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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: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 15 2015, @09:00PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 15 2015, @09:00PM (#223357) Journal

    Hey, I've got an idea.

    You've got the solutions to all the world's problems, so why don't you...like...you know? Solve all the world's problems?

    I don't even need to do that. As I noted before, the various problems mentioned are already solved. It's just not worth the bother to implement them at this time.