Earth Overshoot Day 2018 shows humans consume the earth’s resources faster & faster

Today, we are just three days away from the Earth Ecology Overshoot Day in 2018. But this is not a good sign for human beings because it shows that human consumption of Earth’s resources has reached a record high. In 1987, scientists first released resource over stripping day called “Earth Overshoot Day”, that is, the day when human resources consumption exceeded the amount of resource regeneration. The research team that proposed the concept said that this year’s “Earth Overshoot Day” is on August 1.

The researchers pointed out that due to overfishing, over-harvesting and excessive emissions; now if we allocate the earth resources then it only available for 212 days, which is equivalent to 1.7 times the amount of resources on the earth to meet human needs.

 

A chart compiled by the research organization Global Footprint Network shows that the date of the “Earth  Overshoot day” has been moving forward in the past few decades. In the 1970s, the ” Earth Overshoot day” will not arrive until November and December. Although there are some periods of flattening in the global ecological footprint, overall, there is still a rapid upward trend.

What is Earth Overshoot Day?

“Earth Overshoot Day” is calculated using the latest data from the United Nations to assess the relative relationship between the Earth’s bioburden (or the amount of Earth’s regenerated resources in a year) and the human’s annual ecological footprint (which can be understood as resource consumption). relationship.  It is calculated as

World Biocapacity \World Ecological Footprint X 365} = Earth Overshoot Day 

Date of EOD on the release year chart is given below which is from Wikipedia, so far shows that we continuously burdening our earth and over stipping the resource from our mother nature.

You can see the Earth Overshoot Day every year reducing because of the increasing population of earth.

Year	Overshoot Date		Year	Overshoot Date
1987	December 19		2010	August 21
1990	December 7		2011	August 27
1995	November 21		2012	August 22
2000	November 1		2013	August 20
2005	October 20		2014	August 19
2007	October 26		2015	August 13
2008	September 23		2016	August 8
2009	September 25		2017	August 2

 

“We may have reached peak eco-footprint, after years of expansion. For example, China underwent a rapid expansion of its footprint, and now it has flattened. This could be a real trend.” said Mathis Wackernagel, CEO, and co-founder of Global Footprint Network. Source: theplanetlife

Its like we are borrowing the future resources of the Earth and using it for the present. But as countries, companies, and families borrow more and more, this will be unsustainable and fall apart sooner or later.

Although it sounds a bit scary, experts say that we still have the possibility to reduce the amount of human “borrowing” to an affordable level. For example, building energy-efficient buildings and improving public transportation can help reduce the ecological carbon footprint of urban areas. The impact of reducing carbon emissions is particularly acute. The Global Footprint Network pointed out: “As long as we can reduce the share of carbon in the human ecological footprint by 50%, we can reduce the number of resources we consume from 1.7 times the Earth to 1.2 times, which can be pushed the ‘Earth Overshoot Day’  93 days back.

Food production also accounts for a significant proportion of global ecological emissions, accounting for about 26%. Experts pointed out that if you can reduce meat consumption and global food waste, ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ can be delayed for a few days. However, if the population continues to grow at the current rate, many of these goals will be difficult to complete. “Considering resource constraints,” the researchers said, “a country with a slowly decreasing population may have a comparative advantage over a country with a growing population.”