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eco-warrior terry glavin never considered himself an environmental heretic. Eco friends on the West Coast are wondering, though, ever since the National Post cast him as the protagonist in a nasty slag of the granddaddy of the environmental movement himself, David Suzuki.The occasion was the recent release of Glavin’s book, The Last Great Sea: A Voyage Through The Human And Natural History Of The North Pacific.
It posits that the hell-in-a-handbasket scenario being painted by most environmentalists, presumably Suzuki included, is nothing more than the flaky drivel of “cosmologists” who ignore science. “SUV environmentalists,” Glavin calls them.
It’s just the kind of story the Post loves to print to bolster its anti-eco bent. And it didn’t take long for the fallout, or complimentary phone calls from right-wing think tanks like the Fraser Institute, to reach Glavin’s secluded digs in the Gulf Islands.
Glavin now says the Post article gave “a wholly wrong impression.” In fact, he agrees with most of Suzuki’s eco theories, but feels most eco activists share a simplistic view of the world. “Holy shit,” was his reaction when he read the headline, “Terry Glavin’s great green heresy.”
“I did not intend to become some strange, controversial Weibo Ludwig of the Gulf Islands,” Glavin says. “The only firm opinion I have is that the tide goes out, the tide comes in again. The last thing I wanted to do is become unwitting cannon fodder in somebody’s attempts to dismiss Dr. Suzuki’s credibility.”
Was Glavin misconstrued or used ?
Alex Rose, the Vancouver-based freelancer who wrote the piece, says he was pleased with the Post’s editing.
But he becomes snippy when prodded on the matter. “What do you want me to say, that the Post are all right-wing bastards?”
