I received this by email today. Is it too much to hope that the recent economic crises are swinging the tide against our debt culture?
We really can't eat the future.
TODAY humanity has used up ALL of 2008's natural resources. From now to 31st Dec we're in ECOLOGICAL DEBT to the only home we have.
Humans now require the resources of 1.4 planets Just like any company nature has a budget – it can only produce so many resources and absorb so much waste each year. Globally, we now demand the biological capacity of 1.4 planets. But of course, we only have one.
Each year, humanity's ecological footprint is calculated (its demand on cropland, pasture, forests and fisheries), and compares this with the amount of resources the world’s lands and seas generate. Our data shows us that in less than 10 months we consume what it takes the planet 12 months to produce.
Earth Overshoot Day creeps earlier every year Humanity has been in overshoot since the mid 1980s, when the first Earth Overshoot Day fell on December 31, 1986. By 1995 it was more than a month earlier, arriving on November 21. Ten years later it had moved another six weeks earlier, to October 2, 2005.
Earth Overshoot Day (also known as Ecological Debt Day) was a concept devised by the NEF (New Economics Foundation). NEF's Policy Director Andrew Simms is one of the internationally acclaimed speakers at this year's Leeds Schumacher Lectures on 4th October. Tickets and more details are available here.
Recent Comments