Sunday Times 2
Earth is in overdraft just eight months into the year
Humans have used up the natural resources the world can supply in a year in less than eight months, campaigners have warned.
The world has now reached ‘Earth Overshoot Day’, the point in the year when humans have exhausted supplies.
Smoke billows from burned trees. Humans have used up the natural resources the world can supply in a year in less than eight months (AFP)
This includes natural resources such as land, trees and fish, and means today we have outstripped the planet’s annual capacity to absorb waste products such as carbon dioxide.
For the rest of the year, the world is in ecological debt, with food stocks and forests being depleted, land degraded and carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere.
The problem is worsening, with the planet sliding into ‘ecological debt’ earlier and earlier.
This means the day on which the world has used up all the natural resources available for the year has shifted from early October in 2000 to August 19 in 2014.
In 1961, humans used only around three-quarters of the capacity Earth has for generating food, timber, fish and absorbing greenhouse gases, with most countries having more resources than they consumed.
But now 86 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries where the demands made on nature – the nation’s ‘ecological footprint’ – outstrip what that country’s resources can cope with.