Earth Overshoot Day

While economies, populations and resource demands grow, the size of the planet remains the same. In the mid 1970s, we crossed the critical threshold and human demand on nature began outstripping what it could renewably produce, a condition known as ecological overshoot.

The New Economics Foundation developed the Earth Overshoot Day, also known as ‘Ecological Debt Day’ concept. This is the date each year where the total resources consumed by humanity will exceed the capacity for the Earth to generate those resources that year. This year we reached that day over a month earlier than in 2011.

Earth Overshoot Day 2012 fell on August 22nd.