Tiny sardines offer great guilt-free value

Written by Dr David Suzuki

When the six-year-old daughter of David Suzuki Foundation sustainable fisheries analyst Scott Wallace returned from a birthday party, excited about the hockey cards she got in her loot bag, her Dad asked, “What players did you get?” She replied that she got the “sardine twins” from the Vancouver Canucks. 

Most Canadians are aware of the value of the Sedin – not sardine – brothers to the Canucks, but we don’t know much about the value of eating sardines and other small fish.

On the road to reduced fuel use

Written by Dr David Suzuki

Cars and trucks are among the biggest contributors to the heat-trapping emissions that cause global warming. About 12 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions come from private automobiles, and up to a quarter come from road transportation in general. That makes driving a good place to start in confronting one of the most serious challenges humans face.

Canada and the U.S. just announced plans to enact fuel-efficiency standards for new cars and light trucks manufactured in the two countries. Canada is expected to match the U.S. standards, which will require all cars and trucks built by a company to get an average of about 35 miles per gallon, or six litres per 100 kilometres, by 2016. Canada’s government estimates that will lead to a 25 per cent reduction in vehicle emissions in 2016 compared to 2008. The government’s next step should be to require more zero-emission vehicles powered by clean-energy sources.

It’s getting harder and harder to spot the spotted owl

Written by Dr David Suzuki

If the northern spotted owl is healthy, it’s a good sign that the old-growth forests where it lives are healthy. Unfortunately, the spotted owl is not doing well in British Columbia, the only place it lives in Canada. Only six of the beautiful brown-eyed birds remain here.

Spotted owls live up to 17 years in the wild, but they breed slowly, mating for life and producing just one or two chicks every two years. Silent hunters with excellent vision and hearing, the owls swoop through the open canopy of old-growth forests at dusk to catch wood rats, voles, mice, and squirrels. At one time, at least 500 pairs lived in B.C.’s forests, but over the past 100 years, their habitat has been so heavily logged that the owls have been unable to survive.

Brain over brawn is the key to survival

Written by Dr David Suzuki

Many people say George Wald was the greatest lecturer in Harvard’s history. He was certainly the best I’ve heard. Dr. Wald won a Nobel Prize in 1967 for his work on the biochemical basis of colour vision. He and I became friends in the 1970s because we shared a common concern about the misapplication of science, especially during the war in Vietnam. Dr. Wald once captivated me with a story he told:

For close to 150 million years, dinosaurs dominated the planet, and they were impressive. They were huge animals, armed with weapons like spikes on their tails, giant claws, and razor-sharp teeth. They were covered with armour plates. They seemed invincible, and when they roamed the Earth, other creatures fled in terror. But they had a fatal flaw: a tiny brain in relation to their body size. Despite their impressive traits, they disappeared – victims, in part, of their low brain-to-brawn ratio.