The following is an excerpt of Dr. Suzuki's speech, given at the Environmental Printing Awards on February 8th in Toronto.

Biologists tell us that human beings evolved as a species about 150,000 years ago in Africa. Who would have thought, 150,000 years ago, ‘Watch that one, that naked ape. That is the one that is going to takeover the planet?’ The difference lay in the way that we behaved. We were intelligent. And the secret of our success was the two-kilogram organ that lay deep in our skulls.

That human brain endowed us with a tremendous memory. We were tremendously inventive and curious. And that human brain did something unique. It invented an idea called the future. The future doesn’t exist. The only thing that exists is now, but because we invented the idea of a future, we were the only animals that realized, I can shape the future by what I do today.

If we look ahead into the future, we can see where there are opportunities and where there are dangers. The very definition of what it is to be human is foresight. We have become the most powerful force on the planet. We are now the most numerous mammal on the planet. But, of course, we are not like any other creature. We are endowed with tremendous technological and scientific power. We have this enormous itch to consume stuff and we now have a global economy that delivers all of that to us.

Over and over, you have heard about the crisis that we are hitting. Because of that, in 1992, a remarkable document was released. It is called World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity. More than 1,500 scientists signed this document. More than half of all Noble Prize winners in the world signed this document.

[Suzuki begins reading the document.] Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and our critical resources. If not checked, many of our practices we put at serious risk the future of human society and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the matter that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent, if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.

No more than a few decades remain before the chance to avoid the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity have measurably diminished. We the undersigned senior scientists of the world scientific community, hereby, warn all of humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in the stewardship of the Earth and life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irreverently mutilated.

To read more of Dr. Suzuki's speech, read the March edition of PrintAction.

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