Earth Overshoot Day is a day in the year when humanities need for resources excedes the resources that Earth can regenerate in a year. In 2019 Earth overshot day was on July 29th. That means that by July 29th humanity used up the resources the Earth can regenerate in a year. Which also means that in order to maintain this level of living standard and consumption for an indefinetly long time we would need the equvalent of a bit less than 2 planets. Now add to that the 3% of growth per year and in 24 years we will double our need for resources, which would be a bit less than 4 planets... etc etc. If you want to read more about an Earth Overshoot Day, here is the link: https://www.overshootday.org/
July 29th was Earth Overshoot Day when averaged out for all countries in the world. There is also a break down of individual countries Overshoot Day. Individual country overshoot day basicaly means if the whole world would be using up the resources in the way the country in question does, then it would use up all of the resources the Earth can regenerate by the day in question.
Danish push for the renewable energy is admirable indeed and they are doing a lot both on the home front and internationaly. Vestas is one of the strongest companies for windmills production in the world. But when it comes down to resources usage Denmark is actually doing quite bad. Denmarks overshoot Day in 2019 was on... you ready...? Denmarks Overshot Day in 2019 was on 29th of March. So, if all countries in the world had the Danish living standard humanity would need a bit more then 3 planets in order to sustain it.
In Denmark, living standard started to improve at an accelerated pace since 1960ties. Until then living conditions where modest and from then as wealth of the country was increasing, so did the apetites for living space and commodities. Today the minimum criteria for the size of an apartment if you want to have two children is 100 square meters or more. As a comparison I grew up in an apartment with my parents of 30 m2, then 56m2 and later I was sharing a room of 9m2 with my ex-wife. And I lived, without any mayor issues. I am willing to bet there is a lot of people in the world who would consider my living standard a luxury as well. When did the apetites grew so much that apartments are so big that if we see the people who live with us twice a day it means that the living space is too small? This is just one example from one aspect of life, it is the same in other aspects as well.
In order to make a significant difference in the over-consumption department, it isn't enough only to buy "ecological" stuff. It is necessary to take a good long look at your lifestile and think how you could turn it down by two-thirds on average. I wonder how many people would be willing to do that in Denmark and other developed countries in the world? But without it, buying ecological products and churning out windmills will make little difference in the end because Earth is only so big with only limited amounts of resources, through which we are going way too fast already.
In order to make a significant difference in the over-consumption department, it isn't enough only to buy "ecological" stuff. It is necessary to take a good long look at your lifestile and think how you could turn it down by two-thirds on average. I wonder how many people would be willing to do that in Denmark and other developed countries in the world? But without it, buying ecological products and churning out windmills will make little difference in the end because Earth is only so big with only limited amounts of resources, through which we are going way too fast already.
"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."
ReplyDeletepseudo science with apocayptic mindsets are dangerous to take as facts.
Thanks for the comment. Because of it I did some digging as well becuase I wanted to see for myself. This is what I found: "National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts use internationally available data from multiple datasets for all countries for each year going back to 1961. In some cases data may be limited, unavailable, or may contain apparent errors. While the accounts include some data error improvement and estimation of missing data, results for countries and/or years are inevitably of variable reliability." https://www.footprintnetwork.org/data-quality-scores/
ReplyDeleteSo, they do not deny that the quality of data can vary.
On the other hand as you said at the beginning: "Earth Overshoot Day is a compelling concept and has raised awareness of the growing impact of human activities on the planet."
If the point is to raise the awareness of the general public about the impact of humans on the planet, the question is, is it justified to oversimplify and even sacrifice accuracy so the general public can understand what is it about or not?