Science Matters: If I were Prime Minister

David Suzuki's February 16th Science Matters column is called Internet Can Bring Communities Together.

There are now hundreds of "If I were Prime Minister" videos up on the tour website (www.davidsuzuki.org). Some are silly. Some are inspiring. Some are familiar faces and others complete strangers. But they are all Canadians who have ideas on what our politicians can do to make Canada a world leader in sustainability.

*snip*

The videos are one way to do that. At each event, young Simon, our videographer, is there ready to record clips of people expressing the kinds of changes they would make if they were prime minister. Sometimes people are shy, but more often than not, Simon is practically mobbed by people wanting to express their opinions. That's especially true of the realityTV generation, who has been raised under the blinking light of a camcorder and has few reservations about talking to one.

*snip*

What we need now is to rationalize our economy with ecological reality. This means we need to shift our economy to be cleaner and smarter. We need to stop subsidizing polluting industries. We need to create targets and timelines to reduce pollution to levels that do not jeopardize our natural systems. It means our environment, not our economy must be the real bottom line.

You can catch the tour blog, podcasts, celebrity videos, with the tour home page here. There are an astonishing 268 videos on the YouTube group.