Comments due by Sept 15, 2018
Experts widely agree that human activities are harming the global environment. Since the Industrial Revolution, the world economy has grown dramatically. Overall this is a success story, since rising incomes have lifted millions of people out of poverty. But it has been fueled by population growth and increasing consumption of natural resources.
Rising demand to meet the needs of more than 7 billion people has transformed land use and generated unprecedented levels of pollution, affecting biodiversity, forests, wetlands, water bodies, soils and air quality.
On Aug. 1, humans will have consumed more natural resources in 2018 than the Earth can regenerate this year, according to the California-based Global Footprint Network. This environmental nonprofit calculates the annual arrival of Earth Overshoot Day – the date when humanity’s demands on nature exceed what the network’s analysts estimate the Earth can regenerate over the entire year. Aug. 1 is the earliest date since ecological overshoot began in the early 1970s.
As an ecological economist and scholar of sustainability, I am particularly interested in metrics and indicators that can help us understand human uses of Earth’s ecosystems. Better measurements of the impacts of human activities can help identify ways to sustain both human well-being and natural resources.
Earth Overshoot Day is a compelling concept and has raised awareness of the growing impact of human activities on the planet. Unfortunately, the methodology used to calculate it and the ecological footprint on which it is based is conceptually flawed and practically unusable in any science or policy context. In my view, the ecological footprint ultimately does not measure overuse of natural resources – and it may very well underestimate it.
Rising demands, finite resources
The Global Footprint Network estimates when Earth Overshoot Day will arrive based on its National Footprint Accounts. These include extensive data sets that the organization uses to calculate two overarching indicators:
- The ecological footprint, perhaps the most commonly used metric of the environmental impacts of human resource use. Each country’s ecological footprint is an estimate of the biological resources required to meet its population’s consumption demands and absorb its carbon emissions.
- National biocapacity, which is an estimate of how well each country’s ecosystems can produce the natural resources consumed by humans and absorb the waste and pollution that humans generate.
Both of these measures are expressed in global hectares. One hectare is equal to 10,000 square meters, or about 2.47 acres.
Going into overshoot
To estimate when Earth Overshoot Day will arrive, the Global Footprint Network calculates the number of days in a given year for which Earth has enough biocapacity to provide for humans’ total ecological footprint. The rest of the year represents “global overshoot.”
When the footprint of consumption worldwide exceeds biocapacity, the authors assert that humans are exceeding the regenerative capacity of Earth’s ecosystems. This year, they estimate that humans are using natural resources 1.7 times faster than ecosystems can regenerate – or, put another way, consuming 1.7 Earths.
As an example, the ecological footprint for France is 4.7 global hectares per person, and global biocapacity is 1.7 hectares per person. Therefore, it would take (4.7/ 1.7 =) 2.8 Earths if everyone lived like the French.
France’s Overshoot Day would be estimated as (365 x (1.7/ 4.7)) = 130, or the 130th day of the year, which is May 5 based on 2014 data. The United States reached overshoot even earlier, on March 15.
What to count?
However, there are some fundamental and misleading shortcomings in these calculations. In a 2013 paper, six authors from academia, The Nature Conservancy and the California-based Breakthrough Instituteanalyzed how the Ecological Footprint falls short. In their view, it primarily measures humans’ carbon footprint but does not address other key impacts.
To calculate ecological footprints, the Global Footprint Network estimates the supply and demand of renewable biological resources across six land use types: forests, fishing grounds, croplands, grazing lands, developed lands and the area of forest required to offset human carbon emissions – that is, the carbon footprint. According to the network’s own analysis, each of these land use types is nearly in balance or in surplus, except for the carbon footprint.
The two key categories for producing food – cropland and grazing land – are defined in such a way that they can never be in deficit. And the analysis does not reflect environmental consequences of human use of these lands, such as soil erosion, nutrient runoff or overuse of water. It measures only land area.
For example, the ecological footprint for Indonesia is 1.61 global hectares per person, which is among the lowest 30 percent of all countries. But according to a 2014 study, Indonesia has the highest deforestation rate in the world.
Furthermore, the footprint calculation does not consider whether stocks of natural resources are decreasing or increasing as a result of human consumption. This question is critical for understanding ecological impacts.
These national ecological footprint calculations also conflate sustainability with self-sufficiency. They assume that every nation should produce all of the resources it consumes, even though it might be less expensive for countries to import some goods than to produce them at home.
