Earth Overshoot Day 2015

http://www.overshootday.org/about-earth-overshoot-day/

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. We maintain this deficit by liquidating stocks of ecological resources and accumulating waste, primarily carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Earth Overshoot Day is hosted and calculated by Global Footprint Network, an international think tank that coordinates research, develops methodological standards and provides decision-makers with a menu of tools to help the human economy operate within Earth’s ecological limits.

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http://www.livescience.com/51840-earth-hits-overshoot-day-2015.html

'Overshoot Day' 2015: Earth is Now Officially in the Red
Dave McLaughlin, WWF | August 12, 2015

Dave McLaughlin is vice president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)'s Sustainable Food program. He contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Planet Earth is in the red. For the rest of the year, people will be writing checks our planet can't cash.

Today is Earth Overshoot Day: that annual moment when humankind's use of natural resources exceeds the planet's ability to produce and replenish them. Like a gecko that's lost its tail, our planet can heal itself. It can regrow plants, rebuild fish stocks, reabsorb carbon from the air, and return clean water to lakes, rivers and underground aquifers. But these processes take time.

Since the dawn of civilization, the planet replenished its resources faster than humans consumed them. However, according to WWF's Living Planet Report, we eventually crossed an invisible boundary.

Starting around 1970, we began to take more from the planet each year than it could restore. Since then, the gap between our rate of consumption and the planet's rate of regeneration has widened from a crevice to a chasm. The first Earth Overshoot Day fell in late December. This year, it falls on August 13.

Greenhouse gas emissions and food production are leading contributors to overshoot, and with it, climate change. In turn, this has set off a chain reaction: climate change drives extreme weather which contributes to food insecurity, and ultimately, to political and social strife.

Indeed, in 2007 and 2008, wheat shortages in Russia and China drove up food prices in Egypt and other already fragile societies, triggering riots in many and pushing some into revolution. Researchers at the New England Complex Systems Institute identified in a 2011 report more than 30 "food riots" and protests in the wake of food-price spikes in 2008, leading to thousands of deaths. They further warned that chronically high food prices “should lead to persistent and increasing global unrest.”

Like climate change, there are two basic strategies to address food insecurity: mitigation and adaptation.

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We might not know what the next food shortages will look like, but scientific and historical evidence tells us that they will come — and that they will be increasingly severe and prolonged.

We also know that, based on a decades-long trajectory, Earth Overshoot Day will come earlier next year, and earlier still the year after that.

Just as certainly, however, the public and private sectors have the responsibility and capacity to roll back Earth Overshoot Day.

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