Earth Overshoot Day - 2011

It sounds like a film title, and if it was, the voiceover would be something like this .. "Humanity has exhausted the budget of what nature can provide this year - September 27th, 2011 is Earth Overshoot Day."

New research from the Global Footprint Network, an international research organisation with offices in California and Geneva, indicates that humanity is surpassing nature’s budget for the 2011 year, and we are now operating in overdraft.

In the same way that a bank statement tracks income against expenditures, Global Footprint Network tracks human demand on nature (eg. for providing food, producing raw materials and absorbing CO2) against nature’s capacity to regenerate those resources and absorb our wastes.

Its calculations show that, in approximately nine months, we have surpassed a level of demand on resources that the planet would be able to sustainably support this year.

“That’s like spending your annual salary three months before the year is over, and eating into savings year after year. Pretty soon, you run out of savings,” said Global Footprint Network President Dr. Mathis Wackernagel. Our ecological overspending has become a vicious cycle, in which we draw down more and more principal at the same time our level of demand, or “spending,” grows.

Meeting the Needs of 7 Billion

For the vast majority of human history, humanity has used natures’ services – to build shelter, then cities and roads; provide food and create products – at a rate that was well within the means of what nature could regenerate. But, sometime in the 1970s, we crossed a critical threshold. Human demand on nature began outstripping what it could renewably produce, a condition known as ecological overshoot.

Global Footprint Network’s preliminary 2011 calculations show we are now using resources at a rate it would take between 1.2 and 1.5 planets to sustainably support.

It is possible to turn the tide..

Think Global Act Local

You can start right now here in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs – visit the projects pages of this site and see how your home and business could help reduce its ecological footprint, save costs and help save the planet.

Get involved in the Compost Revolution, complete the online tutorial and quiz and receive your free compost or worm farm to start reducing food waste to landfill, where is generates all those nasty emissions.

Visit Barrett House and find out how to make your place more sustainable, saving costs and living in comfort this summer.

Local businesses can register to receive a free energy and water audit of your premises.

This month, in Australia it's also buy nothing new month..

What are you waiting for ... Christmas?

__________________________________________________________

Global Footprint Network is an international research organisation working to make ecological limits central decision-making by advancing the use of the Ecological Footprint, a resource management tool that measures how much nature we have, how much we use and who uses what.

To learn more about Earth Overshoot Day and how it is calculated, go to:

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/earthovershootday.

To calculate your own personal Ecological Footprint, and learn what you can do to reduce it, go to http://www.footprintnetwork.org/calculator.

If you have an everyday sustainable story to tell, email 400 words and a photo to info@reduceyourfootprint.com.au - receive a solar battery charger for every story published.