From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

419 Pages·2004·2.79 MB·English

by  David Suzuki

FROM NAKED APE TO SUPERSPECIES
from NAKED APE to SUPERSPECIES
humanity and the global eco-crisis
DAVID SUZUKI
HOLLY DRESSEL
Copyright © 2004 by Dr. David Suzuki and Holly Dressel
U.S. edition copyright © 2005 by Dr. David Suzuki and Holly Dressel 04 05 06
07 08 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
written consent of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright
Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit
www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
Greystone Books
A division of Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V5T 4S7
www.greystonebooks.com
David Suzuki Foundation
2211 West 4th Avenue, Suite 219
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V6K 4S2
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Suzuki, David, 1936–
From naked ape to superspecies: humanity and the global eco-crisis /
David Suzuki and Holly Dressel. — Rev. ed
Co-published by the David Suzuki Foundation.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55365-031-X
1. Nature—Effect of human beings on. 2. Human ecology. 3. Social ecology.
4. Renewable natural resources. I. Dressel, Holly Jewell. II. David Suzuki
Foundation. III. Title. GF75.S99 2004 304.2'8 C2004-901157-X
Library of Congress information is available upon request.
Editing by Michael Carroll
Cover design by Jessica Sullivan
Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens
Distributed in the U.S. by Publishers Group West We gratefully acknowledge the
financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts
Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry
Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.
Greystone Books is committed to reducing the consumption of old-growth
forests in the books it publishes. This book is one step towards that goal. It is
printed on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient-forest-friendly, and it has been
processed chlorine-free.

