What Exactly Is Seven Billion?

This is the year of the additional landmark digit for world population. I added a population number on the sidebar to remind me of this coming billion, only twelve years past the last one. And while the number of people on Earth isn't necessarily a daily footprint thought for us, its significance is what drives all resources available for life.


The rate of growth has, indeed, slowed somewhat in past decades. But the immense numbers are unevenly distributed geographically and in terms of wealth and resource use. This further stresses the sheer number of individuals to be supported by Mother Earth. (see other thoughts in blog)


National Geographic will be helping everyone understand the magnitude of this challenge. Their new quick-clip video is sobering and feels somewhat sensationalistic. But it's necessary. (Yes, it could be construed to be an advertisement for their mag, but I place them higher than that on the credibility ladder.) 

Today, August 21st, We Begin This Year's Earth Deficit

It’s like the Tax Freedom Day; sort of… 

  

You undoubtedly know about the designated day every year when you have earned enough money to pay for the taxes you will owe. It’s called Tax Freedom Day, and it varies from state to state.  Alaska and Louisiana, for instance, have the least tax burden of the fifty. Their Tax Freedom date this year was March 26, or 85 days from January 1.  Connecticut, on the other hand, came up on April 27, or 117 days into the year!  (Wisconsin was @ 102 days, on April 12.)

There is a similar type of calendar point for global sustainability. It has a much more serious implication. Today, August 21, is officially Earth Overshoot Day.  It is a single global date that has been steadily moving on the calendar, but moving forward from December 31.

The Global Footprint Network was begun in 2003 to develop a measure of human impacts on Earth relative to its optimal balance for sustainability. The measure is the Ecological Footprint. 

Like a bank account statement, the Footprint analyzes resource consumptions against the planet’s ability to renew them. This is a budget. A Nature budget.  Are we, then, underbudget or overbudget relative to planet sustainability?

As the (fuzzy) graph shows, the number of days in a year with a deficit budget (overshoot) has gone from zero in 1976 to nearly 140 in 2010. The approximately 140 days from today to December 31st are, technically, days where the planet’s population is operating beyond its resources for the year. Hence, the Earth Overshoot Day.

Another way to look at the imbalance of resources to consumption is to estimate the current number of Earths needed for human sustainability. Because we have an overshoot day that falls at less than a complete year, we must need more than one Earth’s resources to reach December 31st, right?

Consequently, the planet’s occupants currently consume at a rate of 1.4 Earths per year. The United States, of course, consumes everything possible at a higher rate than any other country.

  “If everyone lived the lifestyle of the average American we would need five planets.”

Using the carbon footprint to determine your affect on the Earth is not an unknown concept.  But applying this concept to the population as a whole reveals the over-consuming that is wearing the planet thin. 

Take some time to wander through the Global Footprint Network site.  Be mindful of the fact that we are running an ever higher deficit, beginning today.