As of Oct.6, we're in '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: rijones99)
By early October, we humans had already consumed all the resources Earth will produce for 2007.
That’s the basis of Ecological Debt Day, announced by Mathis Wackernagel of the Global Footprint Network.
To find the Ecological Debt Day for each year, the Global Footprint Network calculates the ratio of the planet’s available biocapacity to the global demand on nature in that year. Then they multiply this ratio by 365 to get the date on which we humans have consumed all the resources Earth will produce in a year.
Currently, humanity uses 30% more in one year than nature can regenerate. In 2007, Ecological Debt Day fell on October 6, and each year it slides up the calendar by about three days as population grows, demand and consumption increases, and biocapacity decreases.
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. He calls these “slow changing stocks.”
Mathis Wackernagel: They will determine for decades to come to what extent we consume resources or not. So to what extent we are building ourselves traps, or opportunities.
Mathis Wackernagel also said, “Ecological assets are the most significant assets we depend on, because that’s where all the wealth comes from.”
The Global Footprint Network explains Ecological Debt Day
Take the Ecological Footprint quiz
Our thanks to:
Mathis Wackernagel
Executive Director
Global Footprint Network
Oakland, CA
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Before we can find our way forward to a good enough future for our children in a sustainable world, I suppose we must find a way to organize and maintain SUSTAINABLE COMMUNICATION among the leaders in the human community about the global challenges posed to humanity by the unbridled, skyrocketing growth of the human species and its soon to become patently unsustainable consumption/production activities now overspreading the surface of Earth.
Balderdash. Pure and simple. There is more food now than at any time in human history. There are more proven oil reserves now than at anytime in history. The thing to be worrying about is monetary debt. If the economies tank, no one is going to worry about spotted owls or polar bears. Folks are going to worry about food, shelter and heat.
Dear Benjamin,
One of us is mistaken.
Would you mind commenting on the links below?
http://www.liveearth.org/http://www.liveearth.org/?p=314
Thanks,
Steve
Dear Benjamin Napier,
Let us agree to keep talking about these issues. At least to me, they are real. Mostly, current leadership presents us with distractions from the what it is that needs to be acknowledged and addressed.
Your example of speaking out has got to have something to do with what is required of us all now. All of us have got to find new ways of making a difference just like you are doing.
Here we are, one year away from US national elections. Many people seem to be “marking time” and waiting for a new day. For the moment, and since the turn of the century, leadership has not been up to the challenges of our time.
Because the problems that I am seeing cannot wait “until next year,” I keep doing what I am doing, and hoping to do things better by doing things differently. Current leadership appears to be making bad matters even worse, not doing things better. If leaders keep doing what they are doing now, we will likely keep getting what we are getting now. Therein lies a big problem.
Always glad to hear from you and to know the many members of the Earth & Sky community are active. Not just for me personally, but for everyone’s sake, especially our children’s sake, this kind of discussion is vital.
Sincerely yours,
Steve
Steve,
I took a look at those links. I must tell you that I am not a fan of concerts that raise awareness. Several years ago I was chairman of the environmental club at Rochester Institute of Technology and was approached by a lovely high school senior and asked to host an Earth Day awareness concert on campus. The department head was supportive and we did it. What a debacle.
It turned out to be a bunch of lecherous old dead heads hitting on the high school and college girls. I wound up having to preside over the cleanup and repair of the facility. There was no pretence of anything environmental. It was a major party that had no socially redeeming aspects. I suspect all of these are the same. Live Aid, Farm Aid, ad nauseum.
Don’t get me wrong, I like music and parties. It is that there is no work, science or thought involved. They are parties. Awareness is a vacuous word. Work is an action word.
I started out in the landfill business many years ago. By 1988 I was a fullfledged environmental wacko. I thought global warming was inevitable and we were all going to die as a result. I started studying all the info I could find and wound up getting my BS in environmetal management from RIT. The studying convinced me the global warming (now they are climate change) folks were either groupies or scared. The folks running the campaigns, in my estimation, are socialists that are using fear to destroy the capitalist system. There is nothing environmental about them at all. They ride in jets and limosines and live the high life while telling me to ride my bike and live in heat.
Actions speak louder than words. These folks are hypocrites. I have yet to see any science that supports the human caused global warming. I cannot buy it.
I do not believe that humans should screw up their nest. I believe in intelligent, economic realities and that (I hate normative statements) we should take care of our home so that we can live here. However, if we destroy the economy of the United States, there will no longer be any pretense of saving the environment. It takes a lot of money and free time for that luxury. Once the world re-enters the dark ages, survival will be the word of the day. Whatever you gotta do, survive. The governments don’t and won’t worry about the environment. Politicians are about power. Period.
