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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I think we can see what these guys are about on the “about use” page:
“nef has developed alternative measurement tools”
“Rich countries must consume less”
“The pursuit of growth has failed on its own terms, and for people and the planet. We are working on a new way to structure the economy. ”
Aha – restructure the economy. Where have we heard all this before?
Glen Shevlin …. totally irrelevant to anything resembling intelligent spelling …. but do keep trying. nevket240 …. did you mean Goldman Sachs or Ghoulman Sachs ? It’s a little early for Halloween ! Cheers.
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.
My own most recent data shows that it only takes five months to generate the ecological services (production of resources and absorption of CO2) that humanity requires in one year.
And I got my data from the same place GFN got its data.
Wal-Mart…
These Green Khmers dream of forced depopulation, nothing less. Politicians want “just” our money and control.
It is interesting, that whatever threat to humanity emerges, it can be always “solved” by increasing taxes.
Sounds like an excellent excuse for a national holiday. And just think of the benefits….The reduction in produced CO2 on this holiday each year into the future could be accumulated and offset against CO2 production now. There’s a potential spreadbet market on whether the holiday falls earlier or later each year.
If you liked that, you lot are just going to love this…
Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.
Lefty says:
August 21, 2010 at 7:21 pm
“With all the facts we have received about the “Hockey Stick Graphs” being altered and what not, why cant everyone come to the realization that we are being mislead about ALL of this…. Thats my opinion about it all. If we have already been misled about major global temperature data then can we really believe the other stuff they throw out there at us??”
No, one shouldn’t. As stated earlier in the thread, this is all recycled Malthusian alarmism. Sadly, this is an even bolder and more transparent argument for hard core population control and usurpation of liberties.
These nut jobs are British?
face/palm
@James Baldwin Sexton says: August 22, 2010 at 12:45 am
Spot on. And, the very fact that these crooks obviously cannot help themselves lie and cheat is best reasons for not believing ANYTHING they say.
Wow … I’ve never seen a better set of comments that display a collective head-in-the-sand and it’s-my-right-to-do-as-I-want mentality. No wonder the majority of the world is made of exploited people. Guess who’s doing the exploitation.
Seriously: Does no one even recognize that resource creation has a speed limit and humans are exceeding it. Too bad there are no traffic cops in sight.
Tim Williams says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:42 am
“If you liked that, you lot are just going to love this… ”
lol, yeh, you should play it annually and ask him when we are going to get at that tipping point. Same o, same o. Typical communist talking points disguised as environmentalism. And animated no less! Targeted our little people just in time!
lol, “corporations” “forces that will stop at nothing”! Funny stuff.
We can but laugh: Celia Walden’s Daily Telegraph text:-
Climate change has made its mark on the dictionary: from now on, there’s no denying the importance of “carbon capture and storage”, or “geo-engineering”. Which may explain why the environment is one of the few subjects it’s still impossible to joke about, as I have discovered to my cost.
While the humour embargoes appear to have been lifted on Christianity, homosexuality, fatties and Muslims (so long as it’s not in print), the environment is still cordoned off with yellow and black tape. When conversation at a recent dinner party became a little too greener-than-thou to bear, I quoted Groucho Marx’s gag: “What have future generations ever done for us?” The joke was greeted with total silence.
My companions must have missed the Simpsons episode in which Monty Burns rails: “Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favour now? Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she’s losing? Well I say, hard cheese.”
This has to be the Hamburger Helper version of AGW. Eat hearty in minutes, for the clock is ticking, and the Wicked Witch has promised to get your little dog, too.
UK Sceptic says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:56 am
These nut jobs are British?
face/palm
I’ll trade you for these, and I’ll throw in a six-pack of Bud.
Enneagram says:
August 21, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I guess those global warmers KIDS don´t know CO2 ban will ban candies and chocolates too, as these are made from it.”
And “Pop Rocks” candy has got to go! That stuff is literally filled with CO2!
okay, just relax everyone… I mowed the lawn today. The clippings ought to last us at least a few more days…
It seems to me that this is just another well funded anonymous NGO with self appointed academical experts and bureaucrats in an ever expanding network of organizations and thinks thanks in the eco-sustainability-global-warming industrial complex connected to the Club of Rome, UNEP, Soros, Rockefeller Foundation who just want to rule us and take over the world.
