Dr William Rees Our obsolescent brains The climate, economics and overshoot

H. sapiens evolved in simpler times when both the social and biophysical environments posed only modest challenges to the evolving central nervous system. As a result, even modern techno-industrial (MTI) people are equipped with what are basically paleolithic brains with a corresponding repertoire of emotions, behavioural predispositions, and survival strategies. These ancient innate qualities were once highly adaptive, having enabled stone-age humans to survive through the millennia. Times have changed; cultural and technological evolution have vastly outpaced bio-evolution. Economic and population growth have made humanity the greatest geological force changing the face of the earth; the human enterprise is far into ecological overshoot; global heating, the best-known symptom is out of control. In effect, the human enterprise has merged with the ecosphere to create a global socio-ecological 'environment' of such mind-boggling complexity that H. sapiens is now maladapted to the world of our own making. This presentation shows how 'paleolithic' responses to our modern predicament puts humanity in danger of being 'selected out.' Biography: William E Rees is a human ecologist, ecological economist, former Director and Professor Emeritus of the University of British Columbia’s School of Planning in Vancouver, Canada. His research focuses on the ecological requirements for human survival and the behavioural and socio-cultural barriers to addressing humanity's eco-predicament. He is best known as originator and co-developer of ecological footprint analysis, which reveals modern techno-industrial (MTI) 'civilization' to be far into potentially fatal ecological overshoot. Prof Rees has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed and popular articles on these and related dimensions of (un)sustainability. He is an internationally recognized Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada whose awards include both the Herman Daly Award and Boulding Memorial Prize in Ecological Economics and a Blue Planet Prize (jointly with his former student, Dr Mathis Wackernagel).