Interview by Joseph Roberts

Common Ground: Would you comment on Common Ground’s April theme of "What is healthy for the person is healthy for the planet; and what is healthy for the planet is healthy for the person."

Severn Cullis-Suzuki: Being aware of the state of our ecosystems is not a selfless, do-gooder kind of thing: it’s actually quite selfish - what is good for the planet is ultimately to the benefit of each of us. It’s actually self-preservation. Our health, social justice and environment are all different aspects of the same situation. Without recognizing how these things are really connected, I don’t think we can find real solutions.

Q: People sometimes do not act on important environmental issues until they are personally affected.

A: In North America, individuals are less community minded than on other continents, since we each have our own space and live isolated lives. We live in a culture of "every man for himself." So we tend to ignore or are unaware of issues that pertain to other countries, or communities. Even our own communities. But we are all individually affected by environmental issues, know it or not, like it or not. We are directly affected by the state of our environment through our health, and through the food that we eat, the water we drink and air that we breathe. To care about the future of our kids, we have to care about their future health, and future resources. To me, the environment is a quality of life issue. If you care about your quality of life, you have to care about your environment.

Q: What projects are you working on?

A: Over the last year I’ve been working with many different groups, speaking at many events to raise awareness and support local issues across Canada and the US. I’ve also been working a lot with a Japanese group called The Sloth Club. They are based in Tokyo, one of the fastest moving cities, and their purpose is about slowing down, hence the mascot of the sloth; they say that the best things in life are slow. They support the slow food movement in opposition of fast food and also responsible business. Actually, true to Tokyo form, they are the most enterprising, non-slothful people I’ve met, and their movement is really growing in Japan.

Here in Vancouver I’ve been working with the Skyfish Project, a think tank: www.skyfishproject.org. It’s a group of friends and connections sharing ideas and awareness about the world. It’s about fostering a climate of alternatives - we are a community of individuals who don’t want to contribute to the global problems that preceding generations have created, and want to get on with the task of living sustainably, and happily.

Q: What inspires you these days?

A: I just spent the last two months travelling in India, which was incredibly inspiring. It made me realize there are so many ways of living and thinking, and that Western culture will never take over the planet. India reminded me once again that I know nothing.

Local movements are inspiring to me. Everywhere I go I meet individuals in their communities who have spearheaded a movement to change or support something they really care about. Like Dr Veer Bhadra Mishra in Varanasi, a Hindu priest who doubles as a professor of hydraulics and is leading the struggle to clean up the Ganges in his city; or of Sarah Morgan, a Grade 9 student in Ontario who is working to stop a proposed landfill that would contaminate the underground fresh water source that provides for most of South Central Ontario. They’re the ones who are finding the solutions to our problems. It’s inspiring and humbling to meet people who aren’t afraid to follow their dreams and their ideals. And they are out there.

Q: Do you find music an ally; what do you listen to?

A: Music is such a powerful art. Such a powerful way of connecting with people. Such a powerful form of expression. We all should make music. Making music is more common in poorer countries; most people are musicians of some sort. We’re missing out.

What do I listen to? These days I’m listening to Spearhead, Mason Jennings, Indian classical music and a local band called Hot Breakfast.

Q: How can we help each other see the connections and get involved?

A: We have to see our personal and global connections through our food, our health and our future. Then we’ve got to promote and encourage a culture where it’s cool to be responsible, or rather, it’s really uncool to waste resources and consume like crazy. You can look at this as a huge ideological thing - countering the wasteful culture of consumerism, but it’s really about small, influential acts like not buying coffee in disposable cups or not using disposable chopsticks vs. bringing your own. You have the most influence by leading by example.

Q: As a Canadian what do we need to do?

A: We say we care about the environment. Statistics Canada says that nine out of 10 Canadians rate the environment as one of their top concerns. But we finished 28th of 29 developed nations in an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development study of environmental conduct. There’s no comparison between the resources used in a lifetime by a Canadian versus an Indian. We are a very wasteful nation. And in a world of increasing imbalances, this has to change.

Coming back from India, I can’t help being on a perspective kick. I think the starting point for Canadians is to recognize our privilege in the context of the planet’s population in 2004. From there we can see 1) that we are undeniably connected and have responsibilities for what goes on around the globe, and 2) that just by being a Canadian and therefore having a basic education, freedom of speech, access to information, right to vote, etc., we each hold a lot of influence in the world. Compare the average Canadian’s voice with that of the average woman in India.

It’s not a matter of trying to make a difference in the world - we each already do. It’s a matter of choosing to make a positive difference in the world. While traveling in India, I resented feeling guilty, not only about having so much wealth and opportunity, but also for being part of a culture with so much global influence. We are what developing nations aspire to be. How can we justify that? By living in a better way, that’s how. This is a big picture thing, a long-term vision of what human living is supposed to be about, but it’s made up of simple choices, like not supporting businesses that exploit their workers or pollute their surroundings.

Q: What impressed you about India?

A: What hasn’t? Its diversity, its harmonious chaos, its realness, its deep faith, the way people are used to dealing with proximity and total lack of space and resources, and have full and vibrant lives.

Q: What are you learning from your travels?

A: Travelling in India was my first backpacker-style trip. I loved the freedom from stuff, the satisfaction and sense of freedom that comes with needing so little, just the bag on your back. I realize that I don’t really need very much. Now I want to throw out half of the junk in my closet. Having too much stuff weighs you down.

Travelling is a good way to get perspective, to see that there are so many ways of living. It shows you anything is possible, that in the world of people there are so many solutions to the challenge of living that one person could never have imagined. And, as always, I return with a renewed appreciation for the little aspects of daily life in Canada; we live in a great country.

