William Rees discussing the disconnect between economics and ecology.

Yesterday, I wrote about Paul Gilding’s book The Great Disruption.  In a sense today’s article continues the theme; the idea that the future is going to be very different to the past, indeed has to be if mankind is to have a viable future.

Dr. William Rees is Professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning.  More details of Dr. Rees here.

Here’s a 17-minute video interview of Dr. Rees with Thomas Bernes, Executive Director, CIGI.

That interview is carried on the website of the Institute of New Economic Thinking from where one can read the introduction, thus,

The world economy is depleting the earth’s natural resources, and economists cling to models that make no reference whatsoever to the biophysical basis that underpins the economy. That’s why ecological economics is needed, says William Rees in this INET interview.

Standard economics portrays the economy as a circular flow: households pay money to firms in exchange for goods and services, and firms pay wages to households in exchange for labor. Textbooks describe this circular flow as self-perpetuating, capable of infinite expansion. William Rees argues that the textbooks get it wrong; he says the production of our goods and services depends on the extraction of material from ecosystems, causing resource depletion on the one hand, and excess pollution on the other.

William Rees, best known in ecological economics as the originator and co-developer of ‘ecological footprint analysis’, says the United States is using four or five times its fair share of the world’s total bio-capacity. In order to bring just the present world population up to the material standards enjoyed by North Americans, we would need the biophysical equivalent of about three additional planet earths.

There has been no time in history where income growth hasn’t been accompanied by increased material and energy consumption, Rees cautions. He says technologies exist that would enable us to enjoy our current lifestyles with perhaps as little as 20 percent of our current energy and material consumption, but we do not have the incentives in place to force that decoupling to take place.

Rees is as pessimistic on current culture and politics as he is optimistic on the technology. The global culture remains in denial, and people with vested interests in the status quo wield enormous power.

Want more from Dr. Rees?  Over at the website West Coast Climate Equity is an eight-part series where Dr. Rees sets out the proposition that humanity’s survival depends on an 80% reduction in energy use.

Finally, on the Post Carbon Institute website there’s a link to an audio speech given by Dr. Rees summarised as follows.

Bill Rees speech to Vancouver World Federalist meeting on Radio Ecoshock Show
This is a speech by Dr. Bill Rees delivered April 15th at the World Federalist meeting in Vancouver.  It goes a long way to explaining why we fail to act, even as the facts become clear and indisputable.  He covers the three brain theory, the limits of evolution, memes, Peak Oil, and cultural myths, plus some thoughts on solutions – mostly contraction and convergence.  Rees is one of the few academics more or less calling for a planned economic collapse.

The 53 minute speech is featured in this week’s Radio Ecoshock show, broadcast by 20 college and community radio stations in the U.S. and Canada, plus Green 960 AM in San Francisco.

The URL includes a link to download a transcript.