Here’s your new cause, Mr. Suzuki

August 9th, 2007

Dear Mr. Suzuki; Let me begin by saying, I’m a really big fan, and have been watching your show, the Nature of Things, for years. My all-time favourite episode was the one where you had a really tiny camera roaming around the human reproductive system. Never seen anything like that before. It was so real you could feel it, but didn’t really want to.

I also loved the one about the giant Japanese hornets that slaughtered all the little bees, and then stole all their honey to feed a whole new generation of super giant killer hornets. Wait, that was a National Geographic special. But, don’t worry, Mr. Suzuki. The hornets can’t hurt you. Your body of work speaks for itself.

With shows about toxic waste, forestry clear cutting, and the destruction of coastal marine life, you have become our own distant early warning system. The world is a better place with you in it, even though the big oil companies really hate you. Good job with the new light bulbs, by the way. You know, those funky, curly ones with the mercury in them. Soon everyone will be switching over, and switching on.

The television commercial where you invade that man’s home, and tell him to buy more beer with all the money he is saving, is sheer brilliance. Don’t worry about your other ad either, where you light the street up like a carnival. Those new bulbs are so pretty, I’ll bet no one even noticed.

What I really wanted to say, Mr. Suzuki, is that I have your next crusade all picked out for you. Now that we have the light bulb problem licked, we can get down to business. I think you should tell everyone to turn off their air conditioners, for good. For good. Get it? Anyway, go talk to the government, and get them to make air conditioners illegal, except in hospitals, nursing homes, and places where people have to stand really close together, like city elevators. By cooling the air inside a building, an air conditioner actually heats up the outside world. I’m not a scientist like you, but even I can see this is only compounding the original problem.

If it’s hot out, we shouldn’t be making it even hotter. If you can’t stand the heat, you get out of the kitchen. You don’t stand there with the fridge door open; and you don’t have to be David Suzuki to figure that out. If global warming is a reality, and you and most of your peers keep telling us that it is, then we should be meeting it head on, and not hiding from it. Instead of crying about the heat, and the damage we are doing to our planet and ourselves, we should be living with it, and learning from it. If people are serious about making a difference, they should be out riding this heat wave, walking in it and talking in it; and not hiding from themselves in air conditioned cars and icy boardrooms with refrigerated bottled water.

Until we decide to get back in touch with the world, and back to the nature of things, pardon the pun, all this global warming banter is nothing more than mere hot air. Anyway, give it some thought. I’m here to help. In the mean time, keep up the good work. If there is anything else you need help with, don’t be afraid to ask—unless you’re looking for some place to stick a tiny camera. Forget that.