William Rees,
FRSC (born December 18, 1943), is Professor Emeritus at the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
and former director of the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at UBC.
Rees taught at the University of British Columbia from 1969–70 until his retirement in 2011–12, but has since continued his writing and research. His primary interest is in public policy and planning relating to global environmental trends and the
ecological
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
conditions for
sustainable socioeconomic development. He is the originator of the "
ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
" concept and co-developer of the method.
DR SHAW
William Rees received his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
degree in
population ecology
Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment, such as birth and death rates, and by immigration and emigration.
The discipline is importa ...
from the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
. He founded SCARP's '"Environment and Resource Planning" concentration and from 1994 to 1999 served as director of the School. Rees' book on
ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
analysis, ''Our Ecological Footprint'' (co-authored with then PhD student Dr
Mathis Wackernagel
Mathis Wackernagel is a Swiss-born sustainability advocate. He is President of Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think tank with offices in Oakland, California; Brussels, Belgium, and Geneva, Switzerland. The think-tank ...
), was published in 1996 and is now available in English, Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, and Spanish.
Much of Rees' work is in the realm of
ecological economics and
human ecology
Human ecology is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments. The philosophy and study of human ecology has a diffuse history with advancements in ecology ...
including behavioural and cultural barriers to sustainability. He is best known in these fields for the co-development of
ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
analysis with his then PhD student
Mathis Wackernagel
Mathis Wackernagel is a Swiss-born sustainability advocate. He is President of Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think tank with offices in Oakland, California; Brussels, Belgium, and Geneva, Switzerland. The think-tank ...
. The
ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
is a quantitative tool that estimates humanity's ecological impact on the ecosphere in terms of appropriated ecosystem (land and water) area. This research reveals the fundamental incompatibility between continued material
economic growth
Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy in a financial year. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate of ...
and ecological security, and has helped to reopen debate on human
carrying capacity
The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as t ...
as a consideration in sustainable development.
Academic, policy and research interests
Rees is a founding member and recent past-President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics. He is also a Fellow at the
Post Carbon Institute
Post Carbon Institute (PCI) is a think tank which provides information and analysis on climate change, energy scarcity, and other issues related to sustainability and long term community Resilience (ecology), resilience. Its Fellows specialize in ...
, a co-investigator in the "Global Integrity Project" aimed at defining the ecological and political requirements for
biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
preservation, a founding director of the One Earth Initiative and a Director of the Real Green New Deal project. A dynamic speaker, Rees has been invited to lecture on areas of his expertise across Canada and the US, as well as in Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Indonesia, Italy, Korea, the former Soviet Union, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden and the UK.
Rees' academic interests are in the following subject matter fields:
#Human bio-ecology and the ecological basis of civilization including the role of energy in the expansion/sustainability of the human enterprise.
#Ecological economics: Biophysical realities in resource allocation and distribution
#Global change and the dynamics of societal collapse.
#Why high intelligence (e.g., the capacity for logical thought and reasoning from the evidence) plays so small a role in societal decision-making particularly pertaining to sustainability.
[University of British Columbi]
William E. Rees
School of Community and Regional Planning.
Philosophy
Rees has said that the "
enlightenment
Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to:
Age of Enlightenment
* Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...
project," rooted as it is in
Cartesian dualism Cartesian means of or relating to the French philosopher René Descartes—from his Latinized name ''Cartesius''. It may refer to:
Mathematics
*Cartesian closed category, a closed category in category theory
* Cartesian coordinate system, moder ...
, has resulted in a techno-industrial society that sees itself as somehow separate from the
biophysical
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. Bi ...
world.
This dualism and its expansionary-
materialist
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialis ...
worldview are the basis of many of the "
environmental
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
problems" facing humankind.
[
]
Awards and honours
Most recently Prof Rees has received a Dean's Medal of Distinction (UBC Faculty of Applied Science 2016) and the 2015 Herman Daly Award in Ecological Economics (USSEE). In 2012 he was awarded the 2012 Blue Planet Prize (jointly with Dr Mathis Wackernagel), the 2012 Kenneth Boulding Prize in Ecological Economics (ISEE), and an honorary Doctoral Degree, Laval University. Previously he was a recipient of a 2007 Trudeau Fellowship, an annual prize awarded by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation (french: Fondation Pierre Elliott Trudeau), commonly called the Trudeau Foundation (french: Fondation Trudeau), is an independent and non-partisan Canadian charity founded in 2001 by friends and family of for ...
"...in recognition of outstanding achievement, innovative approaches to issues of public policy and commitment to public engagement", and in 2006 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). Rees was a member of the winning team receiving the City of Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
2004 Award (Multimedia Category) for the exhibition ''Inhabiting the World.'' In 2000, The Vancouver Sun
The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published si ...
recognized him as one of British Columbia's top "public intellectuals." In 1997, UBC awarded William Rees a Senior Killam Research Prize.
