Editing David Suzuki (section)

==Climate change activism==

Image:David Suzuki Kyoto Rally.JPG|thumb|right|At the 2007 Global Day of Action event in Vancouver, B.C.. The sign in the background refers to the Greater Vancouver Gateway Program.

In recent years, Suzuki has been a forceful spokesperson on global climate change, not always without controversy.  In February 2008, he urged McGill University students to speak out against politicians who fail to act on climate change, stating "What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there's a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they're doing is a criminal act."

Suzuki is unequivocal that climate change is a very real and pressing problem and that an "overwhelming majority of scientists" now agree that human activity is responsible. The David Suzuki Foundation website has a clear statement of this: 

<blockquote>The debate is over about whether or not climate change is real. Irrefutable evidence from around the world - including extreme weather events, record temperatures, retreating glaciers, and rising sea levels - all point to the fact climate change is happening now and at rates much faster than previously thought.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The consensus includes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, consisting of over 2,000 scientists from 100 countries. The findings of the panel have been approved by the National academy of each of the G8 countries, along with those of China, India and Brazil.</blockquote>

Suzuki says that despite this growing consensus, many in the public and the media seemed doubtful about the science for many years. The reason for the confusion about climate change, in Suzuki's view, was due to a well-organized campaign of disinformation about the science involved. "A very small band of critics" denies that climate change exists and that humans are the cause.  These climate change “skeptics” or "deniers," Suzuki claims, tend not to be climate scientists and do not publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals but rather target the media, the general public, and policy makers. Their goal: "delaying action on climate change." According to Suzuki, the skeptics have received significant funding from coal and oil companies, including ExxonMobil. Suzuki says that they are linked to "industry-funded lobby groups to - in the words of one Information Council on the Environment 'reposition global warming as theory (not fact).'"