Borrowing From The Future: Earth Overshoot Day

Earth Overshoot Day is the day on which humanity's resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth's capacity to regenerate those resources that year. This day has been getting earlier and earlier since record keeping began.

What will EOD be this year? It is not known yet, but this dismal day was July 29th last year, meaning after that date we were in overshoot and consuming more than the Earth can provide in one year. 

Compare that to 1987 when we started borrowing from the future on October 23rd. We are going in the wrong direction.

The promise of consumerism is that everyone everywhere can have everything. Eventually. That is the kind of fantasy thinking that has lead to a degraded environment. The truth is, our planet is in peril due to overconsumption - we are using too many resources too quickly.

Another whopper, that you would think most of us would have noticed a long, long time ago, is that we can satisfy our infinite wants in a finite system. How? No one ever explains this one. 

Ask someone who believes this myth and you will hear mumbling about how "technology will save us", which then trails off to an uncomfortable silence. 

Technology has gotten us into this problem, and the shortcomings of it won't be overcome with more. If highly complex methods are the problem, reducing complexity is the solution. 

Earth Overshoot Day has been before the end of the year since the early 1970s, when we left one-planet-living behind.

It seems that not many people realize this, or they would surely change their ways. Right? Because when we borrow from the future, we end up depleting resources while killing everything in the process.

This is the shape that our ecosystem (from Greek oikos, house) is in, and that is what earthovershootday.org has been tracking since 2006. 

Today, their data show, we are using resources at nearly twice the rate that nature can replace. 

In other words, our shared house is in trouble. 

We can't borrow from the future forever. Sooner or later (but probably sooner), our overconsumption will bring the house down with ripple effects that will make the pandemic lockdown look mild in comparison.

"What can I do?", you may ask. 

Easy.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.