Happy Earth Overshoot Day!

For once it’s later in the year but that’s nothing to cheer about

By David Salt

In 2020, Earth Overshoot Day is Saturday 22 August.

What that means is that humanity has consumed all the biological resources that the Earth can renew during an entire year (365 days) in just 235 days.

In other words, humanity currently uses 64% more than what can be renewed – or as much as if we lived on 1.6 planets.

Of course, the world doesn’t shut down on Earth Overshoot Day, it continues to function by borrowing from the future. However, there’ll be a reckoning some day; no-one can overrun their account for ever. Today’s crop of political leaders are betting that reckoning will occur on someone else’s watch.

The date for Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by the Global Footprint Network, an environmental NGO that has been making this calculation since 2006. The Network calculates the Earth’s biocapacity (the amount of resources the planet’s land and seas can generate in a year) and compares this to humanity’s ecological footprint (that year’s demand for things like food and urban space, and forests to absorb our emissions of carbon dioxide). Researchers then calculate the gap and project the results onto the calendar.

According to their calculations, we use up Earth’s biocapacity this Saturday (tomorrow as I type this).

Not everyone supports these types of calculations but I reckon any effort to get humanity to reflect on its unsustainable trajectory is worth noting. And Earth Overshoot Day is something that brings together a lot of data and gets relatively widespread attention so it’s worth a little discussion.

Are we there yet?

So what does Earth Overshoot Day tell us?

The prime message is that we’re unsustainable, living beyond our means, and stealing from the future of our children.

What’s more, we’ve been stealing from their future for some time now – since the early 1970s according to the Global Footprint Network (see Figure 1). Back then the Earth had the capacity to renew all that we consumed.

Earth Overshoot Day is not a fixed calendar day (like, for example, World Wetlands Day on the 2 February) as humanity’s ecological footprint the planet’s biocapacity is not constant. Our use of resources increases as our population grows and decreases as resource efficiency improves. Indeed, you can see a flattening of the curve during the past decade (maybe that’s the efficiency dividend from technology). And the Earth’s biocapacity changes as the planet changes (see the postscript on how Australia’s biocapacity was much reduced by the wildfires of our Black Summer).

Back when the Network began making these assessments in 2006, Earth Overshoot Day occured in late August. For most of the past decade it’s been in early August. The earlier the calendar day the greater the ecological overshoot.

Of course, different parts of humanity make different contributions to this unsustainable overshoot. The Global Footprint Network has calculated how life styles in different countries use up the planet’s biocapacity to different degrees (see Figure 2).

For example, if the whole world consumed like the United States we would hit Earth Overshoot Day on the 14 March – a whopping six months earlier than if it’s calculated for humanity as a whole.

But before we Aussies gloat about America’s profligate overconsumption, if the whole world consumed like Australia then we’d reach Earth Overshoot Day two weeks later on the 30 March – nothing to be proud about.

An unprecedented shift

But the reason a lot of people are talking about Earth Overshoot Day this year is because it arrives more than three weeks later than it did last year – that’s movement in the direction we want; to be sustainable using this measure we want the smallest overshoot possible (New Year’s Eve would be great!)

That’s an unprecedented shift between years. It reflects the 9.3% reduction of humanity’s Ecological Footprint from 1 January to Earth Overshoot Day compared to the same period last year.

Of course, this result was due to an unprecedented disturbance in the form of a pandemic that has crushed economic growth around the world. The Global Footprint Network has calculated this ‘improvement’ in sustainability is a direct consequence of the coronavirus-induced lockdowns around the world. This caused decreases in wood harvest and CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

“The fact that Earth Overshoot Day is later this year is a reflection of a lot of suffering, and the reflection of imposed changes to our lives,” says Laurel Hanscom, Global Footprint Network’s Chief Executive.

“I don’t think there’s a silver lining to that. One way or another, humanity will come into balance with the Earth. We don’t want it to be through disaster. We want it to be through intentional, designed efforts to make sure it doesn’t come at such a high and terrible human cost.”

Mind the overshoot

We’re all waiting for a vaccine for COVID. We all want international travel to recommence. We all want a job. Governments everywhere are promising to ramp up the economy as fast as they can (and they’ll cut back environmental regulation if they can to speed it up).

But we all want a quality future for our children too.

On Earth Overshoot Day 2020, maybe we should all reflect on exactly what it is we want and what we are prepared to sacrifice.

As Lauren says: “One way or another, humanity will come into balance with the Earth.”

Image by stokpic from Pixabay

PS: Australia Wildfires 2019-2020: Running a biocapacity deficit for the first time in its history According to the Global Footprint Network, the devastating fires of the Black Summer of 2019-2020 have turned Australia’s biocapacity reserve into a deficit. This is startling since Australia has long been considered a biocapacity giant. With its enormous landmass characterized by wide-open spaces and its relatively small population, it has been blessed with a significant biocapacity reserve: since record keeping started in 1961, its biocapacity was consistently estimated to be two to three times the size of its Ecological Footprint. But not for the year of the fire!