The Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar Series

Dr. William Rees October 13, 2000

On Friday, October 13th, the Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar Series presented their fourth speaker, Dr. William Rees, in a seminar entitled "Our Ecological Footprint:  When Consumption Does Violence".  William Rees received his Ph.D. in population ecology from the University of Toronto and has taught at the University of British Columbia's School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) since 1970.  He founded SCARP's  'Environment and Resource Planning' stream and served as it's director from 1994 until 1999.  Dr. Rees'  teaching and research focus on the public policy and planning implications of global environmental trends and the necessary ecological conditions for sustainable socioeconomic development.  He was awarded a UBC Killam Research Prize in 1997 in acknowledgment of his research achievements.  Following is a précis of Dr. Rees' talk.

Western science and western thought have generally been informed by Cartesian dualism for the past two centuries. This dualism, which views man as distinct and separate from his environment, seriously influences our behavior with respect to the rest of physical 'reality'. For example most academic disciplines, including economics and ecology tend to treat human activity and 'the environment' as separate domains – most economists deal almost exclusively with the humans, all but ignoring the economy of nature; most academic ecologists study non-human organisms, all but ignoring 'man'. Even in environmental economics, the environment serves merely as a source of resources for, and a sink for waste from the economy. Importantly, our concept of 'the environment' is very much a social construct, a product of mind more than of nature. Remember, while we cannot, by definition, be part of the environment, humans are very much a part of every ecosystem they exploit.

Dualistic perception is worsened by technological hubris. Technological hubris has pervaded the field of environmental economics since its inception. For example Nobel Laureate economist Robert Solow is noted for his work on the notion that "if other factors can substitute for natural resources, the world can, in effect, get along without natural resources." In effect, what has become known as the principle of 'near-perfect substitution' would free the economy from biophysical constraints enabling it to expand indefinitely. Absolute confidence in human ingenuity and technology is one of the factors contributing to today's near total emphasis globally on economic growth as the route to both socioeconomic and ecological sustainability.  In short, the prevailing global development paradigm equates human welfare with income growth – independent ecological and social factors hardly enter the equation.

We seem to have forgotten, however, that this  is actually bad economics.  Sound economic theory would have us maximize welfare, while recognizing that growth in production/consumption is but one factor of many in the mix.  Life qualities such as a healthy environment, natural beauty, stable communities, safe neighborhoods, economic security, social justice, a sense of belonging, and others, all contribute to human well-being. A rational person would obviously be willing to forgo his/her next increment of income growth (i.e., would be willing to forgo a little additional material consumption) if it meant obtaining even greater value in terms these largely 'public goods' through, for example, improved public services. The resultant increase in social welfare implies sound economics.

All this is by way of say that the extreme form of market economics that dominates today is actually a perversion of sound economic theory. Thus, by basing international development on an economic model that equates human welfare with income growth, the international community has abandoned moral and ethical considerations, ignores distributive inequity, has weakened protection of 'the common good', and has helped to undermine intangible values such as loyalty to person and place, community, self-reliance and local cultural mores.  One result of the new 'economism' is that the 'income gap' between the richest and poorest twenty percent of humanity has increased from 30:1 to about 80:1 since 1960.  Moreover, the economism-as-development paradigm destroys ecosystems, impoverishes the planet, diminishes the human spirit, and is beginning to visit violence upon poor communities.

Ecological holism presents an alternative to dualism and is the perspective adopted by 'ecological economics'.  In this view, the economy is seen as an open, growing, and wholly dependent subsystem of a materially-closed, non-growing, finite, ecosphere. (The notion of a separate 'environment' disappears.) Net inputs to the ecosphere are limited to solar energy, and outputs to heat loss. (The ecosphere is effectively materially closed.) The growth of the economic sub-system is therefore ultimately constrained by rates of production in the ecosphere and by the assimilative capacity of the ecosphere (Earth is a finite planet.) These constraints can be eased by technology (including reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling) but not eliminated.

