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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/
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 15 2015, @12:03PM
Did it? Now they know intimate details about orders of magnitude more people. Information is power, and they have much more of it now than they did. And through mobile phones and soon the Internet of Things they'll be able to, theoretically, activate a kill switch for everything in your life. Your fridge shuts off. Your car shuts down. Et cetera.
The way I see it, the outcome of that stand-off pivots on the geeks. What will they do? Will they cooperate with the Masters of the Universe, or defect?
Washington DC delenda est.