We remember, with admiration and gratitude, the love of
nature that motivated Rachel Carson to write Silent Spring.
She was a role model for generations of writers,
activists and concerned citizens.
H.D. also dedicates this book, with love, to her husband,
colleague and friend, the late Gary Toole.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 Sharing Each Other’s Skin
CHAPTER 2 Bugs Я Us
CHAPTER 3 Bigfoot
CHAPTER 4 Sez Who?
CHAPTER 5 Unnatural Selections
CHAPTER 6 Your Money or Your Life Forms
CHAPTER 7 Follow the Money
CHAPTER 8 Globalization Blues
CHAPTER 9 The Other World.
CHAPTER 10 Complex Pleasures
References
Organizations to Contact
Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This is a revised, updated and expanded edition of a book we wrote in 1999.
From Naked Ape to Superspecies originally grew out of the eight-hour radio
series of the same name, which Holly Dressel researched and field-produced and
which we wrote together in 1998 for CBC. The book refined the series; it was
the culmination of three and a half years of research, travel and thought, of
delightful and distressing conversations with hundreds of wonderful and a few
frightening people. We would like to express our lasting gratitude to Jane Lewis,
the Montreal producer of the series, as well as to our executive producer, Bernie
Lucht; and we would especially like to express our deep appreciation to the
people at Greystone Books, whose faith in the continuing usefulness of this book
has made this new edition possible: Rob Sanders, Chris Labonte, and
particularly, our editors, Nancy Flight and Michael Carroll. We also remember
with gratitude the people who helped shape the first edition at our former, and
now defunct publisher, Stoddart: editors Jennifer Glossop, Marnie Kramarich,
Jane McWhitty and especially Angel Guerra.
Lisa Hayden, my secretary at the time, was an enormous help to both authors,
and Joel Silverstein completed the demanding task of transcribing hundreds of
hours of taped interviews with grace and enthusiasm. Many other people went
beyond the call of duty in sending information quickly and without complaint,
no matter how often we asked. They include Andy Kimbrell of the International
Center for Technology Assessment, everyone at the Sierra Club of Canada,
Christine von Weizsaecker of Ecoropa, Beth Burrows of the Edmonds Institute,
Danny Kennedy of Project Underground, and particularly Brewster Kneen,
publisher of the Ram’s Horn. We are also especially grateful to the Third World
Network.
On a personal level, my collaborator, Holly Dressel, would like to thank the
following friends, who kept up with all the issues so brilliantly and tirelessly
allowed her to bounce ideas off them, often far into the night: John Hughes and
Martha Hughes; Jack Kofman; Gwynne Dyer and Tina Viljoen; and, for his
invaluable post-mortems, Jim Latteier. And no such list would be complete
without mention of her daughter, Thea; her son, Jack; and all the other friends
and family who had to bear the highs and lows of such all-consuming work.
Finally, I want to acknowledge Jim Murray for his years of friendship and
patience. He kept me in broadcasting when I wanted to quit and return to the lab,
and he deepened my understanding of the human place in the natural world. The
generous and uncomplaining support and enthusiasm of Tara Cullis, despite
many weeks of absence, can never be fully acknowledged, but I make a meagre
gesture of gratitude with a promise to put a lid on any new projects. I thank also
Severn and Sarika, for being so supportive even though I was often away when
they wanted me to be with them and too often responded, “Not now. I’ve got to
finish this book.”
David Suzuki
Vancouver, British Columbia
INTRODUCTION
Each chapter in this new edition contains fresh examples and analyses that
update the original arguments. The book also presents a new first chapter that
provides an overview of how the world has changed in the five short years since
the first edition was published. The grave problems our sources describe in the
current structure of Western society, such as its neglect of basic social structures,
rapacious attitude towards natural systems and its concentration of resources on
global economics and invasive technologies, are reviewed and updated. Within
this fresh context, this edition also introduces ideas about what people can do to
correct the excesses of material greed and technological optimism that have
placed the natural systems that support this planet in increasing peril.
It is not an unusual contention to state that modern Western culture and its
underlying belief systems have as their basic goals ever-increasing human
populations, rising GDPs and the unlimited fulfillment of all human desires. It is
perhaps less usual, in mainstream analyses at least, to maintain that this is the
systemic problem that lies at the root of the continuing and dangerous depletion
of the natural products and services on which physical life depends. With so
much at stake in terms of our increasing loss of the basic materials required for
survival, it has become an urgent matter to convince people that we need to
reassess the direction in which we are headed. We also need to explore seriously
whether, as our leaders so often claim, it really is our only choice.
In the new first chapter in this edition, we assess the extent to which we are
still faced with the same or increasing challenges, while highlighting the many
areas where significant progress has been made. For example, “globalization” is
no longer a new term that needs to be defined, as was the case in 1999; it has
become a rallying cry that has polarized societies and individuals all around the
world, and is now seen as one of the major issues of our time. We now have even
graver political and military destabilization in the Middle East and the Third
World than we did five years ago, as countries such as the United States, Britain,
Japan and Canada try to move into these areas in order to exploit increasingly
scarce natural commodities like oil, forests and gold. Real wars are now
increasingly present in our lives as new flashpoints such as Iraq, Afghanistan,
North Korea and Liberia have joined existing trouble spots like Israel, sub-
Saharan Africa and the Balkans.
In the interim since we wrote about the dangers of placing too much credence
in the more ethereal aspects of the Information Revolution, that bubble
collapsed, leaving economic havoc and a legacy of lost ecological and social
opportunities. Despite continuing hype, almost every product of genetic
engineering has proven itself to be dangerous or unstable, and the continuing
fight against this technology has created a diplomatic gulf between the United
States, Canada and Australia, and the rest of the world. The new chapter also
updates our analysis of what was happening to journalism as it became
centralized under the power of a few private entities; today, this danger is so well
understood that many alternatives, mostly on the Internet, have popped up to
counteract a loss of basic freedom of speech. In those five years, we also wrote
another book, Good News for a Change, which took off from where the last
chapter of this one, “Complex Pleasures,” left off. In this new edition, “Complex
Pleasures,” as well as the first-chapter overview, provides not just warnings of
problems, but some guidance towards solutions.
We called the radio series and the book From Naked Ape to Superspecies in an
attempt to articulate what has happened to our species in the past few hundred
years. Human beings entered the second millennium more or less as we began
our sojourn on Earth — as intelligent, inventive creatures with numerous
cultures to our credit, but tied to the Earth in every way imaginable. Back in the
year 1000, most human beings were still nomadic hunter-gatherers or traditional
agriculturalists, completely dependent on the vagaries of weather, climate and
the generosity of the web of living things. A tiny minority of people lived in
towns and cities, where they had laws, markets, stores and the trappings of
civilization, but little control over natural forces like climate and disease.
Industrialization occurred only in the past two or three centuries, and then total
human populations began to climb steeply as Europeans rapidly colonized most
other places and peoples of the world.
When the twentieth century began, many countries were well along in
industrialization, and there were more than a billion people overall. While most
of nature remained untouched, we were beginning to have an impact on the
forests, waterways and soils on a large scale. The second half of the twentieth
century witnessed the emergence of most modern societies from economic
collapse and world war into a period of spectacular economic growth and social
change. The accelerating growth in population, technological prowess, consumer
demand, transnational corporations and the global economy has created a new
force on the planet. We have been transformed from naked apes into what can be
called a superspecies. We are now transforming the biosphere — depleting the