It might seem like any other Thursday, but it is the day when the planet’s natural resources are depleted for the current year. It is theEarth Overshoot Day. In 2021, this date is slightly less than a month earlier than last year. In 2020 it was August 22, a temporary improvement due to the pandemic. Over the years there has been a continuous deterioration.
From here on, until December 31st, humanity will use resources that are not compatible with the planet’s ability to regenerate them and to absorb the carbon emitted. The world would need to be bigger: it would need more than a planet and a half, 1.7 planets Earth.
The overused resources are cultivated land, exploited forests such as seas and livestock. Above all, even carbon emissions. Humanity emits more carbon dioxide how much oceans and forests are able to absorb this increases desertification and weakens the planet.
Until the end of the sixties there was balance: man used as many resources as nature brought and was able to reproduce. In 1970 the exhaustion of resources came on December 29th. In the eighties the date was November, with the turn of the millennium it was already in September.
If at the beginning of the Twentieth century humanity consumed 6 billion tons of resources including minerals, biomass and fossil fuels, now the measure is over 100 billion. Maintaining this pace in the middle of the century, the measure will be 180 billion tons.
To postpone the date by three months would require a halving of global carbon emissions. There are ways to stop this rush. The way is that of the circular economy and renewable energy. On this day of the overexploitation of the Earth, the campaign starts 100 Days of Chance because there are 100 days left for Cop26, the United Nations conference on climate change scheduled in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November.
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