On the choices we need to make as a species in order to survive. In this wide-ranging 90 minute interview, Professor William Rees makes a compelling case for the need for humans to change our mindset and how we approach and value our ecology. He describes the last 300 years of Cartesian dualistic thinking, with the economy and the ecology as separate entities, leading to a neo-classical economic model and "growth at all costs" paradigm based on fossil energy. The result? Unsustainable growth, ecological overshoot, global warming, and a host of other problems, that Rees collectively calls "the largest challenge mankind has ever faced". With a billion people obese and another billion starving, he thinks that the real problem we face is one of morality and ethics. He offers an ultimately hopeful prognosis the depends on the choices we make. We can solve our problems, he says, "if we act with intelligence and make the right moral choices." Professor William (Bill) Rees is a professor in UBC’s School of Community and Regional planning (SCARP) and developed the ecological footprint analysis (EFA) concept over 15 years ago (along with PhD student Mathis Wackernagel). He was recently awarded the Trudeau Fellowship Prize (and made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada) for the global impact of his research. He arrived at our interview on his bike wearing shorts - the same way he has traveled to work for the past 30 years. YouTube videos of this interview are available for selected sections of this interview. CFIS: John Corry, CFIS Communications Manager WR: Professor William Rees

Questions CFIS #1: There’s been a shift, certainly in the media and some governments, in accepting that global warming is actually happening, that sustainability is vitally important. Do you agree that this is happening?  video/transcript CFIS #2: There’s this sense that we’re like a blind man walking on the edge... if that’s the predicament that we’re in, and we’re not even aware of the predicament, how do we move forward?  video/transcript CFIS #3: How does one move away from the current post-industrial growth ethic? video/transcript CFIS #4: The human species is like a parasite on the body of earth...and we might get a parasite we can’t deal with. transcript CFIS #5: What can we do mitigate this? video/transcript CFIS #6: What kind of activity do you think is the most realistically appropriate? video/transcript CFIS #7: So having true costs of these resources might be a motivating factor [in finding a solution]…? transcript CFIS #8: What role do you see a place like the College of Interdisciplinary Studies playing now and in the future? video/transcript CFIS #9: What do you think [the future] will look like? video/transcript