Many will not give it a thought but worrying new estimates show humans are gobbling up Earth’s resources at record-breaking rates.
The so-called Earth Overshoot Day, first conceived back in 2006, marks the point at which our demand surpasses the resources Earth is able to regenerate in a given year.
The latest estimates show we are now just a week away from that date for 2018.
Due to over-fishing, over-harvesting, and excessive emissions, researchers say we have used up a year’s worth of resources in just 212 days or we are demanding the resource equivalent of 1.7 Earths.
According to the team behind the effort to push back the Earth Overshoot Day, that point falls on August 1st this year.
A chart created by the Global Footprint Network shows how it has crept earlier and earlier over the past few decades.
Back in the 1970s, the overshoot point did not come until November or December.
Despite some periods where it plateaued for a little while, the global footprint has skyrocketed.
The Earth Overshoot Day is calculated using the latest United Nations statistics, assessing how Earth’s biocapacity (or the amount of resources it can regenerate in a year) measures up to humanity’s ecological footprint per year.
“Our current economies are running a Ponzi scheme with our planet,” Dr Mathis Wackernagel, chief executive and co-founder of the Global Footprint Network, told the Guardian newspaper.
“We are borrowing the Earth’s future resources to operate our economies in the present.
“Like any Ponzi scheme, this works for some time, but as nations, companies, or households dig themselves deeper and deeper into debt, they eventually fall apart.”
While it may sound dire, the experts say it is still possible to bring these numbers back down to a more manageable point.
The integration of energy-efficient buildings and better public transportation, for example, could help to slash the footprint of urban areas, according to the organization.
Reducing carbon emissions would have an especially significant impact.
‘Reducing the carbon component of humanity’s ecological footprint by 50 per cent would get us from consuming the resources of 1.7 Earths down to 1.2 Earths,’ according to Global Footprint Network.
‘This corresponds to moving the date of Overshoot Day by 93 days, or about three months.’
Food production also plays a major role in the global footprint, accounting for roughly 26 percent.
By slashing meat consumption and reducing global food waste, the experts say we could push the overshoot target back by several days.
However, many of these goals may be difficult to meet if the population keeps growing as it is.
“Given resource constraints,” the researchers said, “countries with slowly shrinking populations may have a competitive advantage over countries with growing populations.”
