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Earth Overshoot Day Came Early This Year. That's a Bad Thing. (popsci.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Earth's resources are limited. We only have so much water and food, let alone oil and gold. But humans are using more than Earth has to offer, and have been since 1970. In 2018, it's predicted we will use the equivalent of 1.7 Earths worth of resources -- which is, oh, almost a whole Earth more than we have. And the date at which we've consumed more than one Earth in a given year is called... Earth Overshoot Day.
In the 1960s, our consumption was almost perfectly synched to the Earth's resources, with humanity consuming one year's worth of Earth's resources in one year. But by 1971, that number slid backward, and has been sliding ever since. This year, 2018, saw the earliest Earth Overshoot Day yet: one Earth's worth of resources gobbled up by Aug. 1. (Last year, it happened on Aug. 2.) This doesn't mean that we've run out of clean water or timber today, and will have to live on scraps until New Year; it's that by exceeding the Earth's resources in August, we're bankrupting our future by consuming materials that are better off preserved for days to come.
In the 1960s, our consumption was almost perfectly synched to the Earth's resources, with humanity consuming one year's worth of Earth's resources in one year. But by 1971, that number slid backward, and has been sliding ever since. This year, 2018, saw the earliest Earth Overshoot Day yet: one Earth's worth of resources gobbled up by Aug. 1. (Last year, it happened on Aug. 2.) This doesn't mean that we've run out of clean water or timber today, and will have to live on scraps until New Year; it's that by exceeding the Earth's resources in August, we're bankrupting our future by consuming materials that are better off preserved for days to come.
where is the link?
Fuck Ajit Pai
I don't understand. How can we possibly use more than the Earth can provide? Where's the extra coming from? Mars?
What are we really using more of that the Earth produces?
The one thing MAY be oil, but we have hundreds of years worth (thanks to technical advancements) even if we were not converting to solar at a rapid clip.
Speaking of technical advancements, we can easily produce food for the estimated 10 billion or so that is the steady state for the Earth's population - as long as we don't listen to anti-GMO activist luddites.
Even if were were using "1.7 Earths" worth of any one resource, we could simply switch to mining them off-planet eventually as needed.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, which this seems to have none of.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Note I said "as it continues", and not 'if it continues' -- because 7,000,000,000 people aren't going to do anything any different tomorrow than they're doing today, not at least until it's impossible for them to do so.
There will be an extinction-level event -- in the form of WARS. Wars have very often been waged over resources. Over time, as there are more and more humans alive at the same time (see above: "people aren't going to do anything any different tomorrow.."; they'll keep breeding), available resources dwindle, and effects from global warming puts more environmental stress on all life, countries with a standing military won't just sit still and wait to starve to death or die of dehydration, they'll attack their neighbors to secure their resources. When will this happen? Could start tomorrow, could be anytime within the next, say, 50 to 100 years. But it'll happen unless something else happens to stop it.
This article set my BS detector on fire and they don't seem to care about all of that smoke.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
What did they ever do for us?
I'll use a whole Earth myself if I want. Fuck you!
That's not a thing. How about some news for nerds, stuff that matters.
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Everything we 'use' doesn't go anywhere. It just gets converted into another form. We use stored energy to do that. So, we move what was once in the ground as oil into the air as carbon dioxide and other emissions.
Lets kill all life on the planet, so we dont use up our resources. It is the only way. Unless you want to end all life on the planet, you are an evil big oil republican that hates babies, womens reproductive rights and latino americans.
End the hate. End life on mother Earth
"Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill." -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
Everything you need to know about this calculation is summed up in the infographic. To maximize the time until Earth Overshoot day, we should all live like people in Cuba, Columbia, Jamaica, and Vietnam.
Jokes about the US population voting to live more like Jamaicans aside, resource shortages are irrelevant in an economically free society because free people solve issues faster than they become serious, leading to ever-cheaper resources. Even of limited ones and "low hanging fruit", thanks to substitutions and further invention.
E.g. Peak Oil. Well, here's giant oil rigs. No, let's replace them with big computer-stabilized robot ships that can sink drills through two miles of water, then drill down another mile, then make a right turn and drill two more miles. No, let's take a lot of load off with natural gas from fracking, and shale oil, a "high hanging fruit" now cheaper than low hanging fruit used to be.
There's a reason they are sneaking in pollution, which has nothing to do with it -- the panic has literally been disproven over and over again all last century, and this.
Oh, by the way. The most industrious and free societies are the only ones who can afford the pollution controls necessary to keep the environment becoming cleaner and cleaner without poverty, which is nobody's friend.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
What dickhead decided 1.7 is roughly 2?
The "overshoot day" calculation is rather fuzzy, but the general idea is to determine the date at which each country uses up a year's worth of the planet's resources. According to the breakdown by country, the countries that do the best job of living within their ecological means are Vietnam (Dec 21), Jamaica (Dec 13), Cuba (Nov 19) and Colombia (Nov 17). Feel like moving to any of those paradises?
