Earth Overshoot Day

Earth Overshoot Day Highlights Ecological Credit Crunch

This past Tuesday marked a not-so-joyous milestone: Earth Overshoot Day 2008, the day when humanity had officially used up all the resources nature will provide this calendar year. Thanks to the problem of "ecological overshoot," in 2008 we gobbled up about 40 percent more resources than Earth can regenerate, worsening pretty much every pressing environmental problem we face today, from climate change to declining biodiversity to shrinking forests. And every year, as we cut down more and more trees before they can re-grow, emit more and more carbon dioxide before it can be absorbed, and catch more and more fish before they can spawn -- not to mention all our other unsustainable activities -- Earth Overshoot Day will come earlier and earlier.

For the next three months, we're living beyond our ecological means for the year, racking up charges on Mother Nature's credit card without any resources to pay it off. We'd better come up with a pretty stellar bail-out plan -- and act on it -- right away.

Learn more about Earth Overshoot Day from the Global Footprint Network:
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=overshoot