Vaclav Smil

They used to say Goethe was the last person in the world who knew everything there was to know. Whoever said that never talked with Vaclav Smil. He seems to know something about almost everything, ranging from global energy to Egyptiain hieroglyphics (which he likes to study in his spare time).

Since 1976 he has written 40 books, ranging from Energies: An Illustrative Guide to Feeding Ten Billion: Biophysical Constraints and Agricultural Opportunities to Transforming the World: Invention of Ammonia Synthesis and Its Consequences to his latest, Size: How it Explains the World, an exploration of how size defines life on Earth. He has given briefings and testimonials on various topics at the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs.

Dr. Smil is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Science Academy) and a Member of the Order of Canada.