Features November 6, 2002 “Of course I am a fan,” said Nichol. “Wayne was writer-in-residence about 10 years ago, and I got to know him then. I took an interest in his work. I read The Divine Ryans and | thought “This is a great book and it’s about St John’s,” he said. “It’s just seems to be something that kids in first year could relate to if they have some idea of what life is like in St John’s.” The appealing aspect of teaching this novel at Memorial is the universal story of a young boy coming to terms with the death of his father, with the added benefit of it being the local setting. Nichol has yet to decide what he will be teaching next term in his first-year fiction course, but he did say the syllabus would include something of Johnston’s work—whether it is The Divine Ryans or Colony of Unrequited Dreams. He is interested in teaching Colony because Johnston has gone from writing about a family setting to writing a book about a character closely modeled after Joey Smallwood. “The Navigator looks very promising, but I would have to say Divine Ryans [is my favourite] at the moment,” said Nichol. “Strangely enough, I have mar- ried one of the actors who was in that movie, who actu- ally played the most devastating role. She was the fright- ening one of Draper Doyle’s aunts.” Nichol says it is quite possible that Navigator of New York may make it into his classroom in a few years, after The Venerable David Suzuki Exclusive interview with famed environmentalist David Leibl The Manitoban WINNIPEG (CUP)—At the age of 66, Canada’s pre- eminent environmentalist is set to unveil his most ambi- tious project to date. The Sacred Balance, a four-part CBC documentary series, that began [Oct 13] and con- cluded Monday [Oct 21], has been in development over the past five years. It was filmed over two years and con- tains footage from five continents. The Canadian University Press (CUP) recently spoke with David Suzuki about his latest endeavour and about how he sees the world after more than 40 years of acclaimed environ- mentalism. CUP: Your latest endeavour, The Sacred Balance, is a momentous undertaking that has been years in the mak- ing. What exactly is a “sacred balance?” David Suzuki: Well, for 99 percent of human exis- tence, people understood that we emerged out of nature and that we were deeply embedded in it and dependent on it. Our songs and our rituals and our prayers were about thanking the Creator for what we've got and recog- nising that what we do affects our surroundings. In the last 100 years, humans have undergone a very major transition. We?e transformed from rural, village- living creatures, where 95 percent of us in 1900 lived in rural agriculture settings, [to] city dwellers. In advanced countries, in industrialised countries like Canada, over 85 percent of us live in big cities. Around the world, even in the Third World, over 50 percent of us live in big cities. We’re a major urban species. In cities, it’s easy to believe the illusion that we’re no longer part of nature, that we're so smart that what gives us our way of living is a result of the economy and because of the economy we're able to enjoy products brought from around the world. And this is what we look to as the bottom line: the economy as the source of everything. We've really got into a destructive notion, because we still depend on clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy. That’s what really should be the bottom line, and we need a balance with those things, and that should be a sacred balance. CUP: You've touched on one of the central assertions of The Sacred Balance, which is that human beings are intimately connected to the earth. Is this a notion that will resonate with North Americans, who are obsessed with Sport Utility Vehicles, and are responsible for far more pollution than the citizens of any other continent? DS: I think it’s something that goes deep in the heart of North Americans. If you ask Canadians, “Is wilderness, is nature, important in your lives?” something like 92 to 95 percent say yes. They feel it's a part of our identity; © page 18 they’re willing to pay money to protect nature. They have the idea that nature is a part of what makes Canada spe- cial. But the problem is that people live in a world that has been fragmented. We no longer think of the intercon- nectedness of everything. Someone who gets in an SUV never would think, what the hell am I doing in the mid- dle of Winnipeg driving a huge car like this? I’m not going to be on dirt roads and through creeks; I’m going to be stuck in traffic in Winnipeg. They don’t think of it that way. When you drive 10 blocks instead of walking to the gym, nobody thinks, oh damn, I shouldn't have done that, I’m going to affect weather and climate. S We live in a world that is shattered. We go out and we can buy a shirt from the Gap or shoes from Nike and never realise those articles of clothing are made in a sweatshop somewhere in the developing world; that there has been a huge price paid by other people. You buy fresh fruit and vegetables in Winnipeg in the middle of winter, the other press it comes out in paperback and the price goes down— although he does think it would be a good investment either way. Johnston says he’s happy that his work is being taught in schools. “I don’t know what they are saying about them, but I think it’s great. I sit in from time to time, but not very often.” He doesn’t worry about misinterpretation because, he says, it’s like a review. His books are written for the read- er and he doesn’t want to control how they read them, as long as they read them. nobody ever says, “Gee, where are they raising these in Canada?” They’ve been shipped 5,000 miles to come here. We never think about that. If we don’t see a world that is intimately connected to everything else, then we see no responsibility for whatever we do because we don’t see the implications. I believe that’s the major crisis we face; that we have shattered the world so that we can no longer see how we're plugged into everything else. CUP: How is it that we came to be so out of touch with the natural world? DS: I'm going to try to do this in four hours and you want me to do this in one minute? CUP: A synopsis, then. DS: I think that we've changed suddenly in our rela- tionship with nature and it’s been a consequence of the confluence of a number of factors. In the last hundred years, humankind has undergone a major transformation just in terms of our numbers. In 1900, there were about 1.5 billion people on the planet; when I was born in 1936, there were just over 2 billion people; in my life- time, we've gone from 2 billion to 6 billion. We are now the most numerous mammal on the planet. There are, more of us than rats, mice and rabbits. But we're not like other mammals in that we have an enormous amount of technology, which has become part of our lives in [the last] 100 years. Every one of us has a huge amount of power that’s used on our behalf through! technology. Then you think of consumption: Each of us now uses in the way we live at least 10 times as much as the average person did 100 years ago. And we have a global economy that delivers us products from around the world, so take those things all together, our numbers, our technology, our consumption, our global economy. We've become a new force on the planet. So, it’s hap- pened suddenly and with explosive speed and we're not doing anything about it because the media have shattered our sense of connectedness. CUP: A few months into his mandate, Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, said that the US must. and will continue to depend on oil for its energy needs. How c: we expect anything to change when some of the mos powerful policy-makers are humming an entirely differ- ent tune? DS: In the United States, despite Bush and Cheney, there is in fact a very large and powerful environment community. And even though Mr. Bush has said he’s no going to ratify Kyoto the reality is that on a per-capit basis, the Americans are investing far more in wind an solar energy than Canada is. So, despite the rhetoric, th