Overshoot & Climate Change with William Rees

In this Climate Chat episode, we discuss the issue of ecological footprint overshoot and climate change with Professor William E. Rees. William Rees is a bio-ecologist, ecological economist, former Director and Professor Emeritus of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. His early research focused on environmental assessment but gradually extended to the biophysical requirements for sustainability and the implications of global ecological trends. Along the way, he developed a special interest in modern cities as ‘dissipative structures’ and therefore as particularly vulnerable components of the total human ecosystem. Rees is perhaps best known as the originator and co-developer (with his graduate students) of ecological footprint analysis—the expanding human eco-footprint is arguably the world’s best-known indicator of the (un)sustainability of techno-industrial society. His book on eco-footprinting (co-authored with his former PhD student, Mathis Wackernagel) has been published in eight languages, including Chinese. Rees is also author of over 150 peer reviewed papers and numerous popular articles on sustainability science and policy. (And sometimes the lack of policy—his recent writing focuses on biological, neuro-cognitive and socially-constructed barriers to progress.) Prof Rees’ academic work has been widely recognized. He has served on numerous advisory committees and lectured by invitation in 30 countries. Rees is a founding member and former President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a founding Director of the One Earth Initiative; and a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2006 and, in 2007, was awarded a prestigious Trudeau Foundation Fellowship. In 2012, Prof Rees received an Honorary Doctorate from Laval University, the Boulding Prize in Ecological Economics and a Blue Planet Prize (jointly with Dr Wackernagel). He was elected a full member of the Club of Rome in 2014. Dr. Rees' Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._Rees Dr. Rees' University of British Columbia page: https://news.ubc.ca/expert/william-rees/ ---------------- Dan Miller has been giving talks around the world on the need for urgent climate action for over 20 years. He is co-founder of The Roda Group, a climate-tech venture capital group, and he serves as an advisor for other climate funds and climate-focused non-profit groups. He started Climate Chat in 2021 on Clubhouse and added YouTube in 2023. Follow Dan Miller on X/Twitter: @danmiller999 Follow Dan Miller on Bluesky: @danmiller999.bsky.social and @climatechat.bsky.social Follow Stacey Randecker on X/Twitter: @DrivingMzStacey and Bluesky: @bikingmzstacey.bsky.social Follow Eli Rabani on X/Twitter: @radsci and Bluesky: @radsci.bsky.social To join the Zoom discussion, visit Dan's Clubhouse room. The Clubhouse link is provided in Dan's Twitter and Bluesky feeds. You can also leave a question in the YouTube Live chat. Please begin your question with "Question:" to make it easy for our mods to spot it. For more Climate Chat episodes, see our YouTube home page: https://www.youtube.com/@climatechat For recent YouTube Live Climate Chat programs: https://www.youtube.com/@climatechat/streams