Ecologically speaking, even pre-agricultural humans were 'macro-consumers', in that they depended on other organisms which they consumed to satisfy their metabolic needs. As large social mammals humans are also 'patch disturbers', animals that greatly disturb a central home area via 'central place foraging' and more moderately perturb a much greater area away from the core. As we shall see, both these attributes of early humans have been greatly extended by agriculture and technology. Humans are still very much a part of nature, but in accounting for the human ecological presence on Earth, we now also have to include the material and energy demands of both our biological and our industrial metabolisms and for the extended foraging for resources of all kinds made possible by fossil energy and machine technology.

To understand human ecology and our domination of the earth requires an appreciation of certain unique characteristics of the species. The human enterprise has expanded relentlessly because

1. humans occupy an increasingly wide food niche from pure carnivory to obligate herbivory;
2. humans are uniquely adaptable using technology, enabling us to exploit virtually every habitat on Earth;
3. we have complex language enabling the formation of abstract ideas and plans, and
4. our knowledge and technology are cumulative.  These qualities have made humans uniquely successful in exploiting virtually all the ecosystems on the planet. However, in 'growing' the human enterprise we necessarily displace other species from their food and habitat niches, eliminate other species that compete with us for food and resources, and deplete stocks of both self-producing and depletable "natural capital".

In short, on a finite planet, the second law of thermodynamics poses an absolute contradiction between continued growth of the human population/economic infrastructure and the conservation of nature (particularly biodiversity). Energy and material flows extracted from global totals to support humans are irreversibly unavailable to other species.

A few years ago I developed with my graduate students what is, in effect, a measure of the per capita modern human "patch". We call this estimate the human 'ecological footprint'. The ecological footprint of a specified population is the area of land and water ecosystems required to produce the resources that the population consumes, and to assimilate the wastes that the population produces, wherever on Earth the relevant land and water may be located. The ecological footprints of residents of high-income countries range between four and ten+ hectares per capita.  Consequently, the ecological footprints of high income cities are typically hundreds of times larger than their political or geographic areas and many countries have eco-footprints several times larger than their domestic territories.

Given that there are about nine billion productive hectares of land on the planet, and over six billion humans, we might equitably claim a footprint of one and a half hectares per person, plus about one half hectare of productive water area.  Without taking into consideration the area required to sustain other species, a well-managed two hectares per capita is the maximum sustainable human ecological footprint. Unfortunately, the present average is over 2.6 hectares and the global ecological footprint of humanity currently exceeds the global carrying capacity by about four billion hectares.  Proof of this 'overshoot' is the stuff of daily headlines – deforestation, fish-stock collapses, soil erosion, falling water tables, climate change, etc. We are living high on the hog now, but as the human industrial machine depletes resources and permanently degrades the ecosphere, we are reducing the future long-term carrying capacity of the planet. Eco-footprinting clearly poses a challenge to those who assume the developing world (plus an expected 3-4 billion additional people) can achieve at least 1990's European material standards by 2040.

The case can be made that the overwhelming material demand of northern consumers is the source of most waste and pollution and the 'forcing mechanism' for any human-induced global ecological change.  The wealthiest 20% of the human family are responsible for up to 86% of private consumption. Industrial economies are responsible for more than ninety percent of the 350 million metric tons of hazardous waste produced globally each year.  The cities of the first-world alone account for sixty-five percent of the world's resource use and waste production. Moreover, past the limits of biophysical carrying capacity (a situation in which we now find ourselves) the cumulative effect of routine acts of non-essential consumption can result in violent harm to the poor and racial minorities.

Most of the damage from human-induced ecological degradation occurs in the Third World, where people are more exposed to, and less well-equipped both financially and physically, to cope with 'natural' disasters.  Ninety-six percent of all deaths from environmental violence occur in the developing world.  City dwellers may be the most vulnerable – in the mid 1990's, twenty-five percent of urban residents in the developing world had no access to safe potable water and fifty percent lacked adequate sewage facilities and nearly two billion more people will crowd into ill-prepared cities in the Third World over the next three decades.

