Beppe Grillo


Happy Earth Overshoot Day!

Let us all rejoice: yesterday it was Earth Overshoot Day!

What is Earth Overshoot Day?

You may be asking what it it. The Global Footprint Network will help me elucidate this concept. Also called "Ecological Debt Day", it marks an unfortunate milestone: the day when humanity begins living beyond its ecological means. Beyond that day, we move into the ecological equivalent of deficit spending, utilising resources at a rate faster than what the planet can regenerate in a calendar year.

Globally, we now require the equivalent of 1.4 planets to support our lifestyles. Put another way, in less than 10 months, humanity used ecological services it takes 12 months for the Earth to regenerate.

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.

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