Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, born 1939 in Zurich, Switzerland, studied physics in Hamburg and obtained his diploma in 1965. He received his doctorate in biology from the University of Freiburg in 1969. From 1981 to 1991 he was director of the United Nations Centre for Science and Technology for Development in New York and the Institute for European Environmental Policy in Bonn, London and Paris. In 1991 he took over as President of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy and became member of the Club of Rome. As member of the German Parliament from 1998 to 2005 he was chairman of the parliamentary commission “Globalization of the Economy – Challenges and Responses”, the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization and the Bundestag committee on environment, nature conservation and nuclear safety. Since 2006 Professor von Weizsäcker is dean of the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California in Santa Barbara.