HAPPY Earth Overshoot Day!

Just kidding. This is not actually a good thing. It means that for the rest of the year, we will be basically living on resources “borrowed” from our future.

But what does this actually mean, and what are the potential consequences?

WHAT IS EARTH OVERSHOOT DAY?

Earth Overshoot Day marks the point in the year where we run out of our “allocated” supply of natural resources.

The Global Footprint Network (GFN), an organisation partnered with the World Wide Fund for Nature, produced the results.

To calculate the date for Earth Overshoot Day, it crunched United Nations data on thousands of economic sectors such as fisheries, forestry, transport and energy production.

The GFN claimed we have just used up our allotted supply of regenerative natural resources for the year, earlier than ever before in history.

This means that, from today onward, we will be in “credit” mode. Any and all of the natural resources we use, such as water and land, will be “borrowed” from next year’s “budget”, contributing to the cycle.

“One year is no longer enough to regenerate humanity’s annual demand on the planet, even using conservative data sets,” the GFN states.

In other words, in 2018, Earth’s 7.6 billion humans will consume 1.7 times more from Mother Nature than it’s capable of regenerating.

According to previous figures, the trend of sliding into “ecological debt” has gradually worsened over the years.

In the 1960s, for example, we managed to stretch three quarters of our year’s allocated “supply” across the whole 365-day period, giving us an “energy surplus” of about three months.

By 1987, we’d “run out” by mid-December.

By 2007, we’d “run out” by the end of October.

As of today — August 2 — we’re officially in “credit mode”. It’s the earliest time in the year that’s ever happened. Judging by this, we’re just a couple of months away from doubling the amount of the Earth’s natural resources that have been allocated to us.

The report warns that in 2018, we’ll use up the equivalent of 1.7 Earths to support human civilisation.

By 2030, this date will fall around the middle of the year, meaning we’ll need the equivalent of two Earths to support human civilisation.

“Our economies are running a Ponzi scheme with our planet,” said GFN chief executive officer Mathis Wackernagel. “We are using the Earth’s future resources to operate in the present and digging ourselves deeper into ecological debt.

“It’s time to end this ecological Ponzi scheme and leverage our creativity and ingenuity to create a prosperous future free of fossil fuels and planetary destruction.”

See where this is going?

WHERE DOES AUSTRALIA SIT IN THIS?

The GFN estimates that 86 per cent of countries are currently living beyond their means.

It ranked every country by comparing its biocapacity — the ability to “regenerate” what people demand from those surfaces — to its ecological footprint, a measure of how much area of biologically productive land and water a population requires to sustainably function.

On the list of countries where their biocapacity exceeded their ecological footprint (this is the “good list”, if you will) Australia ranked 24th.

In fact, Australia was listed as one of very few OECD countries on this list.

This is in part because compared to many other countries, we have a relatively tiny population compared to the size of our landmass.

But on a per capita basis, Australia is actually one of the world’s worst offenders, as you can see in this graph:

In other words, if the whole world lived like Australia, would need the resources of more than four planet Earths to sustain ourselves — well over twice the global average.

The good news, at least, is we’re getting better. In 2016, Australia was the worst offender — surpassing even the United States.

A key contributing factor is our continued reliance on fossil fuels — particularly coal-fired power stations, through which we contribute to some of the highest global greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the world.

By comparison, if we all lived like Vietnam or Morocco, the global overshoot date wouldn’t arrive until mid-December.

IS THIS A REVERSIBLE TREND?

While Earth Overshoot Day has come earlier and earlier over time, there is some good news — it’s a reversible trend.

In fact, the date has not moved all that much since 2011, despite continued population growth.

The GFN makes a number of recommendations — green up your commute by using public transport or a bicycle instead of a car every day; recycle and work towards zero waste; eat more vegetables and less livestock (livestock-related activity accounts for almost 15 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions produced by humans); and use the most fuel-efficient option when filling up your car or booking a flight.