This reminds me of tax freedom day, except the numbers are a lot fuzzier. Carsten Arnholm of Norway tips us to this website peddling this worrisome calculation. I fear and visualize there will be no more food, air, water, or “CO2 filtering” tomorrow. Photosynthesis comes to a halt, gasp, sputter, fade to black. Fin.
from: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/
August 21st marks an unfortunate milestone: the day in which we exhaust our ecological budget for the year. Once we pass this day, humanity will have demanded all the ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing the raw materials for food – that nature can provide this year. From that point until the end of the year, we meet our ecological demand by liquidating resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
What is Earth Overshoot Day?
Every year, Global Footprint Network calculates nature’s supply in the form of biocapacity, the amount of resources the planet generates, and compares that to human demand: the amount it takes to produce all the living resources we consume and absorb our carbon dioxide emissions. Earth Overshoot Day, a concept devised by U.K.-based new economics foundation, marks the day when demand on ecological services begins to exceed the renewable supply.
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What is Overshoot?
For most of human history, humanity has been able to live off of nature’s interest — consuming resources and producing carbon dioxide at a rate lower than what the planet was able to regenerate and reabsorb each year.
But approximately three decades ago, we crossed a critical threshold, and the rate of human demand for ecological services began to outpace the rate at which nature could provide them. This gap between demand and supply — known as ecological overshoot — has grown steadily each year. Global Footprint Network’s most recent data show that it takes one year and five months to generate the ecological services (production of resources and absorption of CO2) that humanity requires in one year.
The Cost of Ecological Overspending
Of course, we only have one Earth. The fact that we are using (or “spending” natural capital) faster than it can replenish is similar to having expenditures that continually exceed income. In planetary terms, the results of our ecological overspending are becoming more clear by the day. Climate change – a result of carbon being emitted faster than it can be reabsorbed by the forests and seas – is the most obvious and arguably pressing result. But there are others as well: shrinking forests, species loss, fisheries collapse and freshwater stress to name a few.
How is Earth Overshoot Day Calculated?
Put simply, Earth Overshoot Day shows the day on which our total Ecological Footprint (measured in global hectares) is equal to the biocapacity (also measured in global hectares) that nature can regenerate in that year. For the rest of the year, we are accumulating debt by depleting our natural capital and letting waste accumulate.
[ world biocapacity / world Ecological Footprint ] x 365 = Earth Overshoot Day Day
The day of the year on which humanity enters into overshoot and begins adding to our ecological debt is calculated by calculating the ratio of global available biocapacity to global Ecological Footprint and multiplying by 365. From this, we find the number of days of demand that the biosphere could supply, and the number of days we operate in overshoot.
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Hands up!, Don´t move!…Hey Tony, bring up the straight jacket, this nut is not gonna run from the asylum again!
Brought to you by the same people that said our population would be double what it is right now and we would all be starving…….
but we wouldn’t care because we would all have domestic robots and rocket cars….
Did anyone tell them life evolved with at least 20x more co2 than there is today?
Is this silly story day?
Even stranger than the last one.
Good for a laugh I suppose but I guess some people believe this stuff…
Geez!
That’s as bad as the ‘clock’ used by the Unions of Concerned Scientists.
A day to celebrate that for the rest of the year we’re not burning the forests for fuel.
Too bad they’re serious . Their programs show that the nef is just another redistributionist organization hiding behind environmentalism to further a political agenda .
I guess those global warmers KIDS don´t know CO2 ban will ban candies and chocolates too, as these are made from it.
Well since it is too late anyway, since we have been told for ten years we only have ten years left, I for one am going to celebrate.
Couple of pound+ Rib Eyes will go on the BBQ tonight, then I’ll go out and idle my car and sit in air conditioned comfort for a few hours.
I’m gonna solve this problem right now before we are all done for. I don’t want to be a Hero, but: I will if I have to. I’m gonna cool the Earth off right now. First I’m going to open all the windows, turn on both air conditioners and open the freezer door. Then run outside, start the car, crank up its AC and let it run. That should drop the Earth’s temperature to a safe level.
Whew! I’m glad I thought of that before it is too late.
We need to use it all up before the aliens come and take it.
Desperation rising.
It won’t be long before they have to roll out naked celebrities against CO2.
(That will probably happen before Thanksgiving)
I have a simple solution: Abolish taxes. That removes government consumption and we’ll end up at 100%. In Germany, at 70%.
Wot no polar bears?
Or come to think of it Mammoths.
‘Dog days of August’, is the time for crazies, guess it’s true.
Is howling at the moon classed as MMCO2e?……………In which case aren’t they exacerbating the problem?
Click here for eco-loony immune tablets: http://www.ibelieveinlycanthropy.co.carpathia/silverbullets
Interesting concept……. totally irrelavent to anything resembling inteligent thought but interesting non the less
From the pages:
“The results we expect will redirect billions of dollars of investment flows toward making sustainable human development a reality.”
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/what_we_do/
Hmm, is this “irrational exhuberance”?.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_exuberance
Some comment on this ‘Fake Charity’ accounts from 2009:
http://timworstall.com/2009/01/03/nef-funding/
try not to choke on your cornflakes !
Put head in paper bag and breathe.. breathe.. CO2 does have it’s uses in improving crop yields and preventing panic attacks. Do not use plastic bags unless they have been approved by the Soylent Corporation. Never heard of this lot before, but they list 50 or so staff, but like so many green charities, no accounts. They do have some novel finance products though-
Sounds even more useless than carbon trading.
Well, we have about 2.5 billion humans to get rid of to fit into the budget. . . I guess we’ll have to start with Norway. I know, I know. . . barely puts a dent in the deficit.
Fred says:
August 21, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Well since it is too late anyway, since we have been told for ten years we only have ten years left, I for one am going to celebrate.
Couple of pound+ Rib Eyes will go on the BBQ tonight, then I’ll go out and idle my car and sit in air conditioned comfort for a few hours.
I had a teacher in Jr.High who told us: “I don’t know why I’m bothering to teach you anything, the world will be destroyed before you ever become adults from (insert disaster here)”. He changed the disaster according to his current belief i.e. pollution, nuclear war, asteroids, etc. This was back in 1970. Personally, I’ll have the flat iron steak and BBQ’d corn on the cob.
Oh, and this gives me an opportunity to post a very interesting solution to the resource problem: brand new hyper-effective chinese public transportation: The straddling bus; a giant catamaran-style land-leviathan of a bus:
http://www.mnn.com/transportation/alternative-transportation/stories/chinas-new-bus-straddles-cars
From what i read they really plan to build it.
Atomic Hairdryer – I missed that one . Think of a Just Bond as just …. (fill in the blank).
How do people dream up these scams? How do they get funding? Well maybe I get it if I think about Hansen, Gore, Pachauri and Phil. When I think about it further Obama and Jackson have a hand in it as well. Then there is Kerry, Waxman and Pelosi. Well as I think about it further it all makes sense.
Instead of getting all serious about CO2, I say lets all sit back and listen to this great song and be happy. EVERY LITTLE THING IS GONNA BE ALRIGHT!!!!
EARTH FIRST! (we’ll do the other planets later)