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Read: The David Suzuki - Patrick Moore Feud: A History

On the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 9, emergency crews raced to the provincial cabinet offices on the Vancouver waterfront after a receptionist's hands were left tingling from a suspicious powder in a piece of mail. One of the four arriving fire trucks crunched a little red Toyota Yaris, which, in retrospect, was the more interesting part of the adventure. The powder is believed to be a mixture of harmless cooking spices. But the wounded rental vehicle belonged to ethno-botanist Wade Davis, and environmental guru David Suzuki, who had just finished meeting B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell. "Surely this is not a story," said Suzuki, as journalists on the scene recorded his predicament.

It is, actually. It would have been a better tale, mind you, had Suzuki been caught in a gas-guzzling Hummer. But the real news was that Suzuki was even meeting the right-leaning Liberal premier. "Gordon Campbell, I don't think even a year ago would have spoken to me," Suzuki concedes later in an interview. "We were conceived of as an NDP-aligned shop, and I think we've got over that." That, and the fact that the times, they are a-changing.

Campbell — who has pledged to significantly reduce greenhouse gases in B.C. by 2020 — has read which way the globally warmed wind blows, as have many of his fellow premiers. They've undergone, with varying degrees of sincerity, an enviro-conversion of Schwarzeneggeresque proportion. A national poll last week by Angus Reid Strategies is only the latest to show the environment in a tie with health care as "the most important issue facing Canada today," and the greatest concern by far among Canadians under 35. Environmentalism, says Reid, "is the new religion." If so, Suzuki is its high priest. He stars in humorous energy conservation TV ads playing in Ontario, and is a fixture at Premier Dalton McGuinty's environmental announcements — to the dismay of some hard-core greens. The Quebec and Manitoba governments have sought his advice on climate change. He's one of the luminaries in Leonardo DiCaprio's environmental documentary, The 11th Hour.

In the past six months alone, Suzuki has shared the stage four times with Al Gore, an environmental ally of some 20 years. That would be Al Gore: co-winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change crusade. Suzuki is Canada's Gore. Or Gore is America's Suzuki — the point is moot, as far as Suzuki is concerned. He'd been laying off bets for weeks that Gore would snag at least a share of the award. "It's a great thing," says Suzuki of the credibility lent to the issue by the world's most prestigious prize. "Despite what a few dinosaurs are saying, it's the nail in the coffin of [climate change] skeptics. Now, the challenge is to get on with it." The poles are melting, species are vanishing, the world is going to hell in a handbasket; it's a great time to be David Suzuki.

Corporations like Wal-Mart are banging down the door of the Vancouver-based David Suzuki Foundation as never before, seeking advice and the green glow of Suzuki's environmental credibility — again, to the alarm of some of Suzuki's allies. And Suzuki, as recently as last week, sought the guidance of billionaire business giant Jimmy Pattison on ways to exploit the crisis of opportunity that engulfs his own organization, and many other enviro groups. Though Suzuki didn't reveal the agenda of their meeting, Pattison says the Suzuki foundation is looking to raise $30 million, the first half of a whopping $60-million endowment. "They were in here getting my opinion of how they might get the right people to accomplish getting that done," says Pattison, who has in turn had Suzuki speak numerous times to his corporate managers. "David Suzuki was, at one time, a voice in the wilderness, but now more and more people have bought into his message," says Pattison. "Almost everybody is focused on being more green."

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