The Most Serious Deficit We Face

We all know the feeling of living beyond our means: that big night on the town on July 30th was one we’ll remember for weeks, but can send us into crisis on August 1st when the rent is due. We wind up going into debt to maintain our lifestyles, a cycle that can lead us further into crisis.

For the past 50 years years, we’ve been in an ecological debt cycle. We routinely “spend” more than nature provides us on an annual basis. How do we know this? The Global Footprint Network draws an annual calculation: “Earth Overshoot Day is computed by dividing the planet’s biocapacity (the amount of ecological resources Earth is able to generate that year) by humanity’s Ecological Footprint (humanity’s demand for that year), and multiplying by 365, the number of days in a year.”