Robert Kates
Encyclopedia
Robert W. Kates is an American geographer
and independent scholar in Trenton, Maine
, and University Professor (Emeritus) at Brown University
.
at the University of Chicago
. White gave him some key texts to read, Kates returned to discuss them, White recognized his abilities and steered him through an MA and eventually a PhD in Geography (1962). Kates taught at the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University
from 1962 until 1987. At Clark he founded CENTED (the Centre for technology, environment, and development), now part of the Marsh Institute, where he remains a Distinguished Scientist. He worked in Africa with Clark colleagues, and also developed and directed a resource assessment centre at the University of Dar Es Salaam
, Tanzania (from 1967–68).
Kates helped to establish the international Initiative for Science and Technology for Sustainability
, was Executive Editor of Environment magazine for many years, and is still a Senior Associate at Harvard University.
From 1986 to 1992 he was Professor and Director of the interdisciplinary World Hunger Program at Brown University. Kates retired relatively early, became an 'independent scholar' and moved to Trenton, Maine in the early 1990s with his wife Ellie. He has 6 grandchildren. He has remained professionally active, and in 2008, was appointed the inaugural Presidential Professor of Sustainability
Science at the University of Maine, Orono (at age 79).
s mitigation, driven by a Quaker belief in relevance to human society. Kates defines his central question as "What is and ought to be the human use of the Earth?" This has led him to address the human use of natural resources
and human response to hazards. His approach is to set up "natural" experiments, and then to develop a set of comparative observations or analogs. This led to several studies of natural and technological hazards, rural resource and water development, and methodologies for studying people's perception of the environment, the assessment of risk, and the impacts of climate
on society. Since retiring from Brown University he has continued to work on:
Following the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
, Kates returned to his earlier work on hazards and published a research perspective on the reconstruction of New Orleans (Kates et al., 2006).
Kates was awarded honorary DSc degrees from Clark University
for his many contributions to hazards research (1993) and from the [University of Maine] (2004).
(1983a, b) and former student Ben Wisner (1976, 2004). The insight of these critiques is that "natural" hazards are in fact exacerbated by political and economic forces, and they should be seen as "social", not "natural". To suggest that severe drought - or even the flooding of New Orleans - are "natural" underplays the ways that neoliberalism, and powerful political and economic interests, make people more vulnerable. Humans cannot "adapt" or, in Kates's language, "adjust" successfully to hazards when a population is highly vulnerable or even exploited (Watts, 1983a). Mitigating natural hazards is therefore a social justice issue, not a case of adjustment. This has been much-debated in Wisner et al.'s At Risk (2004).
Geographer
A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
and independent scholar in Trenton, Maine
Trenton, Maine
Trenton is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States, near Acadia National Park. The population was 1,370 at the 2000 census. Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport is located in Trenton....
, and University Professor (Emeritus) at Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
.
Background
Kates was born in Brooklyn, New York. Unusual for an academic, he never completed an undergraduate degree. He studied Economics at New York University from 1946-8, but dropped out. He went to work in a steel mill in Indiana. He had a chance encounter with a naturalist in a state park in Indiana when on vacation with his family, and this meeting inspired him to become an elementary school teacher. To realise this career he signed up for night school at Indiana University, Gary in 1957, when aged 28. One of his classes to become a teacher was in geography. Having found his calling and his discipline, he sought study advice from Gilbert F. WhiteGilbert F. White
Gilbert Fowler White was a prominent American geographer, sometimes termed the "father of floodplain management" and the "leading environmental geographer of the 20th century"...
at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. White gave him some key texts to read, Kates returned to discuss them, White recognized his abilities and steered him through an MA and eventually a PhD in Geography (1962). Kates taught at the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University
Clark University
Clark University is a private research university and liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts.Founded in 1887, it is the oldest educational institution founded as an all-graduate university. Clark now also educates undergraduates...
from 1962 until 1987. At Clark he founded CENTED (the Centre for technology, environment, and development), now part of the Marsh Institute, where he remains a Distinguished Scientist. He worked in Africa with Clark colleagues, and also developed and directed a resource assessment centre at the University of Dar Es Salaam
University of Dar es Salaam
The University of Dar es Salaam is a university in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam. The university was born out of a decision taken in 1970 to split the then University of East Africa into three independent universities; Makerere University , University of Nairobi and University of Dar es...
, Tanzania (from 1967–68).
Kates helped to establish the international Initiative for Science and Technology for Sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
, was Executive Editor of Environment magazine for many years, and is still a Senior Associate at Harvard University.
From 1986 to 1992 he was Professor and Director of the interdisciplinary World Hunger Program at Brown University. Kates retired relatively early, became an 'independent scholar' and moved to Trenton, Maine in the early 1990s with his wife Ellie. He has 6 grandchildren. He has remained professionally active, and in 2008, was appointed the inaugural Presidential Professor of Sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
Science at the University of Maine, Orono (at age 79).
