This message is just not getting through to most people. We’ll do what we can.
On this day in August 2015, humans have used an entire year’s worth of the Earth’s natural resources, according to the Global Footprint Network.
Calling it Earth Overshoot Day, the group celebrates — or, rather, notes — the day by which people have used more natural resources, such as fish stocks, timber, and even carbon emissions, than the Earth can regenerate in a single year. It’s basically a balance sheet for global accounting.
“We can overuse nature quite easily,” Mathis Wackernagel, president of the Global Footprint Network, told ThinkProgress. “When you start to spend more than you earn, it does not become immediately apparent. But, eventually, you go bankrupt.”
It’s a simple idea, really.
“If a sea lion eats a fish, that fish is not available for me to eat,” Wackernagel said. But this philosophy works for carbon, as well. (And it’s usually people using up…
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