Humans have exhausted the natural resources that the Earth can sustainably provide in a year, and the situation is getting worse (Picture: Reuters)

Humans have exhausted the supplies of natural resources that Earth can provide for the year, prompting campaigners to warn that we’re now ‘overdrawn’.

Tuesday is ‘Earth overshoot day’, where our use of resources such as land, trees and fish overtake what the planet can sustainably provide each year. This makes it more difficult for waste products such as carbon dioxide to be absorbed.

Entering into ecological debt can have dire consequences for the environment, damaging land and diminishing stocks of forests and fish, the Global Footprint Network claims.

Andrew Simms, who came up with the concept of an overshoot day, has warned the government is treating the environmental deficit like the economic downturn, adding that more action is needed.




He said: ‘The maths is simple – the UK consumes and produces waste at a rate three-and-a-half times greater than we can sustain, and today, humanity has already exhausted what the planet’s ecosystems can provide in a year.

‘We’re in the red and gambling with ecological bankruptcy. If it chose to, the government can always print more money, but it can’t print more planet.’

China has the biggest total ecological footprint, because of its large population, but other countries have much higher demands on resources per person. If everyone were to live like US residents, four planets would be needed to satisfy demand.

Alessandro Galli from the Global Footprint Network added: ‘Everyday life in many Mediterranean countries is showing us what it means to live beyond financial limits.

‘Ecological and financial deficits are two sides of the same coin. Over the long run, nations cannot deal with one deficit without addressing the other.’