The problem is not confined to the developing south. Even in the US, the geographic distribution of air pollution, contaminated waters, toxic waste sites and landfills all correlate strongly with the distribution of both racial minorities and poverty, although the correlation with race is much stronger than with income. Moreover, the record shows that rich neighborhoods are being better served by environmental law and regulatory agencies than less advantaged ones. Evidently, even in these allegedly enlightened times, and during a period when the rate of wealth creation has never been greater, 'eco-apartheid' is an established reality both between the North and South and within wealthy countries.

Once we have raised to collective consciousness the link between consumption, pollution and eco-violence, society has a moral obligation to view such violence in the appropriate light. Not acting to reduce or prevent eco-injustice converts erstwhile blameless consumer choices into acts of virtual aggression. Certainly such negligent conduct would not be tolerated within states. In Canada, for example, negligence law focuses on compensation for losses caused by unintentional but unreasonable conduct.  In this context, unreasonable conduct is taken to mean:  the omission to do something which a reasonable person would do, or doing something that a prudent, reasonable person would not do.  In short, fault may be found even in the case of unintended harm if the latter results from careless or unreasonable conduct.  In the case of environmental negligence, the plaintiff must establish five key elements of the tort - legal duty, breach of the standard of care, cause in fact, proximate cause, and damage to the plaintiff.

Now, eco-violence certainly damages the plaintiff.  The links between careless consumption and eco-violence are becoming established.  Failure to act responsibly on the part of offending nations would seem to breach any reasonable standard of care.  What is missing in international law is acknowledgment of the offense and the political will to create and enforce a legal duty to act.  To extend the moral logic, if human-induced climate change is a cause of death and destruction, then are not countries like Canada and the US guilty of "wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons", in, for example, their failure to act effectively to reduce their profligate fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions?

Eco-violence on a macro-scale is already a fact.  In 1998, a record number of natural disasters drove 25 million "environmental refugees" from the land and their homes into shanty towns throughout the developing world.  This is 58% of all refugees, more than generated by war and civil strife combined.  In 1999, a single record storm packing winds of 300 km per hour struck the eastern Indian state of Orissa killing at least 8500 people and leaving 13 million homeless.  The remaining question is to what extent are such events caused or exacerbated by human activity. The International Red Cross apparently thinks they are, predicting that Third World countries will continue to be hit by as series of super-disasters driven by human induced atmospheric and climatic change, ecological degradation, and rising population pressures. Should this prediction prove true, the international community will soon have to address the moral dilemma posed by today's gross economic inequity and increasing eco-apartheid by means other than sheer economic growth.
 

Biography

William Rees received his PhD in population ecology from the University of Toronto and has taught at the University of British Columbia's School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) since 1969-70. He founded SCARP's 'Environment and Resource Planning' program and from 1994 to 1999 served as director of the School. Professor Rees' teaching and research focus on the public policy and planning implications of global environmental trends and the necessary ecological conditions for sustainable socioeconomic development. Much of this work is in the realm of human ecology and ecological economics where Professor Rees is best known for his 'ecological footprint' concept. (Ecological footprint analysis estimates humanity's impact on the ecosphere in terms of the area of productive land and water ecosystems effectively appropriated from nature to satisfy human demand. Eco-footprinting has helped to reopen the debate on human carrying capacity.) Professor Rees is a founding member and recent past-President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics and continues to serve on its executive board. He is also currently a co-investigator in the 'Global Integrity Project,' aimed at defining the ecological and political requirements for biodiversity preservation. Professor Rees has been invited to lecture on these topics across Canada and the US, as well as in Australia, Austria, China, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Indonesia, Italy, Korea, Japan, the former Soviet Union, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden and the UK. William Rees was awarded a UBC Killam Research Prize in 1997 in acknowledgment of his research achievements.

