Earth & Sky

How we can stay out of 'ecological debt'

Wackernagel said the most effective way to slow down our use of resources is to focus on making infrastructure, like cities or power plants, resource efficient, and address trends that move slowly, like demographic growth, early on. (Photo: Borkur Sigurbjornsson)

You may not have heard of Ecological Debt Day before, but it happens every year. It’s the one day that divides the part of the year where we have enough natural resources to meet people’s demands on the Earth, and the part of the year that we don’t – that is, we’re in ecological debt.

Earth & Sky’s Lindsay Patterson spoke to Mathis Wackernagel, executive director of the Global Footprint Network, about the idea of Ecological Debt Day, how to slow our appetite for resources, and what we can do to better manage our natural assets.

Written by Lindsay Patterson

2 Comments for How we can stay out of 'ecological debt'

1. 1

   Nov 2, 08:34 AM #

   Steven Earl Salmony says:

   Before we can find our way forward to a good enough future for our children in a sustainable world, we must find a way to organize and maintain SUSTAINABLE COMMUNICATION among the leaders of the human community about the global challenges posed to humanity by the skyrocketing growth of the human species and its unbridled consumption and production activities now overspreading the surface of Earth.

2. 2

   Nov 3, 07:14 AM #

   Steven Earl Salmony says:

   Guidepost…..

   http://www.liveearth.org/?p=314