Resort to tactics of the wicked breeds only wickedness.
It’s easy, though, to see why opposition has arisen to a University of Alberta honor for celebrity environmentalist David Suzuki.
The university wants to award the 81-year-old geneticist, a science program star on Canadian television and climate-change activist, an honorary doctorate.
He is to be one of 13 such honorees in convocation ceremonies this spring.
But his selection is controversial.
Suzuki supplies intellectual energy to political resistance to pipeline expansions needed by the oil sands industry.
His David Suzuki Foundation advocates for, among other things, a constitutional guarantee of the “right to a healthy environment.”
He has counseled Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to restrict the use of hydrocarbon energy—especially, as he calls it, “tar sand fossil fuel.”
And he lives in British Columbia, the government of which has incurred the wrath of its Albertan counterpart for opposing expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline between Edmonton and Vancouver.
Suzuki’s disdain for the oil sands industry would be enough by itself to arouse ire in Alberta.
But the activist creates interdisciplinary friction, too.
At least once, after grotesquely mischaracterizing in a television documentary the interplay between money and nature, Suzuki declared, “Conventional economics is a form of brain damage.”
Understandably, economists are among those fuming over the U of A’s plan to honor him.
It’s one thing to disagree with Suzuki, however. And, goodness knows, the silver-haired liberal offers much with which sensible people can disagree.
But it would be something quite different to withdraw an honor already on offer—especially from a university.
Usually, fire-breathers on Suzuki’s side of the argument stoop to this type of argument by exclusion.
From either side, the tactic persuades few and works to its own discredit.
Suzuki, for good or bad, is consequential. Honors have been bestowed for less. He’ll only gain sympathy if denied one more honorary doctorate.
The oil sands business and supportive institutions have better ways to support their interests.
(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted Apr. 27, 2018; author’s email: [email protected])
About the Author
Bob Tippee
Editor
Bob Tippee has been chief editor of Oil & Gas Journal since January 1999 and a member of the Journal staff since October 1977. Before joining the magazine, he worked as a reporter at the Tulsa World and served for four years as an officer in the US Air Force. A native of St. Louis, he holds a degree in journalism from the University of Tulsa.