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posted by janrinok on Friday August 14 2015, @09:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the living-on-borrowed-time dept.

Earth Overshoot Day is the day when—according to estimates—the total combined consumption of all human activity on Earth in a year overtakes the planet's ability to generate those resources for that year.

How is it measured ? "It's quite simple," says Dr. Mathis Wackernagel of the think tank Global Footprint Network. "We look at all the resource demands of humanity that compete for space, like food, fiber, timber, et cetera, then we look at how much area is needed to provide those services and how much productive surface is available."

Here's his bottom line metaphor. Earth Overshoot Day is like the day you spend more than your salary for a year, only you are all humans and your salary is Earth's biocapacity. Ideally, Overshoot Day would come after December 31. It wasn't too far off in 1970, when it occurred on December 23. But Overshoot Day creep has kicked in ever since. August 13 is the earliest yet—four days ahead of last year's previous record.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150813-earth-overshoot-day-earlier/


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Friday August 14 2015, @10:54PM

    by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 14 2015, @10:54PM (#223048)
    The only reason right-wingers think Darwinism is a reasonable societal philosophy is that they think they're at the top of the food chain. Of course that all goes flying out the window when they decide they need public funds to build a stadium.
    --
    🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 14 2015, @11:41PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 14 2015, @11:41PM (#223065) Journal
    OTOH, I don't see why you wouldn't want social darwinism in your corporate environment. It's the easiest way to implement a corporate death penalty, for example.