September 19, 2006
William Rees to discuss Iowa's ecological footprint
The Canadian researcher who helped develop ecological footprint analysis will
discuss Iowa's ecological sustainability during a lecture at Iowa State
University.
William Rees, professor and former director of the School of Community and Regional
Planning at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, will present "Iowa's
Ecological Footprint" at 8 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 28, in the Gallery Room
of the Memorial Union. His visit is sponsored by the ISU Bioethics Program,
the Iowa Environmental Council, and the ISU Committee on Lectures (funded by
GSB).
Rees is best known for his work on ecological footprint analysis, a tool that
provides a way to estimate the environmental impact of a human population, and
to determine the extent of that population's dependency on resource imports
from elsewhere. His book on this topic, Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing
Human Impact on the Earth, co-authored with Mathis Wackernagel, was published
in 1995.
An ecological footprint is the measure of how much land and water area a human
population needs to sustain itself and to absorb its wastes, given current technology.
This approach has won wide acceptance as an effective method of summarizing
the human impact on the planet, of everything from food production and land
use, to greenhouse gases and pollution.
"William Rees is impossible to classify," said Clark Wolf, director
of the ISU Bioethics Program. "His work on sustainable development was
groundbreaking, and crossed traditional boundaries between economics and development
theory and ecology. His work on environmental footprint analysis provides a
vivid way to present and to understand problems of human sustainability."
Public parking is available in the Memorial Union parking ramp. The lecture
is free and open to the public, followed by a reception.
For more information about this event, contact Wolf at (515) 294-3068 or Katy
Reeder (515) 294-2566.
