- Photo: Juan Carlos Del Olmo/WWF.
Chart: Global Footprint Network.
This past Saturday was Overshoot day, an event established to describe how fast we humans consume Earth’s natural resources. This is the point of time every year when we have used up the stock of renewable assets. Or in economic terms: Now we have exceeded our budget, spent the whole year’s salary and start living on loans.
This means that everything humanity produces or consumes the rest of this year is above the limit of what Earth’s eco systems can take in the long run.
– In less than nine months we spend resources that it takes nature twelve months to recreate. If everyone lived as the Swedes we would need almost three globes, says Carina Borgström-Hansson from the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Until abour 30 years ago, humanity’s consumption and Earth’s annual production were in balance. But now we just seem to be speeding up the pace. Last year Overshoot day came on the 25:th of September. (There’s “normally” about four or five days of difference each year. The sudden jump this year isn’t due to any sudden change in human demand but rather to better calculation methods, says Global Footprint Network, the organisation behind the calculations)
But Carina Borgström-Hansson hasn’t given up.
– We have the knowledge as well as the technology to achieve smart solutions required for attractive and sustainable lifestyles that can fit into this planet’s frames. What’s needed is the will and political action, she says.
Right now the election campaigns are starting to reach their peaks, as we will have national elections here in Sweden the 19:th of September. I’m eagerly awaiting the different parties’ proposals for how we can get below the Overshoot limit again.
