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On the verge of turning 80, David Suzuki gave an interview last week. In addition to promoting his latest causes, he defended his extensive jet travel and ownership of multiple properties.

He flies a lot because he has to, he explained. He’d prefer not to, but there’s no reasonable alternative. To ease his conscience he buys green offsets. “I contribute to putting green energy in continents like Africa. This is just to compensate for what I’ve put out,” he said. As for the multiple properties: he needs the money to fund his lifestyle, after pulling his retirement pension out of the University of British Columbia over its investment policies.

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[np_storybar title=”David Suzuki on turning 80, his activist failures and the critics of his frequent flights around the world” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/david-suzuki-on-turning-80-his-activist-failures-and-the-critics-of-his-frequent-flights-around-the-world”]

I pulled my retirement money out of the University of British Columbia when I learned that the pension was investing in things like weapons, coal and other things that I didn’t want to support. And so, in order to have any kind of investment, I’ve bought a few pieces of property, which are my pension, basically. I don’t apologize for the fact that I own property.[/np_storybar]