Speaker
William Rees PhD, FRSC
Professor Emeritus and former Director
University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning in Vancouver, Canada
William Rees is a population ecologist, ecological economist, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning in Vancouver, Canada. He researches the implications of global ecological trends for the longevity of civilization, with special foci on urban (un)sustainability and cultural/cognitive barriers to rational public policy. Prof Rees is best known as the originator and co-developer with his former student, Dr Mathis Wackernagel of ‘ecological footprint analysis’ (EFA), a quantitative tool that estimates human demands on ecosystems and the extent to which humanity is in ‘ecological overshoot.’ He has authored hundreds of peer reviewed and popular articles on these and related topics. Dr Rees is a founding member and former President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a founding Director of the One Earth Living Initiative (https://www.oneearthliving.org/); a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute and an Associate Fellow of the Great Transition Initiative. Internationally recognized, Prof Rees was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2006; received both the international Boulding Memorial Prize in Ecological Economics and a Blue Planet Prize (jointly with Dr Mathis Wackernagel) in 2012; the Herman Daly Award (in ecological economics) in 2015 and the Dean’s Medal of Distinction (UBC Faculty of Applied Science) in 2016. He was a full member of the Club of Rome from 2014-2019.
Abstract
The international community is focused on climate change as the existential threat to human civilization. This focus is misdirected. Climate change is indeed a horrific problem, but is only one symptom of a greater truly existential threat, ecological overshoot. Overshoot means that humans and their ecological footprints exceed global carrying capacity: modern H. sapiens is depleting even renewable/replenishible resources faster than biophysical systems can regenerate and dumping entropic waste in excess of natural assimilation rates. (CO2 emissions constitute the largest industrial waste by weight.) Overshoot is a meta-problem. It is the cause of climate change and numerous co-symptoms including plunging biodiversity, ocean acidification, tropical deforestation, landscape/soil degradation, falling sperm counts, the contamination of food supplies and the pollution of everything else, i.e., virtually all other so-called environmental problems. Both rising incomes (consumption) and growing populations inflate the human eco-footprint, but population growth is the larger factor at the margin. (Egregious and widening inequality is a separate socio-political problem.) Mainstream approaches to alleviating climate change will not only not fix the climate but actually reinforce the status quo, i.e., they represent ‘business-as-usual-by-alternative-means.’ This is counter-productive, as overshoot is ultimately a terminal condition. Humanity is nearing the peak of a one-off population cycle; if uncontrolled, the current boom phase will end in chaotic bust. The continuity of civilisation requires a cooperative, planned contraction of both the material economy and human populations, beginning with a personal to civilizational transformation of the fundamental values, beliefs, assumptions, attitudes and behaviours underpinning neoliberal/capitalist industrial society.
Recording