As an example, the network lists Canada as an “ecological creditor” whose biocapacity exceeds its population’s ecological footprint. However, Canada is among the top 10 oil-producing countries in the world, and exports much of that oil for foreign consumption. Most of it goes to the United States, an “ecological debtor” that consumes more resources than it produces.
Thinking purely in terms of generic “resources,” everyone is better off when debtor countries can import resources from nations with supplies to spare. There are real and important environmental impacts associated with producing and consuming oil, but the network’s calculations do not address them. Nor do they reflect the decline in natural capital from extracting a nonrenewable resource.
Measuring sustainability
The Global Footprint Network asserts that “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” but it may be impossible to create a single metric that can capture all human impacts on the environment. Earth Overshoot Day highlights unsustainable uses of natural resources, but we need scientifically robust ecological indicators to inform environmental policy, and a broader understanding of ecological risks.
Better measurements of sustainability should reflect changes in our supplies of natural capital, include estimates of uncertainty and incorporate multiple pathways to reducing carbon footprints. The best tool for measuring human impacts on the planet may be a dashboard of environmental indicators, not a footprint.
The whole concept of Earth Overshot day is a fascinating one. I had never heard of the term prior to this blogpost and I found it interesting that this measurement of earth's natural resources exist. As stated in the post, determination of when we use up the supplies on earth is a little more tricky than made to believe. Some factors are not included when determining the Overshot date. Factors include depletion of natural resources and mostly relies on humanity's use of the earth and not other animals that can create a carbon footprint as well and other enviromental factors.
ReplyDeleteHernan Balbuena
Daejaun Northover
ReplyDeleteThis article sheds light on an interesting point that is overlooked or underestimated by researchers. It implies that the current methodology to calculate overshoot could lead to even greater issues because some resources and impacts are being ignored or not recognized enough in the calculations. The only way to create beneficial environment changes is to have the most accurate number of emissions, human usage, carbon footprints and depleted resources as possible. Since humans create the biggest problems to the environment, its our job to sustain it as much as possible.
I knew about the "Earth Overshoot Day", and it is a good measurement and a pedagogic way to explain to people about our environmental problems. However, today we are in the most interesting stage in human development, the most rapid stage of development this far. It is easy to understand that this has negative impacts on our planet, and Earth Overshoot Day is a good realization of that. The biggest issue with Earth Overshoot Day is that it comes earlier every year. I believe this is our problem. We are in a stage now when we develop rapidly, but have not yet figured out how to manage our limited resources on Earth. Therefore, I believe in a continual development, but with increasing emphazis on the environment, with the creation of new innovative solutions to develop humanity, while conserving our home. I do not believe in the more Ecological Economical approach with a focus on limting economical growth and even reverse the growth. However, I believe in a continuously growing economy, but with more focus on innovative solutions to create a positive correlation with economic growth and sustainable use of our earth and its natural resources. I think the resources from an economical growth is essential to develop these innovations and tools, alongside educating people about sustainability and environmental economics.
ReplyDeleteTo solve the food equation, I think that we need to educate people to have a more plant-based diet to reduce food production resources and land, and develop innovations to more effectively produce food.
// Nils Erik Molin
I agree completely with your comment on having a plant based diet! I believe that once we can eliminate the toxins that are brought into the world from the industries such as the dairy industry then we can move forward!
Delete-Marta Krawczynski
DeleteIm glad to hear that!
DeleteThe question is just, as the book and the professor says: "are we too selfish to do it, or can we make the sacrifices to go plant-based and make other efforts for the environment to fix it?"
It is also interesting to follow the development of meat that is created in labs - which can eliminate this problem, and satisfy the meat-lovers!
// Nils Erik Molin
Nils,
DeleteI find your solution based on dietary modifications to be interesting. With a higher dependence on vegetation, it reduces the use of grazing land. However, wouldn't a higher plant-based diet increase the problems with soil erosion?
Thanks,
Christine Lin
Joan Ginesi
ReplyDeleteI think the "Earth Overshoot Day" has too many fallacies to be the basis for which society measures whether or not there is massive capital depreciation occurring. From an ecological economists point of view any capital depreciation or loss of resources is seen as a devastation, because of the "environment first" view in which it approaches things. I do not believe there is any way to not always being losing some depreciation of the Earth resources, but we certainly should be focusing more resources and energy in to ways to make our production systems something that is more sustainable with the natural capital Earth gives us and absorptive capacity of the environment.
