Today is Overshoot Day. We have exhausted all available natural resources for the year. Until December 31, we will consume more than the Earth can regenerate. We, the tenants, are going to live on credit on the back of the planet… No wonder the landlord ends up getting angry!
According to calculations by the American organization Global Footprint Network, the day of the overshoot takes place this year one day earlier than in 2021. From today, Humanity is therefore in ecological deficitbecause it has consumed all the resources that the Earth can replenish in a year.
Overconsumption is back!
The impact of the health crisis is over and we have therefore resumed our good old habits of overconsumption. At this rate, it would take 1.75 Earths to be at equilibrium. This year, we will therefore be in “ecological debt” for 156 days.
The exceedance date has advanced by two months in twenty years. Humanity is depleting the Earth’s annual natural resource budget more and more quickly.
And France is one of the bad students because, if all the citizens of the planet lived like us, the day of the overshoot would have taken place almost three months ago, on May 5th.
Unsustainable production models
WWF France points to the agricultural and food system, particularly in Europe, as the major cause of the overrun. It is absolutely not sustainable!
Intensive agriculture is responsible for 80% of global deforestation and accounts for 70% of fresh water use. Food production is the source of 70% of biodiversity loss on Earth and 50% of the loss of biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems.
What Earth Overshoot Day tells us
Earth Overshoot Day is an initiative of the Global Footprint Network which develops and promotes tools to advance the sustainable developmentincluding theecological footprint and the biocapacity. Founded in 2003, this think tank aims to create a future where all human beings can live well, within the means of planet Earth.
The date of the day of the overshoot is calculated from a ratio between the world’s annual consumption of natural resources and the capacity of regeneration of these resources by the Earth. The first such calculation dates back to 1987, but the NGO has since set up a method to recalculate dates from previous years (since 1970 when the day of the overshoot occurred on December 29).
Admittedly, the calculation of the overshoot day is the subject of much criticism. Its ability to represent the consumption of the planet’s resources is called into question, as well as the reliability and honesty of the calculations. But with the day of the overshoot, the main thing is less the accuracy of the calculation than the media power of the message it transmits to Humanity…
This day should be seen as an opportunity to engage a massive action. It is high time to wake and of mobilize solutions, each at their own level. Everyone can act on their own scale on a daily basis and it is up to decision-makers to change our overall operating model.
New patterns of production and consumption have emerged. It is no longer a question of producing, using and throwing away but of producing in impacting the planet as little as possibleto use according to our needs and the longest time possible and of reuse or recycle anything that can be recycled. This is the model of thecircular economy to which we can all contribute.