List of articles and books by Dr. William E. Rees

Compiled in support of an Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar, held in Hull on October 13, 2000.

1. Fenge, T. & Rees, W.E. Hinterland or homeland ? Land-use planning in Northern Canada. Ottawa : Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, 1987.
   
   
2. Gardner, J.E., Boothroyd, P. & Rees, W.E. The role of environmental assessment in promoting sustainable development : three views. Vancouver, B.C. : School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, 1988.
   
   
3. Holling, C.S., Rees, W.E. & Maini, J.S. Challenges for environmental science into the 21st century. Hull, QC : Office of the Science Advisor, Environment Canada, 1993.
   
   
4. Rawson Academy of Aquatic Science, Rees, W.E., Boothroyd, P. & Gamble, D.J. Background paper on EARP reform : activities. Vancouver, B.C. : School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, 1987.
   Notes: Prepared for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Research Council.
   
   
5. Rees, W.E. The Canada Land Inventory Program : a conceptual framework for regional land-use planning. Vancouver, B.C. : Centre for Continuing Education, University of British Columbia, 1973.
   
   
6. Rees, W.E. The Canada Land Inventory in perspective. Hull, QC : Fisheries and Environment Canada, Lands Directorate, 1977. Report # 12.
   
   
7. Rees, W.E. Inventaire des terres du Canada en perspective. Hull, QC : Pêches et Environnement Canada, Direction générale des terres, 1977. Rapport no 12.
   
   
8. Rees, W.E. Environmental assessment of hydrocarbon production from the Canadian Beaufort Sea. Vancouver, B. C. : University of British Columbia, School of Community and Regional Planning, 1984.
   
   
9. Rees, W.E. Norman Wells impact funding : boon or bust ? Canadian Public Administration = Administration publique du Canada (1989) 32 (1) : 104-123.
   
   
10. Rees, W.E., (ed.) & Bailey, S. (co-ed.) ... et al. Planning for sustainable development : a resource book. Vancouver, B.C. : UBC Centre for Human Settlements, 1989.
    Notes: Proceedings of a Symposium held Nov. 1988.
    
    
11. Rees, W.E. The ecology of sustainable development. Ecologist (1990) 20 (1) : 18-23.
    
    
12. Rees, W.E. Atmospheric change : human ecology in desequilibrium. International Journal of Environmental Studies (1990) 36 (1/2) : 103-124.
    
    
13. Rees, W.E. Sustainable development as capitalism with a green face : a review article. Town Planning Review (1990) 61 (1) : 91-94.
    Notes: Review of Blueprint for a green economy : a report for the UK Dept. of the Environment by D. Pearce, A. Markandya and E. B. Barbier. London : Earthscan, 1989.
    
    
14. Rees, W.E. Cumulative environmental assessment and global change. Environmental Impact Assessment Review (1995) 15 (4) : 295-309.
    
    
15. Rees, W.E. More jobs, less damage : a framework for sustainability, growth and employment. Alternatives (1995) 21 (4) : 24-30.
    
    
16. Rees, W.E. Taxing combustion and rehabilitating forests : achieving sustainability, growth and employment through energy policy. Alternatives (1995) 21 (4) : 31-35.
    
    
17. Rees, W.E. & Wackernagel, M. Urban ecological footprints : why cities cannot be sustainable, and why they are a key to sustainability. Environmental Impact Assessment Review (1996) 16 (4) : 223-248.
    
    
18. Wackernagel, M. & Rees, W.E. Our ecological footprint : reducing human impact on the earth. Gabriola Island, B.C. : New Society, 1996. -- (The New catalyst bioregional series).
    
    
19. Wackernagel, M. & Rees, W.E. Perceptual and structural barriers to investing in natural capital: economics from an ecological footprint perspective. Ecological Economics (1997) 20 (1) : 3-24.