David Suzuki

At 88 years old, David Suzuki has this physical status:

David Takayoshi Suzuki (born March 24, 1936) is a Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist.

Suzuki earned a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961, and was a professor in the genetics department at the University of British Columbia from 1963 until his retirement in 2001.

Since the mid-1970s, Suzuki has been known for his television and radio series, documentaries and books about nature and the environment.

He is best known as host of the popular and long-running CBC Television science program The Nature of Things, seen in over 40 countries.

He is also well known for criticizing governments for their lack of action to protect the environment. A longtime activist to reverse global climate change, Suzuki co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, to work "to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that does sustain us".

The Foundation's priorities are: oceans and sustainable fishing, climate change and clean energy, sustainability, and Suzuki's Nature Challenge.

The Foundation also works on ways to help protect the oceans from large oil spills such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Suzuki has also served as a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association from 1982 to 1987. Suzuki was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2009.

His 2011 book, The Legacy, won the Nautilus Book Award.

He is a Companion of the Order of Canada.

In 2004, David Suzuki ranked fifth on the list of final nominees in a CBC Television series that asked viewers to select The Greatest Canadian of all time.

Early life

Suzuki has a twin sister named Marcia, as well as two other siblings, Geraldine (now known as Aiko) and Dawn. He was born in 1936 to Setsu Nakamura and Kaoru Carr Suzuki in Vancouver, British Columbia, where his parents were also born. Suzuki's maternal and paternal grandparents had immigrated to Canada at the beginning of the 20th century from Hiroshima Prefecture and Aichi Prefecture respectively.

A third-generation Japanese Canadian ("Canadian Sansei"), Suzuki's family suffered internment in British Columbia early during the Second World War until after the war ended in 1945. In June 1942, the government sold the Suzuki family's dry-cleaning business, then interned Suzuki, his mother, and two sisters in a camp at Slocan in the British Columbia Interior. His father had been sent to a labour camp in Solsqua two months earlier. His sister Dawn was born in the internment camp.

After the war, Suzuki's family, like other Japanese Canadian families, were forced to move east of the Rockies. They moved around Ontario, from Etobicoke, Leamington, and eventually to London. In interviews, Suzuki has consistently credited his father for having interested him in and sensitized him to nature.

Suzuki attended Mill Street Elementary School and Grade 9 at Leamington Secondary School before moving to London, Ontario, where he attended London Central Secondary School.

Personal life

Suzuki was married to Setsuko Joane Sunahara from 1958 to 1965; the couple had three children. In 1973, Suzuki married a second time to Tara Elizabeth Cullis, with whom he had two daughters: Severn Cullis-Suzuki and Sarika Cullis-Suzuki. As of 2015, he has six grandchildren.

Suzuki is an atheist. His cousin’s grandchildren are Montreal Canadiens centre and captain Nick Suzuki, and Carolina Hurricanes centre Ryan Suzuki.

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Academic career

Suzuki earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he first discovered genetics research, and his Doctor of Philosophy degree in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961. Suzuki worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1961 to 1962. He served as an assistant professor at the University of Alberta from 1962 to 1963. He served as a professor in the University of British Columbia's genetics department from 1963 to 2001, and has since been professor emeritus at a university research center.

Using the common model organism Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies), he began investigating genetics early in his research career. He investigated dominant temperature-sensitive (DTS) phenotypes in order to find any new genes he discovered. At a lecture at Johns Hopkins University, he jokingly said that the only alternative subject was "damn" tough skin."

Broadcasting career

Suzuki On Science, a weekly children's program, premiered in 1970. Quirks & Quarks, which he also hosted on CBC AM radio from 1975 to 1979, was he founded the radio station Quirks & Quarks, which was also the forerunner of CBC Radio One). He also hosted Science Magazine, a weekly newspaper geared to an adult audience in the 1970s.

Suzuki has been hosting The Nature of Things, a CBC television series that has aired in almost fifty countries around the world since 1979. Suzuki's aim in this series is to inspire curiosity in the natural world, to highlight threats to human health and wildlife habitat, as well as suggesting alternatives to humans for achieving a more sustainable environment. Suzuki has long been a proponent of renewable energy sources and the soft energy path.

Suzuki was the host of The Secret of Life, a critically acclaimed 1993 PBS series. A Planet for the Taking, his 1985 hit series, attracted more than 1.8 million viewers per episode, earning him the United Nations Environment Programme Medal. In his letter, he sums up the significance of the wilderness and space in our history with the belief that it is limitless and therefore we should not be concerned." He calls for a major change" in our relationship with nature and the wild.

The Sacred Balance, a book that was first published in 1997 and later developed into a five-hour mini-series on Canadian public television, was broadcast in 2002. Suzuki is now participating in an advertisement campaign marketed under the slogan "You have the power" to promote energy conservation through a variety of household items, such as the use of compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

Suzuki also produced "Yellowstone to Yukon: The Wildlands Project" on the Discovery Channel in 1997. Dave Foreman's Wildlands Project explored how to establish corridors between and buffer zones within large wilderness reserves as a way to protect biological diversity. Since leaving Earth First, Foreman started this project. In 1990, he co-founded (which he co-founded) the company (which he co-founded). Michael Soulé and Reed Noss, conservation biologists, were also involved.

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Awards and honours

• Suzuki is an appointee to the Order of Canada, first as an Officer (1976), then upgraded to Companion status in (2006), the Order of British Columbia (1995), and is the recipient of UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science (1986) and a long list of Canadian and international honours.
• Canadian version of the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977.
• 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal in 1992.
• Canadian version of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002.
• Canadian version of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.
• In 2004, Suzuki was nominated as one of the top ten "Greatest Canadians" by viewers of the CBC. In the final vote he ranked fifth, making him the greatest living Canadian. Suzuki said that his own vote was for Tommy Douglas who was the eventual winner.
• In 2006, Suzuki was the recipient of the Bradford Washburn Award presented at the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts.
• In 2007, Suzuki was honoured by Global Exchange, with the International Human Rights Award.
• In 2009, Suzuki was awarded the honorary Right Livelihood Award.
• He was the subject of Sturla Gunnarsson's 2010 documentary film Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie.
• On June 23, 2015, Suzuki was awarded the Freedom of the City by the Vancouver City Council, which entitled him to the title Freeman of the City of Vancouver.