The US and Canada both poop out, resource-wise in mid-March, while Australia and most Scandinavian countries hold out until late March to early April. The rest of Europe goes resource-negative in May (May 2 for Germany, which has plowed most of its national budget into running on renewables). And what is it that makes little Luxembourg go negative on Feb 19?
I blame Apple for this, Apple and the gays.
Getting real sick of this appearing in so many headlines. Granted, here it is objectively bad, but I see it used constantly in politics and opinion articles.
"That's a bad thing"
"And that's a good thing!"
Isn't that up to the reader to decide instead of this handholding, condescending attitude?
Whoever upvoted this should look up what actually drives (and has historically driven) population rest.
But you've already demonstrated incompetence so we'll skip that step and google it for you:
Raising third-world shitholes from third-world status.
You shouldn't need to be reminded about what sort of topics that gap regards, but again we'll indulge:
Helping with education, equality, poverty, improving injust "governments" (ie oversight, balances), women's rights (ie the real First Wave shit: address artificial dependency, access to work), the more basic safeties/freedoms, access to economic trade (incl. having something marketable that can be performed/exported)
Some are more crucial than others, don't waste everyone's time nitpicking one or another.
Once TWCs start becoming developed and less shitty, we've seen their birth rates even out and decline. We've seen it over and over again.
The point? There's a BOGO sale on irony so we get two:
1) "We are reducing our population" means doing jack shit. That's not hyperbole, a FWC doesn't declare an accomplishment for existing.
2) The best "fucks to start doing your part" means outside forces. Underdeveloped countries catch up sooner or later, but if you're banging the table for active manipulation guess who that would be?
You want a world of FWCs while masturbating yourself to the status quo others wrought. And someone praised that.
worlds population was 3.762 billion in 1971 and is now 7.442 billion, that half calculation might not be far off
Just saying.
"Using up groundwater" is meaningless long term, since in the end it can easily be piped inland from the oceans. Once you have enough solar power why not desalination plants all along the coast? Or are you worried about dropping the sea level HA HA HA.
If water overuse were actually a problem anywhere in a first world country it would cost 10x what it does today and laws would be frowned upon. Until ANYONE acts like there is actually a problem there is obviously not a real problem, just made up scenarios from alarmists who are not running the water works for a major city.
Saying that technological advancements will fix the problem places the burden on our children and grandchildren to solve it.
It doesn't place a burden on anyone, it recognizes a simple truth that technology advances improve life, and will inevitably address pain points that come up if for no other reason than greed. I mean, if you can't rely on people as a general group to be greedy is some regard, what can you rely on?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Or maybe there is a bug in their calculations which directly equates the Unix timestamp to world resource consumption!
(negative values prior to 1970, positive values after... bad joke, i'll see myself out)
Did Paul R. Ehrlich right this article
We just have to kill 1/2 the population of the Earth.
That should fix it!
Looks like every category is at or below sustainable consumption rate except for carbon. Can't let that spoil the narrative, so they peg the sustainable level of carbon emissions at zero so that they can use the whole carbon value to swamp the entire rest of the data set. Why is this framed as a global resources report and not a carbon consumption report? Also I'd like to see the justification for pegging the global sustainable carbon usage at zero.
Also for the TLDR crowd, fresh water is not included in the report.
1. Gather a bunch of resource usage stats.
2. Notice that most of the data is not alarming.
3. Massage the units so that the one alarming data point swamps all the others in a simple sum.
4. Pretend that all the resources are being used at an alarming rate.
5. Publish
6. Profit !!!
Actually, your carbon impact and resource impact has much much more to do with where you live, where you work, and where your energy comes from.
If you live and work within 1-2 miles and rarely drive or fly long distances (high speed rail has minimal impact), and live in an efficient city like Seattle which has 98.5 percent green energy (same holds for Vancouver BC or Nelson BC or, surprisingly, even Calgary AB or much of Texas), you have very very little resource impact on the world.
If your electric car uses solar panels on your home and at work, and the battery helps load balance the grid so it has a higher level of renewables, your impact is very small.
If you're a millenial, you may not own a suburban house or have a lawn or even a fireplace and you may not own a car and tend to walk, bike, or use transit. If you eat low on the food chain, especially if you eat mussels and clams and shellfish grown in mixed kelp or seagrass beds, you're actually carbon negative on food.
If you use native shrubberies and water that would have gone to waste to water them, especially using no fertilizers or composting your food waste, then your impact is very small. If you reuse things, use less packaging (or use it to replace other purchases, such as cardboard instead of pizza trays), and recycle what can be recycled after, then you have very little impact.
On average, a modern city dwelling Millenial on the coasts (except the South, but including Texas) has about 1/10th the impact that the average American does.
That's science. Use the online calculators to see where you use things.
Plus I bet the Prius you drive only emits smug ... not unlike your post.
What's a car, grandpa?
