberta, he moved on to where he now resides, at the University of British Columbia. David Suzuki has been honored with many awards. In 1972, he was awarded the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship for being an outstanding research scientist under the age of thirty-five and he held that award for three years straight. He won many academic awards and holds twenty-five honorary degrees in Canada, the United States, and Australia. Suzuki has written fifty-two books, including nineteen children books. He wrote a textbook, in 1976, named An Introduction to Genetic Analysis that is the most widely used genetics textbook in the United States. This book has been translated into many other languages, including Italian, Spanish, Greek, Indonesian, Arabic, French, and German. Suzuki has not only tinkered around in writing, but broadcasting as well. In 1974, he developed and hosted a science program called Quirks and Quarks that was displayed on CBC radio for four years. Since then, he has presented two documentary CBC radio series relating to the environment, named It’s a Matter of Survival and From Naked Ape to Superspecies. His national television debut began with CBC in 1971 when he wrote and hosted his two season series, Suzuki on Science. He created and hosted a number of television specials, and in 1979, he became of host of The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, which rewarded him with numerous awards. He participated in a series, A Planet for the Taking, which won an award from the United Nations. In 2002, he received an award for his broadcasting excellence. David Suzuki is also a world leader in sustainable ecology. He is the recipient of many world-known prizes and medals, and has been granted with the Right Livelihood Award, which is known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. Not only has he received awards and presented series, but also he has co-founded his own Foundation. Suzuki felt as  though he was just â€Å"a messenger telling people about the crisis that is happening† and that he didn’t have any solutions (Suzuki 219). As he was working on making people more aware, he was receiving feedback of people feeling motivated from his words. With this feedback, Suzuki realized that he â€Å"had a responsibility to suggest potential answers† (Suzuki 220). With the help of Tara Cullis, an award-winning writer and former professor at Harvard University, the David Suzuki Foundation was instituted on September 14th, 1990. The goals of the Foundation are to protect the climate, create livable communities, establish environmental rights and justice, transform the economy, connect with nature, and build the community. The David Suzuki Foundation has worked with doctors to fight for clean air, published energy solutions, brought voices from NHL hockey players and Olympic Skiers to advocate for going carbon neutral, helped governments ban pesticides, protected species at risk, researched contaminants in farmed salmon, and worked with chefs to switch to sustainable seafood. The Foundation has even addressed economics, assessing the value of greenbelts (an area which is kept and reserved to ensure that there is open space), farmland, and other ecological services, and published a guide on how businesses can shrink their environmental impact. Nat ure sustains the economy. At least that is what Herman Daly, a senior economist at World Bank and teacher at University of Maryland’s School of Public Affairs, states in David Suzuki’s (and Holly Dressel’s) book, From Naked Ape to Superspecies. Daly states that, â€Å"’you sacrifice some of the natural system when you convert it into man-made things’† (Dressel and Suzuki ?). There needs to be a balance between the costs and benefits. In the past, there hasn’t been a focus on that balance. A cause of this unbalance and sacrificing lays with corporations. In Professor Brad Howard’s Journalism 190 class, the movie, The Corporation, was assigned for the students to watch. The Corporation is a Canadian documentary film that examines the modern-day corporation. The corporation is legally bound to put its bottom line ahead of everything, even the public good. In From Naked Ape to Superspecies, corporations are explained from a variety of sources. Jane Ann Morris, a corporate anthologist who works with a group called Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy, stated that corporations have squeezed themselves into democracy, replacing the human persons. Even though the corporations are not people, they have been given  the same rights. The corporations are â€Å"reducing the rights of humans† (Suzuki and Dressel ?) and putting itself ahead of the people. According to the textbook in Brad’s class, The Problem of the Media by McChesney, â€Å"corporate societies† or â€Å"corporations† are corporate bodies that are legally authorized to act as a single individual. Brad assigned an academic journal for us to read, called Corporations, Democracy, and the Public Good by Stephen Barley. Barley states a thesis about the republic, â€Å"people are now separated from their representatives by an asteroid belt of organizations and among the most powerful of these are corporations and their trade associations† (Barley 203). In an interview with Lynette Thorstensen in Habitat Australia, David Suzuki stated that this situation with the corporations is not beyond the people’s grasp just yet. What is needed to occur are regulations and controls on the global level. An example that Suzuki provides is if a multinational company was found to be profiting through the dumping of wastes, the company should be fined to such a degree that continuing to behave like a pirate would cost more than the actual profit. Suzuki thinks that we need to keep the corporations exposed. David Suzuki is related to journalism and corporations, or at least his opinions are. Sustainable ecology is related to journalism and corporations. David Suzuki is a world leader in sustainable ecology. In order for the environment to be protected, the government needs to be involved. In order for the government to prosper, the environment needs to be cared for. As an environmental enthusiast, I had no clue that corporations played such a crucial role in the environment issues. Not only was I unaware about how the corporations were linked with environment issues, but I did not know that David Suzuki had ever addressed it. I think that’s something that Brad has tried to include in the class – corporations and their hiding. The reason I didn’t know corporations were involved in this issue, was because corporations influence the media and by their influence, they wish to be invisible in their link with th ese issues. Framing is what they call it. Framing is where a news media puts the shareholders first. If a corporation invests in a news media, the media shapes the information being shared and how we see topics/issues. So, I didn’t get to see the corporation’s influences, since they didn’t want the public to see them. Framing is a popular topic in Brad’s class. The media  frames issues all over the place. So once I discovered that issue among David Suzuki’s research, my mind was opened and aware. I think it all brings a new light to David Suzuki. Not only does David Suzuki care about the environment and protecting it, he cares about the impact of the government and corporations. David Suzuki †¦ any tips for the conclusion, mother?