Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker


Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker is a German scientist and politician. He was a member of the German Bundestag and currently serves as co-president of the Club of Rome jointly with Anders Wijkman.

Family

A member of the prominent Weizsäcker family, he is the son of physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and nephew of former German president Richard von Weizsäcker. Since 1969, he is married to Christine von Weizsäcker. Together, they have five children, including MEP Jakob von Weizsäcker.

Youth and education

Weizsäcker spent his childhood in Zurich and Göttingen. In 1966, he graduated from Hamburg University with a Diplom in physics. In 1968, he obtained his PhD in biology from Freiburg University.

Career

In 1972, he was appointed full professor of biology at Essen University. In 1975, he was recruited as president of the then newly founded University of Kassel. In 1981, he joined the United Nations in New York as director at the UN Center for Science and Technology. From 1984 to 1991 he headed the Institute for European Environmental Policy in Bonn. In 1991, Weizsäcker became founding president of the Wuppertal Institute, soon establishing itself as a leading environmental think tank.
In 1998, he was elected a member of the German Bundestag for the Social Democratic Party and re-elected in 2002. As a legislator, he chaired the select committee on globalization and the environment committee. After his decision not to run in the 2005 election, he became Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He returned to Germany in 2009 where is his an honorary professor at Freiburg University.
A bestselling author in Germany, his English language books include Earth Politics, Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use, Factor 5 and Limits to Privatization.

Awards and Honours