Can an Environmentalist Be Hopeful? David Suzuki Can…
“Other things, capitalism, economies, corporations, markets and currency, these are not forces of nature. We invented them. And if they don’t work we can and we must change them.” David Suzuki, at Occupy Vancouver — October 22, 2011
On the eve of his 75th birthday, David Suzuki delivered his legacy lecture. Filmed before a live audience, with a constantly changing set of images playing behind him, this was to be what he himself described as “a distillation of my life and thoughts… What I want to say before I die.” Sturla Gunnarsson’s thought-provoking documentary Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie is a very personal insight into the man behind the icon. The man we know as a Canadian scientist of Japanese heritage, an environmentalist, a philosopher, a visionary, a broadcaster and an activist. And what filmmaker Gunnarsson rightfully calls “a monumental figure on the Canadian landscape.” The film won the “Favourite Documentary” Award at the Toronto International Film Festival last year.
To say that I got to watch this inspiring, enlightening, wonderful profile of David Suzuki at the perfect moment in time is stating the obvious. While the media bemoans our failing economy and the world’s impending financial gloom is spoken about at every turn, this past weekend American merchants experienced a Black Friday like never before, complete with pepper-spray wielding shoppers and ridiculously long lines. This success was then repeated, minus the pesky human contact, on Cyber Monday. So, what is the truth behind the gloomy headlines? And is it all simply another personal variable, one global example of seeing the glass as either half full or half empty?
Read the ENTIRE PIECE on the HUFFINGTON POST.
Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie opens at Cinema Village in NYC on December 2nd.
Top image of David Suzuki with a Cumulus Cloud backdrop courtesy of Shadow Distribution, used with permission
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