Today is Earth Overshoot Day
Posted by Ivan Storck | Filed under Sustainability
It’s the day our demand surpasses nature’s budget. I dig getting an email notification of this event every year.
On September 23rd this year we mark an unfortunate milestone: As of today, humanity will have consumed all the new resources the planet will produce this year, according to Global Footprint Network calculations. For the rest of 2008, we will be in the ecological equivalent of deficit depending, drawing down our resource stocks – in essence, borrowing from the future.
The recent bank failures in the United States have shown what happens when debt and spending get out of control. We are seeing signs of similarly disastrous consequences from our ecological overspending. Climate change, shrinking forests, declining biodiversity and current world food shortages are all results of the fact that we are demanding more from nature than it can supply.
Read more on the Global Footprint Network.
Tags: earthovershoot, globalfootprint, Sustainability