Q: You will be speaking at the CHFA the same evening as Percy Schmeiser, I see this as three generations saying that we need to take much better care of our planet. What motivates people in each of these three generations?

A: We have to reclaim continuity between generations. The flow of responsibility of inheriting the world from the past, and handing it to the future. We need equity and a shared vision between all three generations. Youth have everything to lose. We will face environmental and global challenges no other generation has seen before. Yet we need role models, we need our parents’ generation to help show us the way and to support us. And we need our elders to connect us to a not-so-distant past when we were connected to the land in a very real way.

We’ve been separated from the long-term vision that links the present with the future. Media and consumer culture teach us that we need everything now, now, now. We don’t look to the past or the future. If we only live for the present, then we don’t think about what we’re losing, and don’t think about the future. Listen to any elder talk about what it was like and you’ll realize that the world is really changing fast. And today’s youth have no idea what has been compromised, how things have changed. It’s dangerous to lose our frame of reference. We need all three perspectives to find solutions to the challenge of human living.

Q: Our culture does not yet have a wise way for supporting elders to be all they can be. We need to open our society to respecting the old ones and create a process where by their talents and experience can be of service to our communities and planet. What would you see helping this to occur?

A: Why should we value our elders when the media and the way that our society lives, with a focus on money, not community or family, tells us that they are irrelevant? This connects to the previous question about the continuity between generations. I grew up in a house with my grandparents, and realize now how lucky I was. So many Canadians don’t grow up near their grandparents, and therefore don’t have much interaction with older people. That’s a real shame. Kids and elders are natural partners. We should foster this coupling wherever we can. Granddad was always working in the garden, and he still is and I learn a lot by helping him. In a society where kids and elders are spending less and less time outside, and are less and less healthy, I think that if we could get more kids and elders out in the garden working together. Maybe there are programs that encourage this. I hope so

Q: Food is an essential aspect to of our lives. How can you use food as a topic to get people to start questioning what is right and wrong with the way humans treat the environment?

A: Food is where the outside world becomes part of us. It is our physical connection point to our environment. The fact that we don’t recognize that we are physically and chemically connected with our surroundings is testament to how disconnected we are with the basic facts of our environment, and of life. If you want to learn about how you are connected to environmental and social justice issues, just start asking questions about the food that you eat: Where does it come from? Who grew it? How was it grown? How does it get to my plate? What chemicals are in it?

Q: New ideas are not always easily accepted by a society; sometimes they are met with violent opposition. What methods have you found effective in getting new ideas adopted?

A: Well, I’m not sure that I’ve gotten anyone to adopt any of my ideas. But I ask people to ask themselves "What do I believe in?" and to look at how they live. I think that most people believe in good things. But it’s our little acts that make a difference in the world.

Preserve the status quo. Drain the planet’s resources. Maintain economic injustices. Pollute the planet’s atmosphere. Our society is set up so that what we believe and what we do often contradict each other. This makes us very cynical people. Why is it acceptable? I’m asking people to ask themselves what they really believe in, and I’m asking people to dare to be idealistic.

The problems that we are facing today have never been seen before. Climate change? My gods, 100 years ago, who could have imagined this threat? But look at the situation from another angle; never before have human societies been more connected. Never before have we had the technological resources, communication, insight and global awareness that we do today. We have access to so many minds and perspectives and different ways of tackling problems. All the solutions are out there. This is a time of innovation, of problem-solving and positive thinking. We are in an incredible time in human history, when the people of the world are connecting, and human culture as a whole is evolving as one. This is a time for having strong beliefs, for inspiration. It’s a time for celebrating the incredible beauty that is the reason we want to direct the way things are changing. It’s a time to think about what it is to be a human being; about how we want to live. This is an exciting time.

Q: Having seen many areas on this planet, do you see patterns emerging that warn or encourage?

A: Both. Humans are such silly, selfish, greedy, corrupt, vain little creatures, no matter where you go. But we’re also amazing, inspirational, selfless, wise and beautiful animals too. Inspiration is all around us. It really is. Realizing and celebrating what we have is half of the objective. Again and again I am humbled and inspired by people who I meet, and places I have the privilege to see. Sometimes feeling anger and injustice is necessary to be motivated to action. But there’s so much to be grateful for. This world we live in is a pretty incredible place.

Q: Could you discuss your on-going projects and let us know how we can get involved?

A: If you’re still reading this, you’re already involved in shifting our collective awareness. Check out "recognition of responsibility" on our website www.skyfishproject.org

Severn Cullis-Suzuki speaks about what she knows: Environment, ethics, leadership and social issues. She believes that issues of the environment are interconnected with all avenues of life, and inseparable from issues of violence, quality of life and the future. Contact her at www.skyfishproject.org

Severn Cullis-Suzuki and Percy Schmeiser will both be keynote speakers at the Canadian Health Food Association’s public evening presentation titled Taking Responsibility: Influencing Our Future Through Our Food. CHFA Expo West’s event is at 8 pm Thursday, April 22 at Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre, 1-800-661-5319, tickets $15.

Severn will be speaking along with Canadian diplomat Stephen Lewis of the United Nations at The Earth Project symposium called Breaking New Ground, April 28 through May 2 in Vancouver. Lewis, an experienced NDP political leader and passionate humanitarian will deliver a keynote address on Saturday, May 1. Lewis acted as deputy executive director of UNICEF from 1995 to 1999 and was also appointed by the Organization of African Unity to an international panel of eminent personalities to investigate the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. He was named a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest honour for lifetime achievement, in January 2003. Currently, Lewis serves as Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, and recently created the Stephen Lewis Foundation to help ease the pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa.