His view are well-known to anyone who has listened to his broadcasts. He is a clear and articulate speaker.
Edit: I agree with xnx's point that "the climate change "movement" and messaging is so bad and misguided that it is counterproductive." Suzuki is one of the exceptions, his arguments are logical, straightforward and backed up by scientific fact.
Suzuki is not just a local phenomenon, nor is he a mumbling hysterical ideolog but a well-known and well-respected science writer of longstanding who bases what he says in science.
I'm not local but come from the other side of the planet and even the opposite hemisphere and I first heard Suzuki speak over 40 years ago. Neither am I an hysterical ideolog, as mentioned I agree with xnx's point that the climate change Movement's messaging is bad, misguided and counterproductive.
I'd add the reason why it's so is that for some within the Movement the environment is more than just politics, for them it's essentially morphed into a religion and it's their constant proselytizing that has annoyed the shit out of many, myself included.
Suzuki is not one of those but a science communicator who works with scientific facts.
Not that that's unusual. My sense of a lot of left-wing and political/environmental folks is that they'd be fine with watching humanity exterminated by climate change - so long as they were allowed a nice, long "I was RIGHT, and you were WRONG" gloating monologue near the end.
One or two degrees will not incinerate you, but it might affect some crops, and then some food prices, and then there could be some starving, and poverty, and disease. Things could escalate quickly.
Also, wasn't there something about, you know, caring for the generations to come? Maybe I misremember...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-17/us-spendi... | https://archive.today/EBmaI
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/09/climate-...
there will be plenty of empty houses for the generations to come.
It's still part of Malthusian theory, it's just the logical conclusion of population collapse after resource depletion.
Back around 2007 it was a HUGE topic and many of us thought we'd be living in hell by 2025. Yet here we are and climate change rarely even makes the news.
What I said about the media is that they talked about climate change a whole lot more back then compared to now. Beside the Iraq War it was one of the big topics that everyone was always talking about. Nowadays it seems more of a background issue.
How is the saying: "Aviate, navigate, communicate". We are strictly in an aviate phase.
Sure, if you dismiss all the news about floodings etc.
Just because it's not titled "flooding due to climate change" ....
Just think of the 10 year lynx-hare cycle https://jckantor.github.io/CBE30338/02.05-Hare-and-Lynx-Popu... where nature adapts constantly.
Now think about the fact that Lynxes have a max age of 15 years plus and the cycle takes 10 years.
I really don't think that the climate change messaging is bad and misguided. At the end of the day, it's because climate change advocacy is underfunded and there is a lot of money in oil.
If climate change messaging was nicer, it's hard for me to see how anyone would care more anyway. On the other hand, if climate change advocates had real money behind it on the order of big oil PR and regulatory capture, you would see change and legislation really quick.
But if they’re wrong, that’s also bad news. It means our scientific institutions failed us, and the political trust placed in “studies” will collapse. The next time someone says “science says…”, society may not listen.
Either way, it’s a precarious place to be. Until then, enjoy the summer — it might be the coolest one we have left.
That horse has already bolted. See eg. vaccinations and autism, efficacy of COVID vaccines, etc.
Academic science is more religion than actual religion.
This includes the fact that whatever we do now the impact of what's already done will be felt for thousands of years.
yupitsme123•7h ago
I've been hearing about this fight for my entire life. People are extremely passionate and self-righteous about it and have science to back up everything they believe, so why was there never a single unified plan with a single unified movement behind it?
vjvjvjvjghv•7h ago
yupitsme123•7h ago
alganet•6h ago
Not enough of the population was properly educated on the risks, and therefore a solid plan was never even conceived.
We needed lots of people thinking about it in order to do that, while most people just discussed it superficially and were easily provoked, manipulated or distracted.
yupitsme123•6h ago
A handful of smart people just needed to get together and come up with a solution. Then the governments of the world implement it. I understand that the second part is difficult. But did the first part ever happen?
alganet•6h ago
Things don't work this way, unfortunatelly. This kind of thinking just pushes the problem to someone else do deal with, which only serves to shift up blame. Small groups are vulnerable to corruption, or distractions, or silly power plays.
We needed _lots_ of people with good education and reasonable awareness of the risks, it was the only way to have a chance to develop a more solid plan.
However, you got your way. There are small groups of smart people working on these issues. But many, many of us know that their chances are slim (due to the shortcomings mentioned earlier). Unfortunatelly, not that many to form a critical mass.
yupitsme123•5h ago
The internet, cell phones, social media, fracking, AI, the fall of the Soviet Union, war in Iraq, changes in attitudes towards family, sexuality. Just to name a few.
All of these things just kind of happened without the public having asking for them. Why then has a slight, gradual reduction in greenhouse gases been so hard?
alganet•5h ago
In the whole human history, only one disease was erradicated: smallpox. It took centuries, countless smart people, reasonable awareness of many counter-intuitive ideas, and we almost failed. Going to the moon was easier.
Tadpole9181•6h ago
I mean... Why do the smart people not "just" develop a perfect economic plan? Or "just" end world hunger? Or "just" stop global conflicts?
Anyway, there have been multitudes of plans and strategies and actions to chip away at the problem. All of them require sacrificing political capital, raising taxes and the costs of products, and effort. And you get nothing substantial in return.
So while the entire scientific community tried pushing education and solutions galore, the political and corporate establishment fought tooth and nail against any aspect that did not immediately profit them. To the point that now an entire party in the richest country on Earth that holds all three branches of government uses opposition to solving the problem as one of the core tenants of their platform.
yupitsme123•5h ago
Anyway, what is the solution that the scientific community proposed and that was killed by the political and corporate establishment?
What is the plan that the non-US countries have implemented to eliminate the problem?
jochem9•1h ago
This has been agreed multiple times, most notably the Paris agreement of 2015, which set deadlines for countries to achieve carbon neutrality.
The plan failed in e.g. the US because politicians didn't follow through. Trump literally withdrew from the Paris agreement.
All but 3 countries in the world participate in the Paris agreement. This includes all big CO2 emitters, like China, US (now withdrawn), India and EU countries.
xboxnolifes•4h ago
yupitsme123•3h ago
If you're going to tell me it was the Democrats vs the Republicans, then please explain why countries outside the US haven't made it happen yet. China is a country full of scientists and engineers and the opposition there is non existent.
xboxnolifes•1h ago
morkalork•5h ago
yupitsme123•4h ago
I'm led to believe that the scientists and activists are all led by the same empirical research and share a broad consensus. So why then is there no plan or even a concept of a plan after 30 years of talking about all this?
hilbert42•4h ago
yupitsme123•3h ago
jkmcf•7h ago
1. There's too much money directly opposing the goals of fighting climate change
2. Humans aren't big on alignment. FFS, we still don't have good UX/GUI for Linux and it's mainly been stagnant* and divided into Gnome and KDE for 20+ years.
* despite the impressive accomplishments, it's essentially true
yupitsme123•7h ago
2. Your example isn't something life or death. Humanity has aligned on numerous things and changed significantly amd uniformly during the past 30 years without even trying. Why is it so hard to come up with a list of demands and reforms for everyone to agree on and march behind to save the world?
jkmcf•6h ago
yupitsme123•6h ago
Climate change has been a mainstream issue since the mid-90s. From then until now we've had massive material and ideological changes across the globe, none of which required the support or awareness of humanity or the voting public.
The internet, cell phones, social media, fracking, AI, multiple wars, changes in attitudes towards family, sexuality, and marijuana usage have all occurred during this time period. Why then has a slight, gradual reduction in greenhouse gas reduction been so hard?
hilbert42•4h ago
Changing that cost money—and people resent having to pay more for change that they don't perceive will make much difference to their lives.
Whether they're right or wrong doesn't alter that.
alganet•6h ago
There has been a consistent attempt at getting everyone to consider the risks in a reasonable way. It has failed.
mytailorisrich•6h ago
jhanschoo•3m ago
The UN and EU regularly publish evidence-based reports with multi-pronged recommendations. That seems to me as "unified" as you can get, in terms of multinational cooperation and holism in recommendations. But to have any concrete change you need political will, and that is obviously lacking.
To get political will in democratic societies you need to convince people to elect their leaders on this and not taxes or pet special interests, which is why you have been hearing about this fight all your life.