Notes
Representative Publications
* Rees, W.E. 2020 “MegaCities at Risk: The Climate–Energy Conundrum”, chapter in: Sorensen, A and Labbe, D (eds.) The International Handbook on Megacities and Megacity Regions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
* Rees, W.E. 2020. “Scorched Earth”, foreword to H. Washington, What Can I do to Help Heal the Environmental Crisis, London: Earthscan (Routledge), p. xxii-xxvi.
* Rees, W.E. 2020 “Ecological economics for humanity’s plague phase”. Ecological Economics 169 (March 2020) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106519
* Rees, W.E. 2019. “Avoiding the ‘Endarkenment’”, foreword to J Bell and J Marlow, Sketches of the History of Science, Montreal: Champlain St-Lambert, p. ix –xi.
* Rees, W.E. 2019 “Why place-based food systems? Food security in a chaotic world”. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 9(Suppl. 1), 5–13. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2019.091.014
* Rees, W.E. 2019 “End Game – The economy as eco-catastrophe and what needs to change”. Real-World Economics Review ( March 2019) at http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue87/Rees87.pdf
* Rees, W.E. 2018. “Planning in the Anthropocene”, Chapter 5 in: M Gunder, A Madinipour and V Watson (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Planning Theory. New York: Routledge.
* Rees, W.E. 2017. “Going Down? Human Nature, Growth and (Un)sustainability,” Chapter 22 in: PA Victor, B Dolter (eds), Handbook on Growth and Sustainability. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
* Rees, W.E. 2013. “Ecological Footprint, Concept of.” In: Levin S.A. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, second edition, Vol. 2: 701–713. Waltham, MA: Academic Press.
* Rees, W.E. 2010. “What’s Blocking Sustainability? Human nature, cognition and denial”. Sustainability: Science, Practice & Policy 6(2):13-25. http://sspp.proquest.com/archives/vol6iss2/1001-012.rees.html (Accessed 18 Dec 2010).
* Rees, W.E. 2010. “True Cost Economics”. Chapter in the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability, Vol 2, The Business of Sustainability. C. Lazlo et al. eds. Berkshire Publishing Group.
* Rees, W.E. 2010 “The Roots of Our Crises: Does Human Nature Drive Us Toward Collapse?” Chapter 6 in: D Lerch (ed), The Community Resilience Reader. Washington, Island Press (for the Post Carbon Institute.)
* Rees, W.E. 2006. "Ecological Footprints and Bio-Capacity: Essential Elements in Sustainability Assessment." Chapter 9 in Jo Dewulf and Herman Van Langenhove (eds) ''Renewables-Based Technology: Sustainability Assessment,'' pp. 143–158. Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons.
* Rees, W.E. 2006. "Why Conventional Economic Logic Won't Protect Biodiversity." Chapter 14 in D.M. Lavigne (ed.). Gaining Ground: In Pursuit of Ecological Sustainability, pp. 207–226. International Fund for Animal Welfare, Guelph, Canada, and the University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.
* Rees, W.E. 2004." Is Humanity Fatally Successful?" Journal of Business Administration and Policy Analysis 30-31: 67-100 (2002–2003).
* Rees, W.E. 2003. "Understanding Urban Ecosystems: An Ecological Economics Perspective." Chapter in Alan Berkowitz et al.eds., ''Understanding Urban Ecosystems.'' New York: Springer-Verlag.
* Rees, W.E. 2002. "Globalization and Sustainability: Conflict or Convergence?" Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 22 (4): 249–268.
* Rees, W.E. 1992. "Ecological Footprints and Appropriated Carrying Capacity: What Urban Economics Leaves Out
Environment and Urbanization 4 (2): 121–130.
* Moore, J and W.E. Rees. 2013. “Getting to One Planet Living”. Chapter 4 in: State of the World 2013 – Is Sustainability Still Possible? Washington, World Watch Institute.
* Kissinger, M. & W.E. Rees. 2010. “An interregional ecological approach for modelling sustainability in a globalizing world—Reviewing existing approaches and emerging directions.” Ecological Modelling 221(21):2615-2623.
* Kissinger, M & W.E. Rees. 2010. “Importing terrestrial biocapacity: The U.S. case and global implications.” Land Use Policy 27: 589–599.
* Kissinger, M & W.E. Rees. 2009. “Footprints on the Prairies: Degradation and Sustainability of Canadian Agriculture in a Globalizing world.” Ecological Economics 68: 2309–2315
* Wackernagel, M. and W. Rees. 1996. ''Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth''. New Society Publishers.
External links
Faculty profiles, School of Community and Regional Planning
Interview of Dr. William Rees
Video of talk for the World Federalist Movement
Vancouver, Canada; April 2010
Address at the Parkland Institute Conference, Edmonton, November 2000.
Post Carbon Institute
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rees, William
Living people
Canadian ecologists
University of Toronto alumni
University of British Columbia faculty
Sustainability advocates
1943 births
Ecological economists
Human ecologists
Environmental planners
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada