Skip to main content

David Suzuki Got Copenhagenized

The Nature of Things
It's not every day you get a legendary environmentalist with a rock star status visiting town, but last week Copenhagenize/Copenhagen Cycle Chic were quite pleased to have hosted David Suzuki, his daughter Sarika and a film crew from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. [CBC].
The Nature of Things
David Suzuki, 72, hosts Canada's longest running documentary programme The Nature of Things. He is in Europe filming an hour-long programme on sustainability in Europe and Copenhagen's bike culture will feature prominently. We spent two days cycling around the city, with me leading Suzuki and his daugther, Sarika, on a tour of our bike culture. The goal of the programme, he said, is to highlight how far behind Canada is compared to European countries with regards to sustainability and to encourage Canadians to wake up and smell the renewable energy.

Suzuki is a scientist and environmentalist and if you're in Canada, Japan or Australia, you've probably heard of him. When we were down in the touristy areas, like near the Little Mermaid, Canadians and Aussies kept coming up to say hi. The man is an inspiration. He is so passionate about his work and he is constantly hungry for knowledge. It is worth having a look at the website for his David Suzuki Foundation. He was completely amazed at Copenhagen's bike culture and by all accounts he hopes to get on board the bike advocate train when he gets home. He'll be an amazing advocate for bike culture and separated bike infrastructure in Canadian cities.
The Nature of Things
Most of the filming was done on bikes, of course. We had three bikes for me, David Suzuki and Sarika Suzuki and were followed by two rickshaws carrying the camera and sound boys as well as the director. The guys from Baisikeli provided a cargo bike, as well, from which some shots were filmed. There was also a quick tour out to the IKEA store that has launched the bike and trailer concept with Velorbis bikes - as you can see in the first photo. It's amazing how many people have picked up on that story since we broke it here on Copenhagenize. Everyone speaks IKEA, I suppose.
The Nature of Things Crew
After two days of filming in Copenhagen, the CBC crew moved on to Berlin, travelling throughout Europe by train, of course. On the last day he gave an autograph to a Canadian who lives here and wrote "I'm Copenhagenized...". We're pleased he had a good time. Look forward to the programme's premiere in, I believe, October.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

7550 New Bike Parking Spots at Copenhagen Central Station

For all of Copenhagen's badassness as a bicycle city, there remains one thing that the City still completely sucks at. Bicycle parking at train stations. At Copenhagen Central Station there are only about 1000 bike parking spots. Danish State Railways can't even tell us how many spots they have. They're not sure. Even in Basel they have 800+. In Antwerp they have this . Don't even get me started on the Dutch. 12,500 bike parking spots are on the way in some place called Utrecht . Amsterdam has a multi-story bike parking facility, floating bicycle barges round the back and are planning 7000 more spots underwater . Even at the nation's busiest train station, Nørreport, the recent and fancy redesign failed miserably in providing parking that is adequate for the demand . Architects once again failing to respond to actual urban needs. It is time to remedy that. Here is my design for 7550 bike parking spots behind Copenhagen Central Station. Steve C. Montebello i...
Read more

The New Question for 21st Century Cities

It's all so simple if we want it to be. For almost a century we have been asking the same question in our cities. "How many cars can we move down a street?" It's time to change the question. If you ask "How many PEOPLE can we move down a street?", the answer becomes much more modern and visionary. And simple. Oh, and cheaper. Let alone the fact that the model at the top can move 10 times more people down a street than the model at the bottom. When I travel with my Bicycle Urbanism by Design keynote , I often step on the toes of traffic engineers all around the world. Not all of them, however. I am always approached by engineers who are grateful that someone is questioning the unchanged nature of traffic engineering and the unmerited emphasis placed on it. I find it brilliant that individual traffic engineers in six different nations have all said the same thing to me: "We're problem solvers. But we're only ever asked to solve the sam...
Read more

The Race for Lithium for Electric Cars and Bicycles

Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia. Photo: Ezequiel Cabrera/Wikipedia The coming boom in batteries to electric cars and Lazy Bikes (electric-assist bicycles) means a boom in batteries with which to run them. A new race for natural resources has begun. Enter Lithium, the world's lightest metal. For 150 years it's been nickel and lead that have been used in batteries but the advent of lithium technology has allowed for a revolution. Longer battery life, lighter batteries in our laptaps and mobile phones and iPods. Lithium weighs 1/20th of what nickel and lead do. Lithium is also used in anti-depressive medicine, ceramics and nuclear power. With all this talk of electric cars and bicycles, the demand for lithium is on the verge of exploding. Lithium is the new oil. Enter Boliva. This developing country sits on at least half of the world's supply of lithium, most of it in underground salt layers beneath the world's largest salt flats in Salar de Uyuni , in south-west Boliva. Betwee...
Read more