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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BBD wants some pointers to debunking this myth. Dont know whether it is of any interest, but I came across this:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldgrgraph.html
and:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopchggraph.html
from the international database of the US census. The graphs seem to indicate that world population is or will be in decline.
These are good links – worth a look since they show the falling rate of growth in population. The usual line on this is that population growth is ‘exponential’ – which it clearly is not.
Thanks nemesis. The curtain is lifted a bit…
Anyone else found solid sources that rebut the claims that human consumption has outstripped the biosphere?
Specifically, the WWF claim about population already being three times over what the Earth can sustain. I am deeply suspicious of this, but it has become a ‘fact’ which is now ubiquitous.
If something is not sustainable, it will not be sustained.
Since the population and the food supply are clearly sustainable, the problem is how to make them un-sustainable.
A carbon tax should do the trick. The tax can be periodically raised until people begin to get hungry — then the blame will be placed on the primary source of widespread sustainability: the free market. When enough people are made dependent on the government, then the continued growth of the bureaucracy will be sustainable.
Win-win! —> [for those who seek control over our lives and assets.]
But for the rest of us? Not so much. ☹
Smokey says:
August 22, 2010 at 5:56 pm
“If something is not sustainable, it will not be sustained.”
When you’re talking sustainability, it’s best to have some lovely global warming, lots of energy, and few restrictions of food production. So why aren’t the Malthusiastic (enthusiastic Malthusians!) groups keeping their mouths shut and just squirreling away what they need to survive the big crash and burn? I think the rest of your comment answered that.
And…..
W^L+ says:
August 21, 2010 at 7:42 pm
“[…] I do want to note that if global cooling occurs, world food production will drop and there will be lots of people starving (and freezing) to death.”
Problem solved, eh? Why isn’t Global Footprint Network sounding the warning? I think Smokey has it about right.
Leaving you all with this TV show/philisophical mashup; “Curb your Malthusiasm!”
“We get gamed by the system because institutions and government agencies are promoting themselves, and most people haven’t taken a statistics class, and aren’t professional science journalists with all this time to wallow around in a scientific paper,” Blum said.
She cautions against believing numbers without some kind of understanding of where they come from.
“There’s some outstanding work out there, and sometimes numbers give us a valuable portrait of what’s going on,” she said. “But if you’re talking policy issues that affect the lives of people and of animals, that influence our lives in an everyday sense, you have to realize that numbers can be deceptive in their simplicity, and often tell a false story.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/08/18/petscol081810.DTL
DirkH, of course multiplying, what else? If you get a 0.65 out of your capacity/usage… not that there is any sustainablility to calculate such nonsense.
How many times have we all died from starvation since Malthus started telling us in 1798 that the population was unsustainable? By the calculations of Paul Ehrlich, we all died in the 1970’s. There are only so many times that I’m going to hear “We’re all gonna die!” before I start saying that it’s just more BS.
Ben says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:51 pm
“Sigh, you can look this up yourself, the “they” is as I describe it.”
Sorry to be so tiresome but before I started reading here it really was news to me to think that a global warming scam had been hoisted on us, the peoples of the world, by the corruption of science, a corruption that took in (and continues to bamboozle) virtually every national science academy in the world.
I’m sorry you couldn’t help me with any useful links to help my research. In my quest to understand I resorted to googling ‘bad climate science’ and first on the list was an outrageous attack on some Dr Richard Lindzen about him not being a very good scientist (preposturous given his envialble pulishing record in peer review).
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/12/more-bad-climate-science-from-the-wall-street-journal-editorial-page.html?cid=6a00e551f080038834012875fad28f970c
Tim Williams says:
August 23, 2010 at 1:21 am
Sorry to be so tiresome but before I started reading here it really was news to me to think that a global warming scam had been hoisted on us, the peoples of the world, by the corruption of science, a corruption that took in (and continues to bamboozle) virtually every national science academy in the world.
I believe the word you want is “foisted”, not “hoisted”. What’s tiresome are Warmist trolls coming here feigning (that means pretending) interest in the subject at hand, and using the same, tired, straw man arguments such as yours.
…preposturous given his envialble pulishing record…
Sorry, what language are you speaking – Trollese? Try learning the English language. You’ll get on ever so much better here.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t help me with any useful links to help my research. In my quest to understand I resorted to googling ‘bad climate science’ and first on the list was an outrageous attack on some Dr Richard Lindzen about him not being a very good scientist (preposturous given his envialble pulishing record in peer review).”
Well, trolling or not, you’ve managed to pick out one of the most obvious
manifestations of this egregious behavior, that the tone of your post, seemingly dismisses.
Continue to peel the orange, and maybe you’ll find that other popular targets are wrongly vilified as well .
Good luck, pilgrim.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm just like when we quit paying for government..WUWT reports you decide.