Earth Overshoot Day: We used a year's worth of resources in seven months

There is a date every year when the world's resource bank goes into overdraft.

At current rates, we use the resources of 1.7
Earths each year, according to the Global
Footprint Network.

This year, Earth Overshoot Day is marked globally on August 2. For the rest of year we're in the burning red.

It's the point when the amount of natural resources — think trees, fish and water — humanity takes from the Earth reaches the total that can be regenerated over the entire year.

It's when the amount of carbon emitted reaches the amount the forests and oceans are able to absorb.

This year it happened in seven months, according to the Global Footprint Network.

Read the ABC News story - “Earth Overshoot Day: We used a year's worth of resources in seven months.”

We Will Soon Be Using More Than The Earth Can Provide

Four days after President Trump announced the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the Global Footprint Network (GFN) reported that Earth Overshoot Day 2017 will fall on August 2. Most Americans likely have no idea what that means.

From January 1 to August 2, the world’s 7.5 billion people
will have used as much of Earth’s biological resources—or
biocapacity—as the planet can regenerate in a year.

The basic point is quite simple: From January 1 to August 2, the world’s 7.5 billion people will have used as much of Earth’s biological resources—or biocapacity—as the planet can regenerate in a year. During the remaining five months of 2017, our human consumption will be drawing down Earth’s reserves of fresh water, fertile soils, forests, and fisheries, and depleting its ability to regenerate these resources as well as sequester excess carbon released into the atmosphere.

Read the Yes! magazine story by David Korten  - “We Will Soon Be Using More Than The Earth Can Provide.”

This is 'Earth Overshoot Day" - we are now living in daily debt

O

n this day in August 2015, humans have used an entire year’s worth of the Earth’s natural resources, according to the Global Footprint Network.

Calling it Earth Overshoot Day, the group celebrates — or, rather, notes — the day by which people have used more natural resources, such as fish stocks, timber, and even carbon emissions, than the Earth can regenerate in a single year. It’s basically a balance sheet for global accounting.

“We can overuse nature quite easily,” Mathis Wackernagel, president of the Global Footprint Network, told ThinkProgress. “When you start to spend more than you earn, it does not become immediately apparent. But, eventually, you go bankrupt.”

Read the ClimateProgress story - “Happy Earth Overshoot Day! We’ve Now Used All Our Resources For The Year.”