This year’s “supply of planet Earth” now gone SEP 15, 2010

On 21 August we used up our “ecological budget” for the year. Since that day we are using natural resources that will not be renewed by nature.

It’s called Earth Overshoot Day.

When we were planning to go live with ‘amiiko’ we thought “Great, we can write a blog post on Earth Overshoot Day about 2 weeks after launch”. Last year the day fell on 25 September – so we thought it would probably happen around mid September this year.

We were wrong. It happened much sooner…

Attention! More planets needed

We need about 1.4 planets to provide enough resources for all the stuff we consume, and for absorbing all our waste. Obviously, we only have one!

If we don’t break these patterns, we will need 2 planets by the mid 2030s. And if everyone already lived the lifestyle of Western consumers, we would need 5 planets.

It’s pretty clear that this can’t go on forever!

Ending overshoot

Ending overshoot is not (always) about buying less stuff. It’s more about consuming (and producing) in different ways.

Why is this important to you? Because you have tremendous power as a consumer. You literally “vote” for the companies whose products you buy.

What’s the current overuse of Earth? Watch it here.

And read about Earth Overshoot Day at the Global Footprint Network.