I also do not believe in compromise and bipartisanship. If you have a principle, it cannot be negotiable. It has got to be absolute and you gotta walk the the talk if you want respect or you want to get anything done. Ruling by consensus or committee is a waste of time and effort. Find out what you believe, be sure you are right and then, full speed ahead. Keep learning and understand that nobody knows everything.
Well, you asked and I babbled. YOu take care and do not work too hard. thanks for the reparte’.
Ben
Hi Ben,
Please recall that I am a psychologist. For the first 50 years of my life, the matters of greatest interest to you and other members to the Earth & Sky community were outside my field of awareness. I have come quite late to the field of action where the potential impacts of the gigantic scale and anticipated growth rate of humankind upon Earth’s resources and ecosystem services are acknowledged and addressed, in the light of good science.
Let me make a promise to you. It is one I have made before. If the scientists of the IPCC are proven wrong, no one will ever hear me speak again about human population numbers and the environment. The AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population will end immediately.
Perhaps humankind can keep growing endlessly the global economy, increasing indefinitely per capita consumption and propagating ad infinitum absolute global human population numbers on a relatively small planet the size of Earth. If someone will kindly point out how such unregulated production, consumption and reproduction activities of the human species can SUSTAINABLY continue to occur much longer in the finite world God blesses us to inhabit, then I am prepared to admit that I am out of my mind and, even worse, have lost touch with science itself.
All of us are struggling with something huge and probably difficult to overcome, I suppose. It is pleasing how the Earth & Sky community has been demonstrating its willingness to consider the global challenges we discussing and beginning to witness, the ones dimly visible on the far horizon.
Always, with thanks to you,
Steve
if the subject isnt about overpopulation not worth discussing. we are in overshoot. the end of living and the beginning of survival. population is the only issue. situation hopeless. reality bites!
Many thanks to Winston Smith.
If we keep overpopulating Earth; if we keep conspicuously overconsuming limited resources; and if we keep endlessly expanding big-business activities, thereby polluting the relatively small, evidently finite, noticeably frangible planet as we keep doing now, then a good enough future for our children cannot be assured, can it?
I can understand the wish to ignore human overpopulation as a ominous, huge global challenge; however, to obstinately deny the potentially pernicious, human-driven problems posed by the proverbial “ mother “ of all the looming global challenges, visible even now on the far horizon in the form of skyrocketing absolute global human population numbers projected to reach 9+ billion people within the lifetime of my not-so-great generation’s children, appears to render a selfish disservice, one that avoids the difficult work of widely sharing in a timely fashion an adequate understanding of our distinctly human-induced predicament.
Humanity cannot begin formulating a plan of action to address the human predicament without a consensually-validated understanding of what the predicament is, I suppose.
The multifaceted predicament before us appears to made even more demanding because the necessary time for confronting and overcoming the global challenges appears short …....... and not to be on our side.
Sincerely,
Steve
In this moment, just before the dawning of another New Year, 2008 looks like it could be the most pivotal year in my lifetime…..... more so than 1945 or 1968 or 2000.
If the human species is rapidly “growing” an ecological debt, as we rampantly dissipate Earth’s limited resources faster than the planet can restore them for human benefit, does it not appear evident that some consideration and much open discussion could reasonably and sensibly focus on strategies for limiting the unbridled increase of per human over-consumption of natural resources?
An Abysmal Absence of Leadership at every level of governance?
If people are consuming resources unsustainably, perhaps doing less consuming will help. Voila!
Now, I ask you, where can we find leaders for these times, ones willing to speak out clearly, loudly and openly about the challenges posed to humanity by rapacious human over-consumption of the limited resources of Earth?
Sincerely,
Steve
Steve Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
Even though the economic powerbrokers among us, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and their minions in the mass media refuse to speak openly about anything having to do with the conspicuous consumption, overproduction and propagation activities which they would have us continue to ignore, perhaps we can help these woefully inadequate leaders by beginning to speak about the unsustainable “primrose path” these leaders are relentlessly trodding without regard for either the future of life or human and environmental health.
Please understand that I am concerned my generation of elders could be “selling a bill of goods” to our young people today; but we have no intention of fulfilling our promises and will fail to deliver the goods. In part, these unfortunate circumstances result from my generation’s unbridled over-consumption of Earth’s finite capacity to sustain life as well as from our reckless and unrestrained dissipation of limited natural resources bound up in the huge scale and growth rate of economic globalization.