This article for me was interesting because as much as I feel like I am involved with being environmentally active (being plant-based), I had never heard of the Overshoot day. To now start to understand how many Earths it would take just for one country such as France was the most interesting because if one country is causing so much harm, how about all the countries around it. I feel that it somehow has created a domino effect and now around the world we are stuck in this cycle. What I find most interesting which I overlooked is the carbon footprint left by other animals on this Earth. It is not something I thought of as I always believed that humans were at fault. I feel that due to this we should be the ones taking more action towards creating a better environment. We should take this opportunity to spread the word and acknowledge the fact that we have created this issue. Moving towards being plant based is step one. But also, using only our own resources is another step. My mother who grew up in Poland always said that she did not eat bananas until she came to the US. This gave me a perspective on how countries used rely on their own produce because by means of temperature, area, land, etc, it made sense.
ReplyDeleteThis furthered my research into seeking out Earths Overshoot Days of 2018;
https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/
Seeing that Vietnam's Day is December 21, it makes me wonder how can we all try and push for a new goal by following their steps.
Marta Krawczynski
Yes!
DeleteIt is all about education - we need to educate people to understand the environmental crisis. But then it is the question about whether people are willing to contribute to fixing the problems we impose to our planet...
// Nils Erik Molin
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ReplyDeleteUnknownSeptember 13, 2018 at 10:33 PM
This article is very interesting because it shed light into a topic that I personally was not too familiar with. There are many overall intricacies when examining different ways to properly measure sustainability on global basis. In this instance determining when earth’s resources will be overused comes with many caveats because of the different contributing factors that are not measured when identifying earth’s Overshot date. The idea of the Overshot date is also a very interesting topic because it adds a new perspective that I was not familiar with when measuring earth’s overall consumption of resources and just how much it can vary on a country to country basis. It was also interesting to look at a country like Indonesia that has a very sustainable environment based on the Overshot date calculations but yet one of the highest deforestation rates globally. It adds to the idea that it is truly hard to determine how fast degradation occurs in the environment because of the outside contributing factors that are measured in on concept and not in other. The article overall provides a very strong concept that gives more depth and understanding to global environmental issues.
-Matthew DeSantis
I was not familiar with Earth Overshoot Day prior to taking this course. This year we are estimated to be using resources that we would need 1.7 earths just to replenish.The fact that the process is conceptually flawed doesn’t take away the fact it raised awareness of human impact on the planet.Though, the awareness is great we do have to take steps to correct these flaws. The article states cropland and grazing have to be able to be in the deficit. The article also states that the calculation conflates sustainability with self sufficiency. Though it is impossible to create a single metric we have to take a full look at our environmental impact like the article says we need look at “dashboard” of environmental factors not just a footprint.
ReplyDelete-Declan Tougias
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ReplyDeleteThe topic of the environment is one that has become quite popular today and as I've seen the growth of the environmentalist movement, the topic of the "carbon footprint" and the ecological footprint was one that urged the public to take a look at their actions and their overall impact on the environment. While this may work from a marketing perspective, and while I think that it was successful in initiating a push towards greener living, in terms of scientifically analyzing and diagnosing the issues there needs to be a more comprehensive investigation. While the ecological footprint gives an overview on the general state of the planet, I agree that the issue can only be properly analyzed and solved with an accurate and appropriate look at the detailed facts related to the human population's impact on Earth. This would then allow us to apply the data and see the direct relationship between the two.
ReplyDelete- Alexandra Zelcer
Like everyone else, I was not familiar with the idea of Earth Overshot. Putting our consumption in terms of how many "Earths" we are consuming is an impactful way of conveying our use of resources. However, it is disheartening that this isn't even a fully accurate estimate of our effect on the world. The example used was Indonesia. Indonesia has a fairly low footprint compared to the world, but they are not that ecologically friendly considering their high rate of deforestation. It almost seems like these footprint calculations are making us slightly delusional about the state of our environment.
ReplyDeleteIt is also convenient that the two categories for producing food, one of the global economy's biggest sectors, can never be in a deficit. Although I understand why it is like this, but there is still a finite amount of land on Earth and if we claim all of it other species will not be able to survive. The future will only get worse as our population grows. According to current research, we are supposed to hit 9 billion people by 2050. Not only will we need more space for the people themselves, but we will also need space for the plants and livestock they will consume. Like some of the other students said, transitioning toward a plant based diet would be a smart way to conserve land by eliminating the space needed for the livestock and the space to produce food for them.