The victims of this enterprise are ordinary people, real democracy, the truth, science and people in the third world.
Dare I say it! Eco-fascists, that’s who they are!
Follow the money!
Talking about ecology and overshoot it looks like this good professor has just shot himself in the foot.
——————————————
Guy R. McPherson, Professor Emeritus
Educated in the ecology and management of natural resources
University of Arizona 18 August, 2010
See also video
UK Sceptic says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:56 am
These nut jobs are British?
Not so nutty! Look at the accounts again. They get money for doing nothing youknow, a bit like the UK benefit system.
Tim Williams says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:42 am
“If you liked that, you lot are just going to love this…
Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.”
Not bad, but he missed some big opportunities:
-no dramatic opera choirs. “Mars” from Gustav Holst, i suggest. Or something by Philip Glass, maybe a piece from Echnaton – sorry, Akhnaten, as you Americans say.
-mass release of Methane leads to a combustible oxygen-Methane mix and huge firestorms. A must for every warmist disaster film.
-H2S release from marine life decay; leading to planet-wide suffocation of land animals! Again, huge opportunity missed.
And he should replace the stick figure by a Sim; they look creepier.
fredb says:
August 22, 2010 at 1:14 am
“Wow … I’ve never seen a better set of comments that display a collective head-in-the-sand and it’s-my-right-to-do-as-I-want mentality. No wonder the majority of the world is made of exploited people. Guess who’s doing the exploitation.
Seriously: Does no one even recognize that resource creation has a speed limit and humans are exceeding it. Too bad there are no traffic cops in sight.”
fredb – These people say “August 21”; yet they drop not a word about what they computed there. It’s all “take my word for it”. They explain their method of “computation” thus:
“[ world biocapacity / world Ecological Footprint ] x 365 = Earth Overshoot Day Day
”
Sorry, this deserves nothing but ridicule. I mean; whoa; they MULTIPLY by THE NUMBER OF DAYS???? Heck i didn’t even know communists already invented NUMBERS!
So, lets do the calculation to determine when we’re all toast.
From 1st Jan up to (and including) 21st Aug = 233 days (in a non-leap year).
That means we are using 100% of the year’s allotted resources in just 0.64 years.
Let’s round it up to two thirds of a year to keep things simple.
So by my crude calculations, we’re using about 50% more resources than the earth can ultimately provide (using all three thirds of a year’s resources in just the first two thirds of the year – three thirds is 50% more than two thirds). Now, lets load these figures into my super computer.
Oh no, stop the car! That means we’re all going to run out of resources in the year 2942 instead of the generally accepted year 3408 (after factoring in technological advances, as well as yet undiscovered and untapped energy resources, and an infinite number of “unknowns”). My final figure is accurate to +/- 23 minutes with a 99.84% confidence rating.
If anyone wishes to see my data and computer codes, they can off.
Form their website:
“Together with hundreds of individuals, 200 cities, 23 nations, leading business, scientists, NGO’s, academics and our 90-plus global Partners — spanning six continents — we are advancing the impact of the Footprint in the world, applying it to practical projects and sparking a global dialogue about a one-planet future and how we can facilitate change.”
Just another one of those “I have mine but you can’t have one” groups. They never apply what they preach to themselves. If all of the people they mention above suddenly went away how much longer would this stupid footprint clock run before we ran out? The nerve of these people…..
fredb: August 22, 2010 at 1:14 am
Seriously: Does no one even recognize that resource creation has a speed limit and humans are exceeding it. Too bad there are no traffic cops in sight.
So, what’s the posted speed limit for resource creation, fred?
Be specific, please.
These are pathetic, paranoid little people with low self esteem and large egos that demand recognition of their ( self-declared ) valiant efforts to save humanity from itself. Not a new phenomena by any means, but until the advent of the internet their squealing was rarely heard beyond shouting distance. Best course of action is to ignore them. Unfortunately , some of them have ascended to positions of political power which makes them dangerous, instead of just annoying.