Yesterday was Earth Overshoot Day. Earth’s resources are all we have right now when it comes to food, construction materials, a large part of the energy extracted, air and water. Yesterday, we’ve just depleted our consumption ratio for this year.
What this means is that Earth can’t regenerate what we’ve consumed so far this year in a timely manner so our lifestyle as a whole can be called sustainable, more or less. Even more simply put, too much wood was cut, too much carbon dioxide has been emitted that cannot be absorbed by forests and so on.
The day was declared by WWF and the Global Footprint Network, two of the most important environmental groups.
“By August 2 2017, we will have used more from Nature than our planet can renew in the whole year,” the groups said in a statement.
“This means that in seven months, we emitted more carbon than the oceans and forests can absorb in a year, we caught more fish, felled more trees, harvested more, and consumed more water than the Earth was able to produce in the same period.”
The Earth Overshoot Day has been calculated since 1986, but 2017 represents a minimum so far – it’s never been worse than this. For instance, last year it was 6 days later. What we’re referring here is the global number.
For individual states, the situation is different: the UK has finished its “alloted” resources on May 4.
However, despite the new 2017 low, the progression throughout the year has slowed down, overall. It could reverse – which is a bit optimistic to say yet, if you think of all the coal mines that are about to be reopened in the US during the next 3 and a half years.
You can check out more on overshootday.org
Who said? Who decides what everybody’s allotment of Earths resources is? I find it hard to believe the figures that are being manipulated and presented as fact in this story. For instance you talk to people in the forest industry and they claim there is more standing timber right now in North America than there was at the turn of the century. So we manage our natural resources a bit better than most I would think. Also carbon sequestration takes many forms the forest absorbs its share and the ocean absorbs its share but how much carbon is sequestered by human activity? Most people are lead to believe that human activity only creates carbon so they think all the trees that are cut are instantly chucked on the fireplace and up the chimney it goes. What a load of hype. Every single 2×4, asphalt roofing tile and many other building materials represent sequestered carbon. That’s carbon locked away out of the normal carbon cycle. That doesn’t even take into account all the textiles produced like cotton and flax and so forth. Figures don’t add up I’m sorry. So here is my suggestion you tell me how much carbon is produced, then you tell me how much carbon is sequestered by natural processes and then add in all the carbon sequestered by human activity then we can sit down and see if there is an em balance in the carbon cycle. Until we have all the factors the problem can not be solved. Oh but I don’t think that’s the intension of the climate change religion, yes I called it religion because without the facts it’s just something you believe. If there is indeed an excess of carbon in the atmosphere shouldn’t your energy be spent solving that by planting more trees and sequestering more carbon? We have the means to build large air scrubbers to remove the carbon dioxide from the air. Who’s doing that? This is how you know it’s all social justice and carbon credits, and making a worldwide welfare system for underdeveloped countries.