To my surprise, I have heard about Earth Overshoot Day in another one of my Economics courses but did not necessarily know what It was. I did a bit of extensive research and I know that a large ecological footprint can cause a loss of biodiversity and deforestation as well as more detrimental and severe things such as terrible droughts and hurricanes around the world. Could that possibly be the cause of our most recent hurricane happening right now in North Carolina , Hurricane Florence? I also found It interesting that Carbon levels, which rise due to human activities like fossil fuel burning and deforestation, make up 60% of the ecological footprint. The world must reduce its carbon footprint to alleviate climate change and halt the ecological overshoot. The Global Footprint Network says ecological overshoot will not last forever. Our ecosystems will start deteriorating and collapsing if the effects are not reversed.
ReplyDeleteSo, a solution needs to be found. What can we do to save the planet we live on? #1. We can live a more green/eco-friendly life. We should heavily monitor how we design and manage cities, how we power ourselves, how we produce/distribute/consume food, and how many of us there are on the planet(maybe instead of reproducing 10 children, we can reproduce 5?). All of these solutions can go towards pushing the date of Earth Overshoot Day back, or simply not having a date at all.
- Alexis(Lex) Burton
DeleteHi, my name is Christine Lin.
ReplyDeleteI find the topic of economic overshoot to be interesting. With people using more than the Earth can reproduce in the same amount of time, the idea using a balance sheet to assess ecological creditors and debtors is an amazing idea. One of the biggest ecological debtors is the United States with their annual consumption over global biocapacity depleted within 3.5 months. However since the footprint calculation leaves out the consideration of the increase or decrease use of natural resources stock as a result of human consumption, the knowledge of ecological impact is still questionable. Therefore, in conjunction with the footprint calculation, a better measure of ecological impact ought to incorporate environmental indicators.
Understanding the harm caused by high consumption of certain resources with a pratical plan of decrease should be distributed widespread in order to decrease excess without having to decrease the rate of economic growth.
ReplyDelete-Christine Lin
DeleteOur enviornment has defintely been suffering based on the actions of humans and no one is taking in acount for their actions that they have caused to our earth. People don't realize how dangerous this can be and how it can result to situations we would've never imagined. There is also a porblem with the high number of people in the world and the huge consumption of natural resources that are being used. Who knows , one day there will be a possibility that all of this will be gone and humans will have to rely on things that are not natural are safe for their bodies. There are so many actions we can commit too to save our environment. Humans don't realize what they can lose until it's actually gone. Earth Overshoot Day proves to us how much humans have used and how much this Earth can handle. We as humans have to create a change and make this Earth better and make better decisions for the Earth as well. There is so much our planet can handle.
ReplyDelete-Nicole Katsnelson
I agree that the ecological footprint does not measure the overuse of natural resources, and that it probably underestimates it, too. Our society acts as if we have an infinite amount of resources, even though we know we have a finite amount. Earth Overshoot Day brings awareness to this fact, too. Even though Earth Overshoot Day is about resources consumed this year, it makes me think more about how much our society needs to undergo the paradigm shift necessary to switch to a more sustainable environment. One day (that I believe is coming sooner than we think), we won’t be overshooting the resources we are able to regenerate over one year’s timespan - we’ll be running out. This is a very concerning matter, and the paradigm shift that we have to make must be an international movement towards sustainability, not solely a regional or individual state movement. We have to find a way to create a global political climate that is more communal.
ReplyDeleteI’ve always been very aware and interested in environmental studies and the impact humans have on it. I was unaware of the term “Earth Overshoot Day” and how long ago (1970) it has existed. The measurement of ecological footprints is very interesting- I was surprised to see that France consumes 4.7 global hectares per person. It is very unfair that some countries will have an ecological footprint that is much higher than others. I believe there is so much we can do to prevent the levels of pollution, overconsumption of natural resources, and protecting our planet from any further harm. It is very important that everyone in the world can come together and agree on helpful recycling programs, cleaning the ocean, and just using less. Overall, we have to decide if our growth since the industrial revolution is worth our loss in the environment.
ReplyDelete-Almira Ardolic
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ReplyDeleteThe increase in income has made people get rid of poverty, and at the same time, the consumption of natural resources is getting faster and faster. This article proposes the concept of the earth overshoot day, but his calculation method has its drawbacks. Using this calculation method may underestimate the speed of resource consumption. In other words, the speed of natural resources may exceed our imagination. In my opinion, the cost of resources is very complicated and it is difficult to accurately measure it by calculation. What we have to do is not to accelerate the natural consumption and actively participate in environmental protection.
ReplyDeletexue ma