Professor David W. Pearce OBE was an Emeritus Professor at the Department of Economics in the University College London (UCL). He specialised in, and was a pioneer of, Environmental Economics, having published over fifty books and over 300 academic articles on the subject including his 'Blueprint for a Green Economy' series. His love for nature and his care for the environment resonate through all of his work—but at the same time, he was fiercely critical of environmental alarmism and sloppy environmental policy.
David Pearce was born in Harrow, London on 11 October 1941, graduated in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Oxford University in 1963 and then studied economics at London School of Economics from 1963 to 1964, and held academic posts at the Universities of Lancaster, Southampton, Leicester, and Aberdeen before arriving at UCL as Professor of Political Economy in 1983.
During his career he was the chief environmental adviser to the UK Secretaries of State between 1989 and 1992 — Christopher Patten and Michael Heseltine. He also provided advice to a number of major companies. He was a convening lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He was co-director of the environmental economics research centre, CSERGE, from 1991–2001. In 1989 he was named in the Global 500 Roll of Honour for Services to the World Environment by the United Nations Environment Programme. In 2000 he was awarded the OBE (Officer, Order of the British Empire). He was awarded a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' in December 2004 by the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists for his contributions to the development of environmental economics in Europe.
David Pearce established the internationally renowned MSc in Environmental and Resource Economics at UCL. He was an inspirational teacher held in the highest esteem by the many graduates of this degree, most of whom are now working in environmental policy making and research throughout the world.
David Pearce died of leukaemia in September 2005, at the age of 63.
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“The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,—not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)