Humanity exceeded the Earth’s resource budget for the year on Thursday
HUMANKIND used up its resources for the year on Thursday, July 28, reports Global Footprint Network.
Earth Overshoot Day – the day when humans used up all the biological resources that Mother Nature can regenerate in a year – was celebrated a day earlier this year than last year. Our production and consumption habits thus continued to burden our planet, which is about 1.75 times greater than its renewable capacity.
Earth Overshoot Day is calculated annually for each country based on approximately 15,000 data points. The information is provided by the United Nations.
Finns used all their natural resources for this year on the 31st of Marcha couple of days after the Danes and Belgians, but a couple of days before the Koreans and Swedes.
Qatar and Luxembourg were the first two countries to exhaust their resources on February 10 and 14, respectively. People in Indonesia, Ecuador and Jamaica, on the other hand, are not expected to use their resources for the year until December.
“Earth Overshoot Day shows that the current system of production is not compatible with the intention to continue living on this planet,” Minister of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition of Ecuador Gustavo Manrique comment at a special event that marked a questionable milestone in Quito, Ecuador.
“In order to protect our natural resources and manage their demand, we must take concrete joint actions aimed at a new development model based on sustainability and renewal.”
YLE on Thursday wrote The main reasons for the continuous overconsumption of natural resources are energy production, transport and food production.
The utilization of natural resources causes problems especially in developing countries, which produce commodities for more advanced countries. For example, South America has continued to clear forests to produce soy, which is largely used for animal feed, threatening the existence of many species. Southeast Asian rainforests, on the other hand, are being cut down to increase palm oil production.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT