Earth Overload Day: Humanity has used up all resources for 2017

From now on, we life on credit

From today onwards, we would need a second earth: With today's humanity, mankind has exhausted all the world's sustainably usable resources. The ecological footprint of mankind has thus grown again - meanwhile we would need 1.7 earths to meet our annual resource consumption. In 2016 the Earth Overshoot Day was six days later.

The time could hardly be more symbolic: While in Germany the diesel summit is heading for a lazy compromise, the Earth Overload Day clearly demonstrates the overexploit of humanity on our planet. The "Earth Overshoot Day" marks the day when mankind has consumed all the natural resources that the earth can regenerate in a year.

Everything we consume from now on or release like greenhouse gases and waste is at the expense of future years and generations. Our additional consumption is possible only because we emit more greenhouse gases than the earth can buffer and consume more water, energy and natural resources or process for our consumption than the earth can reproduce.

Humanity would need 1.7 Earths

This year, the earth overloading day is already on August 2nd - six days ahead of 2016 and as early as never before. The gulf between the consumption of human resources and what our planet can afford is thus becoming more and more fragmented. The ecological footprint of mankind is now so great that we would need 1.7 earths to make a sustainable balance between our resources.

For more than thirty years, we have taken away more of the earth than it can provide us, warns Eberhard Brandes, the WWF's environmental organization. This permanent accommodation has brought our planet to the intensive care unit.

If mankind continues to live as before, we need two complete planets by 2030 to cover our demand for food and renewable resources. By the year 2050 it would be around three.

Three Earths for Germany

Resource consumption is not evenly distributed: Germany is one of the countries whose ecological footprint is clearly above the world average. The German Overshoot Day was already reached on April 24th. If the whole world were to live like them, we would need more than three earths.

For the USA, Australia and Canada, the Overshoot Day was even earlier: mid-March. After Luxembourg and Qatar, they are among the leaders in resource consumption. If all of humanity were to live like them, we would need more than five earths. One of the few countries that can consume just about as many resources as the Earth is Honduras: Its Earth Day of Creation is on the 31st of December.

Already noticeable consequences

The receipt for our overexploitation is already being felt: the weather extremes are increasing, there are heat traces in series and droughts, then again heavy rain and flooding. Whole regions are suffering from famines and the dying is becoming more and more dramatic. At the same time coral reefs, rainforests and river systems threaten to disappear.

Four out of nine environmental stress limits, which define the stability of planetary habitats, have already been exceeded: Climate change, the loss of biodiversity, land use and the biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus.

We must finally find a way to live and operate in the natural limits of our planet, says Brandes. This is the greatest challenge of our time.

On paper, many measures and targets have long existed: whether it is the UN Sustainability Goal, the Paris Climate Convention or other UN resolutions. But from an implementation, we are partially far away.

The facts lie on the table, mankind knows what has to be done to save our earth. It is finally time to act, so Brandes.

Source: Overshootday.org