Contributions
Kates's research focuses on long-term trends in environment, development, and population, and he is particularly known for his work on natural hazardNatural hazard
A natural hazard is a threat of a naturally occurring event that will have a negative effect on people or the environment. Many natural hazards are interrelated, e.g. earthquakes can cause tsunamis and drought can lead directly to famine. It is possible that some natural hazards are...
s mitigation, driven by a Quaker belief in relevance to human society. Kates defines his central question as "What is and ought to be the human use of the Earth?" This has led him to address the human use of natural resources
Natural Resources
Natural Resources is a soul album released by Motown girl group Martha Reeves and the Vandellas in 1970 on the Gordy label. The album is significant for the Vietnam War ballad "I Should Be Proud" and the slow jam, "Love Guess Who"...
and human response to hazards. His approach is to set up "natural" experiments, and then to develop a set of comparative observations or analogs. This led to several studies of natural and technological hazards, rural resource and water development, and methodologies for studying people's perception of the environment, the assessment of risk, and the impacts of climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
on society. Since retiring from Brown University he has continued to work on:
- the sustainability transition
- long-term population dynamics
- global environmental change
- the prevalence and persistence of hunger
- sustainability science
Following the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, Kates returned to his earlier work on hazards and published a research perspective on the reconstruction of New Orleans (Kates et al., 2006).
Honours
Among several honours he is- a recipient of the 1991 National Medal of ScienceNational Medal of ScienceThe National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
(USA) - MacArthur Fellow (1981–85)
- a member of the National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, USA - a member of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesAmerican Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
- fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of ScienceAmerican Association for the Advancement of ScienceThe American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
- fellow of the Academia EuropaeaAcademia EuropaeaAcademia Europæa is a European non-governmental scientific academy founded in 1988. Its members are scientists and scholars who collectively aim to promote learning, education and research. It publishes European Review through Cambridge Journals....
. - Laureat d’Honneur, International Geographical Union
Kates was awarded honorary DSc degrees from Clark University
Clark University
Clark University is a private research university and liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts.Founded in 1887, it is the oldest educational institution founded as an all-graduate university. Clark now also educates undergraduates...
for his many contributions to hazards research (1993) and from the [University of Maine] (2004).
Critique
Kates and White's work on hazards, and their 'human ecology' approach, some of it coauthored with Ian Burton, has attracted critique from scholars including Michael WattsMichael Watts
Michael J. Watts is "Class of 1963" Professor of Geography and Development Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leading critical intellectual figure of the academic left. An intensively productive scholar, he works on a variety of themes from African development to contemporary...
(1983a, b) and former student Ben Wisner (1976, 2004). The insight of these critiques is that "natural" hazards are in fact exacerbated by political and economic forces, and they should be seen as "social", not "natural". To suggest that severe drought - or even the flooding of New Orleans - are "natural" underplays the ways that neoliberalism, and powerful political and economic interests, make people more vulnerable. Humans cannot "adapt" or, in Kates's language, "adjust" successfully to hazards when a population is highly vulnerable or even exploited (Watts, 1983a). Mitigating natural hazards is therefore a social justice issue, not a case of adjustment. This has been much-debated in Wisner et al.'s At Risk (2004).
Books
- Kates, R.W. 1962. Hazard and Choice Perception in Flood Plain Management. Department of Geography Research Paper no. 78, University of Chicago Press.
- Kates, R.W. 1965. Industrial Flood Losses: Damage estimation in the Lehigh Valley. University of Chicago Press.
- Kates, RW. and J. Wohlwill (eds). 1966. Man's Response to the Physical Environment. Journal of Social Issues, Vol. XXII, No. 4, October.
- Burton, I. and Kates, R.W. (Eds.). 1965. Readings in Resource Management and Conservation. University of Chicago Press.
- Burton, I, R W. Kates, J R. Mather and R E. Snead, The Shores of Megalopolis: Coastal Occupance and Human Adjustment to Flood Hazard Climatology, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, 1965, pp. 435–603
- Burton, I, R.W. Kates and R.E.Snead. 1969. The human ecology of coastal flood hazard in megalopolis. Dept. of Geography. Research paper no. 115. University of Chicago Press.
- Russell, C.S., Arey D.G and R.W. Kates. 1970. Drought and Water Supply: Implications of the Massachusetts Experience for Municipal Planning. RFF Press.
- Kates, R.W. (Ed.). 1977. Managing Technological Hazard: Research Needs and Opportunities. Boulder: Institute of Behavioral Science.
- Hass J.E, R.W. Kates and M.J. Bowden. 1977. Reconstruction Following Disaster. MIT Press.
- Kates, R.W. 1978. Risk Assessment of Environmental Hazards. SCOPE Report 8. John Wiley.
- Burton I and Kates R.W. 1978. The Environment as Hazard. Oxford University Press. Second edition with a new introduction: Guilford Press, 1993.
