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Ecological Debt Day, also known as “Earth Overshoot Day”, is the calendar date in which the total resources consumed by humanity will exceed the capacity for the Earth to generate those resources that year. Each year it is calculated by dividing the world biocapacity, the number of natural resources generated by the earth that year, divided by the world Ecological Footprint, humanity’s consumption of the Earth’s natural resources for that year, and multiplied by 365, the number of days in one Gregorian calender year; expressed as:

$[worldbiocapacity/worldEcologicalFootprint]x365=EcologicalDebtDay$

When viewed through an economic perspective, Ecological Debt Day/Earth Overshoot Day represents the day in which humanity enters deficit spending, scientifically termed “overshoot”. In recent years this issue has gained notoriety as it appears to represent a trend rather than a freak occurrence .

History

Though humanity first went into overshoot in 1986, Ecological Debt Day was first observed on December 19, 1987. Before that date, humanity’s consumption of the Earth’s natural resources was outweighed by the Earth’s ability to regenerate its resources. To illicit discussion on the topic of natural resource consumption, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) marked Ecological Debt Day on that calender year. Every year since then, NEF has calculated the calender date of Ecological Debt Day for each subsequent year using the above formula. Ecological Debt Day has on average, each year fallen on an earlier date than the previous year. The authors of Ecological Debt Day argue that this fact constitutes a notorious trend in human society, in which humanity is falling deep into ecological debt.

The correlation between the development of a country using HDI and its natural resource consumption.

Year	Overshoot Date
1987	December 19th
1990	December 7th
1995	November 21st
2000	November 1st
2005	October 20th
2007	October 26th
2008	September 23rd

Factors Behind Ecological Debt Day

Ecological Debt Day is founded upon two scientific measures; humanity’s Ecological Footprint and the Earth’s biocapacity.

Humanity’s Ecological Footprint for the specific calendar year is an important component of both calculating Ecological Debt for that year and for the general idea behind Ecological Debt Day. One’s Ecological Footprint, be it of the world, a nation, a town, or of an individual represents the impact that entity made on the Earth that year by consuming a set amount of the Earth’s resources. The general Ecological Debt of each year is calculated by factoring in the world’s Ecological Footprint, however, each nation’s individual date on which it will reach Ecological Debt can be calculated by substituting that nation’s Ecological Footprint for a specific year in place of that of the world’s.

The other leading factor in determining date on which Ecological Debt occurs for a given year is the biocapacity of the Earth for that year. By engaging in activities that diminish the production cycles of natural resources, which can be the resources themselves, such as depleting forests for timber, humanity lessens the Earth’s biocapacity so that the number of resources able to be produced that year will be less than that of the year before. When viewed in terms of monetary debt, this idea can seen as compounding interest on an unpaid loan. Due to this factor, humanity’s over-consumption of the Earth’s natural resources is shown to be unsustainable as the Earth’s biocapacity will eventually collapse should this behavior continue. The Global Footprint Network, a partner of NEF, has calculated that humanity used 40% more resources in 2008 than the Earth was able to produce that year.

Interplay of Factors

Ecological Debt Day draws on the fact that due to these resources being finite, humanities recent trend of consuming more resources than the Earth can produce each year constitutes a negative, unsustainable trend, termed overshoot. Ecological Debt Day is conveyed using economic imagery of monetary debt as a means of reaching the general public rather than just the scientific community.

Debate On the Subject of Global Climate Change

Though an increasing trend is presently taking place in the number of scientists and citizens in support of the theory that global climate change is occurring at an accelerated pace due to human influences as declared in the International Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report , a significant number of unbelievers exist as well. The results of a recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life revealed that 33% of white evangelicals, 22% of catholics, and 18% of people unaffiliated with any religion believe there is not enough scientific evidence at this time to support global climate change .

Ways In Which One Can Reduce His/Her Ecological Footprint

• Cut down on driving. Bicycles, walking, or using public transportation are good alternatives.

• Reduce energy consumption. This can include, but is not limited to:

1. Turning off lights in rooms you are not occupying.
2. Unplug unused electronics and appliances.
3. Whenever possible, try to substitute goods that use energy derived from fossil fuel-based production, for goods produced from cleaner sources of energy, such as solar or wind .
4. Consider both the long-term and short-term consequences of purchasing a product. Though the short-term consequences of purchasing and using that product may be minor, justifying the purchase of the product, the long-term, such as length of time for that item to decompose, may be severe, outweighing the benefits of such a purchase.
5. Incorporate the natural environment with your home environment. Many architectural methods now exist that take advantage of benefits created by the environment while preserving it as well. While, the short-term costs of implementing these methods are currently generally higher than implementing environmentally-damaging ones, the long-term benefits typically balance or exceed the costs. As technology in the field of environmental studies progresses, such “environmentally-friendly” construction methods are expected to become cheaper.
6. Help restore the environment. In your free time, help plant a tree or volunteer to help clean up a watershed area. Earth’s environment is composed of complex relationships, many not fully understood by ecologists and biologists. One of the best ways to reduce our Ecological Debt is to help restore the Earth’s biocapacity as much as possible.

External Links

• Damassa, Tom (October 26, 2006). "Human Consumption Pushing Ecosystems to the Brink". EarthTrends Environmental Information. Retrieved March 1, 2009. {{cite web}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
• Friedman, Thomas (2008). Hot, Flat, and Crowded. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
• Khanna, Parag (2008). The Second World. New York: Random House.
• "Carbon offset". Carbonfund.org. Retrieved March 1, 2009.

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==References==

• Easterling, William E. (2007). "Climate change and the adequacy of food and timber in the 21st century". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104 (50): 19679. doi:10.1073/pnas.0710388104. PMC 2148356. PMID 18077399.
• "WWF: human consumption is outpacing earth's capacity". EurActiv.com. October 26, 2004. Retrieved March 1, 2009.
• "Planet enters 'ecological debt'". BBC News. October 9, 2006. Retrieved March 1, 2009.
• Wackernagel, Mathis (2002). "Tracking the ecological overshoot of the human economy". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 99 (14): 9266–9271. doi:10.1073/pnas.142033699. PMC 123129. PMID 12089326. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Daily, Gretchen C., and Pamela A. Matson (2008). "Ecosystem services: From theory to implementation". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105 (28): 9455–9456. doi:10.1073/pnas.0804960105. PMC 2474530. PMID 18621697.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)