One of the most motivating things I have read recently is the Earth Overshoot Day website.
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.
The Global Footprint Network
This year, 2020, Earth Overshoot Day will fall on August 22. This is, according to the Global Footprint Network, three weeks later than in 2019. That would appear as an improvement? But we will have used up what the Earth can produce this year in less than 2/3 of the year. Humans use up ecological resources as if we live on 1.6 Earths.
The point of Earth Overshoot day is to wake us up to this exploitation of resources and design a better future. We can make choices now to make sure we don’t continue to strip the world of its resources. Using more than the Earth can replace means we are stealing those resources from future generations. The degradation to the Earths ecological resources means next year it can provide us with less.
I found this shocking.
What was even more shocking (upsetting even) was using the Ecological Footprint Calculator on the Global Footprint Network to calculate my own ecological footprint.
How does this make you feel?
WeAreTreadingSofter 
I actually wrote about this when they announced the date for 2020 (https://costing-the-earth.com/2020/06/15/earth-overshoot-day/).
Its heartbreaking to think that even when we shut down so much of the world for over a month, we don’t win back more time. That said, it’s also heartening that in so short a time, if we pull together, we can make a difference.
LikeLike
Great article Farn. I came across the Global Footprint Network website through a press release from SEPA about their online conference to share ideas about designing the future – building back greener as it were. From there I ended up at the Earth Overshoot Day website and thought I’d share it. I used the calculator too and was quite horrified at my Overshoot day. It has spurred me on to start addressing some of the more difficult areas to reduce my footprint.
LikeLike