How big is your ecological footprint? Probably bigger than you think. After all, out of sight, out of mind. As an originator of ecological footprint analysis, population ecologist William Rees knows a thing or two about our impact on the planet. In this interview he provides some fascinating, and surprising insights. "Cultural narrative" is our understanding of how the world works. What's important to us? How do we define success, progress and happiness? Rees observes that our current narrative is the worldview that neverending growth in income, and growth in the scale of the human project are desirable and possible. We're naturally optimistic, and short-sighted, so we have a natural disposition to live in denial of the physical realities of our world. We'd "rather have a party now, than worry about having parties ten, fifteen, thirty years from now." Rees raises the question, "are we an intelligent species?" If we are, then it's time to rewrite our cultural narrative. Photo by Nick Wiebe (CC BY-SA 3.0)