- Kasperson R.E. and R.W. Kates. 1980. Equity Issues in Radioactive Waste Management. Greenwood Press.
- Berry L. and R.W. Kates (Eds.). 1980. Making the Most of the Least: Alternative Ways to Development. New York and London: Holmes & Meier.
- Kates, R.W. 1984. Technological Hazards Management. Oelgeschlager Gunn & Hain.
- Kates, R. W., J. H. Ausubel, and M. Berberian (eds.), 1985. Climate Impact Assessment: Studies of the Interaction of Climate and Society, ICSU/SCOPE Report No. 27, John Wiley.
- Kates R.W., Hohenemser C. and J.X. Kasperson (Eds.). 1985. Perilous progress: Managing the hazards of technology. Westview Press.
- Kates, R.W. and I. Burton (Eds.). 1986. Geography, Resources and Environment, Volume 1: Selected Writings of Gilbert F. White. University of Chicago Press.
- Kates R.W. and I. Burton (Eds.). 1986. Geography, Resources and Environment, Volume 2: Themes from the Work of Gilbert F. White. University of Chicago Press.
- Kasperson, RE., JX. Kasperson, C Hohenemser, and RW. Kates. 1988. Corporate Management of Health and Safety Hazards: A Comparison of Current Practice. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
- Newman L, (gen.eds. Kates, R.W. et al.) 1990. Hunger in History: Food Shortage, Poverty, and Deprivation. Blackwell.
- J. X. Kasperson and R. W. Kates, (eds.), 1990. Overcoming Hunger in the 1990s, a special issue of Food Policy, Vol.15, No. 4, pp. 273–368.
- Turner, B.L. II, Hyden G, and R.W. Kates (Eds.). 1993. Population Growth and Agricultural Change in Africa. University of Florida Press.
- Turner, B.L. II, W.C. Clark, R.W. Kates, J.F. Richards, J.T. Mathews, W.B. Meyer (Eds.). 1990. The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere over the Past 300 Years. Cambridge University Press.
- Chen, RS. and RW. Kates (eds.). 1994. Climate Change and World Food Security special issue of Global Environmental Change, Vol. 4 No.1, March, 1994, pp. 1–88.
- Burton, I. and Kates. R.W. (committee chairs). 1999. Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability. National Academy of Sciences.
- Raskin, P, T. Banuri, G.Gallopín, P. Gutman, A. Hammond, R.W. Kates, and R. Swart. 2002. Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead. Stockholm Environment Institute.
- Kates R.W. et al. 2003. Global Change in Local Places: Estimating, Understanding, and Reducing Greenhouse Gases. Cambridge University Press.
- Kates, R.W. with National Academies Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, 2005. Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, Washington DC: National Academy Press.
- 2010. With National Academies, Committee on America’s Climate Choices, Panel on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change. Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, Washington: National Academies Press.
- Kates R.W.(ed.) 2011. Readings in Sustainability Science and Technology. Centre for International Development, Harvard University. ("This Reader is one possible set of materials for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students of sustainability science. It consists of links to 93 articles or book chapters from which appropriate readings and internet sources can be chosen")
Recent Articles
- Kates, R. W., W. C. Clark, R. Corell, J. M. Hall, C., et al., 2001. Sustainability science, Science, Vol. 292, p. 641-642.
- Parris, T. M. and R. W. Kates, 2003. Characterizing and Measuring Sustainable Development, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, pp 559-586.
- Leiserowitz, Anthony A., Robert W. Kates, and Thomas M. Parris. 2005. Do Global Attitudes and Behaviors Support Sustainable Development? Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 47(9): 22-38.
- Kates, R.W., T.M. Parris, and A.A. Leiserowitz. 2005. What is Sustainable Development? Goals, Indicators, Values, and Practice. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 47(3): 8-21
- Kates, R.W., C.E. Colten, S.Laska, and S.P. Leatherman. 2006. Reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: A research perspective. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Special Feature. 103(40) (26 September): 14653-14660.
- Kates, R.W. 2007. Gilbert F. White, 1911-2006, Great Aspirations: Local Studies, National Comparisons, Global Challenges. First National Academy of Sciences Gilbert F. White Lecture in the Geographical Sciences. January 24, 2007. The National Academies Keck Center, Washington, D.C.
- Kates, R. W. and P. Dasgupta, 2007. African Poverty: A Grand Challenge for Sustainability Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(43), pp. 16747-16750.
- Colten, C. E., R. W. Kates, and S. B. Laska, 2008. Three Years after Katrina: Lessons for Community Resilience, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 50(5), pp. 36-47.
- Kates, R. W. and I. Burton, 2008. Gilbert F. White, 1911–2006: Local Legacies, National Achievements, and Global Visions, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 98(2) pp. 1-8.
- Wilbanks, T. J. and Kates, R. W., 2010. Beyond Adapting to Climate Change: Embedding Adaptation in Responses to Multiple Threats and Stresses, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100(4) pp. 719 - 728.