Humanity consumed on Thursday everything that the planet produces in a year without running out and, therefore, will live the rest of the borrowed year, warned the NGOs Global Footprint Network and WWF .
To put it figuratively, it will take 1.75 Earths to sustainably meet the needs of the world’s population, according to the indicator created by researchers in the early 1990s. And it just keeps getting worse.
This date corresponds to when “humanity consumed everything that ecosystems could regenerate in a year,” according to the two NGOs.
“During the remaining 156 days (until the end of the year), our consumption of renewable resources will consist of devouring the natural capital of the planet ,” said Laetitia Mailhes, of the Global Footprint Network during a press conference.
But, this doesn’t even take into account the needs of other species living on Earth . “You also have to leave room for the wild world,” continued Mailhes.
Earth ‘s “overcapacity” marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what the Earth can regenerate in that period.
According to the NGO Global Footprint Network that follows this measurement, it has been growing for 50 years: December 29, 1970, November 4, 1980, October 11, 1990, September 23, 2000 and August 7, 2010.
In 2020, this date had been pushed back three weeks due to the lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic, before returning to previous levels.
This ecological footprint is calculated from six different categories, “crops, pastures, forest areas necessary for products, fishing areas, built-up areas and forests necessary to absorb the carbon emitted by ‘fossil fuels’, and is closely linked to patterns consumption, especially in rich countries.
Specifically, if all humans lived like the French, Earth Overshoot Day would have occurred even earlier, on May 5, 2022.
WWF and the Global Footprint Network place particular emphasis on food. “Our food system has lost its mind with an excess consumption of natural resources , without responding to the needs of fighting poverty”, on the one hand, and an epidemic of overweight and obesity, on the other, asserts Pierre Cannet, of WWF France.
