After Today, Humanity Will Spend The Rest Of 2013 Taking More Than The Earth Can Give: Today, August 20, is Earth Overshoot Day 2013, marking the date when humanity exhausted nature’s budget for the year. We are now operating in overdraft. For the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is the day at which humanity uses up all the natural resources the planet can sustainably provide for a given year. Our ecological footprint — our pollution, fishing, agriculture, fresh water use, greenhouse emissions, etc. — uses up the planet’s biocapacity — the ability of an ecosystem to regenerate resources and absorb waste. After today, the former will overwhelm the latter for the rest of the year. We’ll be in ecological deficit, inflicting more damage on the global ecology than it can naturally repair. It’s like drawing more money out of a bank account than the interest can replace. The account gets smaller every year, and eventually hits zero. As a result, Earth Overshoot Day has arrived earlier each year. We first overshot in the early 1970s, then in 1993 Earth Overshoot Day arrived October 21, and then on September 22 in 2003. So the gap between our ecological footprint and Earth’s total biocapacity is growing. - Cherine Akkari NB
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 19:41:47 +0000
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