GFN: this year, mankind has already used all the resources that the Earth could recover

Non-profit environmental organization Global Footprint Network (GFN) has published an annual report from which it follows that today, on August 8, humanity has already used all the resources of the Earth that the planet could recover for future use. This means that the remaining time until the end of the year, humanity will live “in debt” at its own expense. At the same time, for the first time in the history of the organization, this date, which the authors of the report call Earth Overshoot Day, came so early: last year it fell on August 13.

The authors of the report use their own metrics to determine the date of “overspending”. Two parameters are introduced - Planet's Biocapacity ("biocapacity") and Humanity's Ecological Footprint ("ecological footprint"). Using them, the day is determined by a simple calculation:


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Under the biocapacity of Biocapacity, GFN employees understand all biological resources that are capable of self-restoration in a natural way without human intervention: forests, pastures, arable land, and the like. It is believed that they can absorb all human waste and thereby restore balance.

Accordingly, the opposite in meaning Ecological Footprint is understood as the consequences of human actions, as a result of which the biologically significant and restoration-capable area of ​​the planet decreases - for example, thanks to buildings and deforestation. Data is collected around the world, and the total number of parameters taken into account is about 15,000. Among them is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

The authors believe that the ideal state of affairs would be when the “day of overspending” would begin on the last calendar day of the outgoing year. In reality, everything is completely different. Mankind has been approaching the calculation of biological resources in detail since about 1970, and even then Earth Overshoot Day fell on December 23. Each year, the date shifts by about 4-5 days to the beginning of the year: in 2000, for example, it came in October. if everything goes as well as badly, then by 2030 the “overrun” will come as early as June and mankind will live “in debt” longer time of year.

Earth Overshoot Day is not the only potential characteristic of the proximity of the "apocalypse." The most famous are the Doomsday Clock , a symbolic parameter estimating the time until midnight that corresponds to the onset of a nuclear catastrophe. This year, the experts left the hands of "Hours" in place, finding that the situation in the world at least remained unchanged. At the moment, the clock shows 23:57.