Today marks the earliest recorded Earth Overshoot Day – Humans consume year’s worth of resources in just seven months

By Oliver Buckley
1 August 2018
(Sky News) – Earth Overshoot Day is the date when we have effectively consumed more resources than the planet can naturally replenish over the course of that entire year.
The day has shown a trend for appearing earlier and earlier since its inception – and today marks its earliest recorded point.
It means the planet has already consumed a year’s worth of resources in just seven months.
Humanity is now consuming the Earth’s natural resources at around 1.7 times faster than they can be naturally replaced – essentially this means an increasingly unsustainable way of life.
An overshoot day can be calculated for an individual country – the earliest national overshoot day was Qatar (9 February 2018) and the latest was Vietnam (21 December 2018). The UK passed its national overshoot on 8 May 2018.
The current deficit in natural resources is made possible by sacrificing more natural resources and accumulating waste, mainly carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, within the atmosphere.In order to determine the date of an Earth overshoot day the Global Footprint Network, an international think tank, calculates the number of days that Earth’s biocapacity – the ability to renew what people use – can support humanity’s ecological footprint. [more]

Earth Overshoot Day: Planet consumes year’s worth of resources in just seven months