My not-so-great generation appears to be mortgaging and threatening the future of its children by remaining religiously focused upon the endless accumulation of material wealth, the unchecked increase in per capita consumption of scarce resources, and the continuous consolidation of political power used to conquer Earth. Despite all our high-minded rhetoric to the contrary, we need not look far to see that money, power and privilege for ourselves, for our bought-and-paid-for politicians, and for our newly-made rich minions in the mass media are the primary object of our desire. Regardless of the human-driven calamities that might befall coming generations, the leadership in my generation advises us to live long, and live large, in a patently unsustainable world of idle comforts, effortless ease, conspicuous consumption, secret handshakes, exclusive clubs, exotic hideaways and thousands of private jets, having abandoned our regard for the less fortunate among us, for the maintenance of life as we know it, and for the preservation of the integrity of Earth. Please, now, recognize the single-minded pursuit of dollars, political power and privileges to profligately consume, and to magnificently ignore the practical requirements of biophysical reality as our raison d’etre, come what may for the children.
When my not-so-great generation completes its unsavory ‘mission’ on Earth, I fear young people will look back in anger and utter disbelief at the things we have done and failed to do…..all things we have proclaim loudly now as evidence of our many virtues.
Yes, of course, there is an ecological debt but, please, let us get real for moment and understand what my generation does not want its children to know: we are determined to let the ecological debt for which we are clearly responsible fall into your lap, come what may.
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
Perhaps the time has come for people who are responsible for the huge ecological debt to accept their responsibilities for that debt by giving back to Earth.
Please know that I would like to be mistaken in even suggesting that humanity may not have 20 to 25 years to figure things out and to begin to move with all deliberate speed from soon to be seen as patently unsustainable ways of living in this world to alternate lifestyles that put the human community on a road toward sustainability.
At least to me, time is of the essence; it is in short supply; and there is no time whatever to waste. I expect that people here in this small community are going to play a large part in developing strategies and implementing able responses to the global challenges posed to humanity by human over-consumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities, inasmuch as these activities appear to be approaching a leviathan-like scale of unsustainability on a planet of the size and with the make-up of Earth.
Young people ask every day, “What needs to be done now?”
At least one of the correct responses to the children’s good question is so astonishingly simple, so incredibly obvious and yet so difficult to so much as even acknowledge because too many wealthy people, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and their talking heads in the mass media willfully ignore it. For all of the super-rich and their minions, silence is golden.
All of the trillions of dollars of wealth, that are concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority of people within the family of humanity, have been derived from taking something of value from the Earth and doing something productive with it. For a long time, taking from the Earth in this way did not pose a clear and present danger to biodiversity, the environment, the integrity of Earth and, perhaps, humanity. For a moment, consider that the trillions of dollars comprising the global economy is wealth which has been “transferred” from Earth’s body into the bank accounts of people we call “haves.” Millions of “haves” hold almost all of the money. The problem, however, is that billions of less fortunate “have-nots” in the the human community are hungry and destitute. Even though the “have-nots” have ecological footprints, we know the impact of the “have-nots” on the Earth is a small one. On the other hand, the millions of “haves” who possess the lion’s share of world’s wealth have huge ecological footprints because they have extracted a great deal from the Earth and also have conspicuously consumed Earth’s resources to the point of appearing obscene in our time.
The task at hand is evident. The “haves” who have almost all of the world’s wealth, almost all of which has been accumulated at the expense of the Earth, need to return to the Earth a portion of that which they have commandeered from it. The wealthy and powerful among us are asked to help humanity transition from a perverse dedication to the endless accumulation of wealth and power that is effectively dissipating Earth’s resources, degrading Earth’s frangible ecosystems and recklessly consuming Earth’s body, to a more fair and equitable sharing of wealth with the “have-nots” as well as to a willing commitment to protect of Earth’s biodiversity, promote renewal of Earth’s resources, and do whatsoever is required of us to save the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by our children and coming generations.
As has been noted in the Stern Report, the IPCC Report, and in many other reports, those who hold almost all the wealth are called upon to make effective reparations to a ravaged Earth from which almost all that they possess has been derived.
Sincerely,
Steve
The ecological debt is evidence of humanity “overshooting” Earth’s carrying capacity. What is to be done now?
The human species appears to be in an “overshoot” situation relative to Earth’s limited capacity to sustain life as we know it much longer.
In the course of history, I cannot find any evidence of a single species other than the human species that has precipitated such multi-faceted leviathan-like circumstances.
Inasmuch as human beings possess the attributes required to have induced the gigantic problem we see looming ominously before humanity in the offing, it seems to me that we also maintain the capabilities to take the measure of the problem, however colossal, and find a solution to it, one that is consonant with universally shared values.
Understanding population mathematics (i.e., the exponential function) and human creatureliness would make a big and helpful difference. Appreciating the limits of linear thinking will be another giant step forward.
Once we share an adequate enough understanding of the global problem of huge proportions, then it will become possible for the family of humanity to carefully and skillfully find a humane path toward a sustainable future, I believe.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
You don’t give a lot of context.
link: cloud forest