Earth Overshoot Day • Insteading

Like a child devouring a batch of cookies, we humans are using Mother Earth’s resources faster than she can replenish them. But just how fast?

The Global Footprint Network created Earth Overshoot Day to help us understand. Ideally, humans would finish December 31 having used no more resources than the Earth’s oceans and forests can absorb. Or, even better, less.

But, since the 1970s, human consumption of Earth’s resources has been unsustainable well before that. In 2016, humans used more than our share on August 8.

How Earth Overshoot Day Is Determined

The Global Footprint Network makes its estimate based on more than 15,000 data points. They assemble figures on things like emissions, food production, even forest fires, to determine whether humans are overdrawn on resources or allowing nature to keep pace. Their data comes mostly from United Nations reports.

Based on the current population and the regenerative capacity of the Earth, everyone on the planet can afford to use the resources of 1.7 hectares. That’s about 3 football fields.

Some Countries Use More Than Their Share

While the world’s consumption is the most important data to track, the Global Footprint Network also tracks the Earth Overshoot Day for individual countries. They look at it in two different ways:

Via Earth Overshoot Day.

Past Earth Overshoot Days

The day that we humans overdraft our account with Mother Earth keeps getting earlier and earlier. On the bright side, our overconsumption isn’t accelerating like it did in the 1970s. Still, every year we overconsume puts us deeper and deeper in to ecological debt.