It isn't often David Suzuki addresses a business crowd but at Montreal's fifth summit on innovation his message was all business.
The environmental crusader spoke plainly: continually striving for economic growth is suicide.
"All this stuff about growth, we've got to have more, is accelerating on a suicidal path," said Suzuki.
"Some things are more important than money. The battle is not about money or the economy. It's about deeper issues."
He told the sold-out crowd that 30 years of environmentalism has not worked, and said if delegates to the international climate change conference in Paris, COP21, approach it the same way as has been done in the past nothing will happen.
"There can be no economy if we have no ecology," said Suzuki.
"We elevate the economy above the very atmosphere that keeps us alive."
He believes there is reason for optimism now that the Harper government is gone.
Suzuki said the Conservative Party has been willfully blind to climate change, and pointed out that the United States and China have publicly declared their intent to clean up the atmosphere.
"That is absolutely huge."
As he wrapped up his speech he urged the crowd to look at what they need as humans -- and not just as consumers -- in order for them, and their children, to survive.
