Earth Overshoot Day came even earlier this year, on August 1st, prompting calls to cut food waste in half, invest more in low carbon energy and even have fewer children.
Earth Overshoot Day is the date when humanity’s annual demand on nature exceeds what Earth’s ecosystems can renew in that year.
Global Footprint Network calculates the day every year by adding up all of people’s competing demands on nature, including: demand for food, timber, and fibres (cotton); absorption of carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels; and energy used for buildings, roads and other infrastructure.
August 1st is the earliest Earth Overshoot Day since the world went into ecological overshoot in the 1970s. According to the Global Footprint Network, humans are currently using nature 1.7 times faster than the planet’s ecosystems can regenerate.
The UK hit its overshoot day on May 8th. In Qatar, it was February 9th, whilst in Vietnam it won’t be until December 21st.
“Our economies are running a Ponzi scheme with our planet,” said the network’s CEO Mathis Wackernagel. “We are using the Earth’s future resources to operate in the present and digging ourselves deeper into ecological debt.”
Four “solution areas” with the most potential to address ecological overshoot have been identified.
If everyone cut their food waste in half, shifted to lower carbon diets and consumed world-average calories, overshoot day would be 38 days later. Reducing driving by 50%, replacing one-third of car miles with public transportation and the rest by walking and biking, would win back another 12 days.
The network also said rethinking energy systems and having one less child would save another 93 and 30 days respectively.
