Today we have exhausted the annual budget of nature

Today, August 8th, is Overshoot Day of the year 2016, the date on which humanity has consumed the equivalent to all the resources that the Earth can renew in a period of 12 months. This is stated in a report by the NGO Global Footprint Network: the remaining five months of this year, we will be indebted to our planet. According to the study, to satisfy our current needs, we would need the equivalent of 1.6 Earths, and if the progression of our consumption continues as it has been up to now, by 2030 humanity will take double what the planet produces.

However, Overdraft Day comes earlier each year. In 2015, the also known as Excess Earth Day came on August 13, and going back 21 years, in 1995, it was October 10. According to the report, this trend is explained “because we have emitted more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than our oceans and forests can absorb, and we have depleted fisheries and cleared forests faster than they can reproduce and regrow.” The report highlights that 60% of the global ecological footprint corresponds to CO2 emissions.

The director of the Global Footprint Network Mathis Wackernagel points out that to reverse the trend it is necessary to adopt “a new lifestyle”, which is possible with “current technology and financially convenient by outweighing the benefits over the costs”. However, he regrets that a single resource is missing, “political vision”.