My sister drives a Prius in SoCal, since her commute takes a while and she has kids, actually.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
All the paper and water needed for toilets, all the mining, iron, steel plastics, and asphalt for the pipes and infrastructure, and we're missing the big die-offs from the regular cholera and typhoid outbreaks. It's all the toilet's fault!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
While I FAIL TO UNDERSTAND WHY THIS CRAP IS HERE. That does not mean it has less relevance. Msmash, i have had many a harsh word regarding your thinking processes. Perhaps called For OR not. But in this case it is very relevant in a broader vision of things. With that said, we need to really think about our future. With this info what would this mean for our children? Or generations beyond that. Cut out those fuckers that stir shit up enabling their wealth, only to cut and run "getting out before they are caught,"either in a different land or pushing up daisies.
It's not all about you, but it should be about how your actions affect that future of your fellow man or woman...
How is it possible to get more than 100% of something? We're using 170% of the Earth's resources? How? Are we using phantom resources? Are we borrowing resources from the future? Pumping resources in from other planets? We can't burn oil that doesn't exist, or cut down trees that don't exist. Mother nature doesn't hand out loans. If we used up ALL the oil, then it would ALL be gone. Forever... And that hasn't happened.... Where are these resources coming from if the entire planet is using more than the entire planet has? Or maybe the real problem (If there even is one here) is far more limited and not nearly as dire as it's made out to be.
We have real issues such as AGW, or hastened Extinction of species but then we have groups like this that turn minor issues into disasters. Running out of gold? Ah nope. Likewise , we have plenty of timber, water, air, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So go eat yourselves.
dinosaurs drank and pissed out all the water on earth 14 times during a 250 million year reign on earth. Yet look! We still have water.
Earth will never run out of resources. Why?
But we don't have dinosaurs. Why? Because they died from lack of resources, dumbass. Resources are not infinite, and if we run out of them, then animals, such as humans, die.
Who are the morons who modded you up?
Impossible to consume more than the Earth has to offer, premise is stupid. Nor will we run out of water or gold, that stuff doesn't disappear.
Fossil fuels? Sorry, we'll ruin the oceans if we keep this crap up but we have decades of oil and centuries of coal supply.
You are correct, to some degree, but this is like saying that the invisible hand of the market will always find the right level. It will, but on occasion it causes a bit of discomfort to the silly little monkeys before it does.
I think the point that you are missing is that, rather than wait for everything to correct itself, perhaps we should be aware of the system we live in and proactively try to avoid painting ourselves into a corner in the first place. Because, accidentally causing a biosphere collapse or something similar can cause us a * few * inconveniences while mother nature figures out how to fill the vacuum.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-eart...
Food for thought.
Virgin forest etc... The overshoot day is calculated by looking at the ground resource we use, then comparing to a set measurement sustainable (e.g. we consume as much forest as we replant and let top soil regenerate, e.g. by fallow and similar methods, and the ratio give a number. For example if we destroy 2500 Hectare forest, but replant 1250 we are effectively not sustainable long term and the overshoot for this measurement point is 2.0 meaning by half the year we overshoot sustaining point - there are various factors they take into accounts but this is the basic principle). I disagree with that publicity stunt for various reason, but if it brings people to inform themselves on sustainability , why not.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
That is how they come to such number, assume every soil is transformed into agricultural soil, protein comes from algae and insects (assume no meat), ignore the phosphorus and other similar elements problems, then assume everybody will agree to dump their way of life to a minimum. And that's not counting the one relying on magic technology not yet there. Basically that earth can support more people is true, but the hidden detail is that our way of life would be *significantly* lower than the western standard. Looking at the detail I would say that would be highly dystopian at best.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
CO2 is a trace gas. To most of the biosphere, CO2 is food. Yet its current relatively low atmospheric concentration forces plants to aspirate excessively to obtain what they need, and this process costs water. With increased CO2, plant growth and food production is increased significantly even while water use decreases or remains the same. The recent CO2 increases are already having a greening effect on arid regions and increasing crop yields. Even the bristlecone pine is showing record growth. The beneficial effects of increased atmospheric CO2 are manifold, and generally start to level off at around 1200 ppm, which is about three times the current level. Pretty much the only parties who should genuinely be threatened by a rise in atmospheric CO2 would be purveyors of GMO tech, since this naturally eliminates many of the problems their technology would attempt to solve.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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This whole pile of garbage was put to paper as "The Population Bomb" by Paul R. Ehrlich & David Brower in 1968. They predicted that resources would run out and catastrophe would ensue. Julian L. Simon made a bet Paul Ehrlich to pick 10 materials that would drastically increase over time. Ehrlich chose copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. The bet was formalized on September 29, 1980, with September 29, 1990 as the payoff date. Ehrlich lost the bet, as all five commodities that were bet on declined in price from 1980 through 1990, the wager period
Right?
Yeah, go back to what you were smoking. Math ain't your thing.
Next...
Look at the chart on just your first link. The shortage was not sudden, it was easily predictable many, many years ago, and what is the case that the water management for those cities was totally incompetent.
The links provides don't say anything about water use other than you had better be careful who you hire to manage water for your cities.
Do you seriously think those cities are the only ones who have had to deal with long droughts?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
the idea that is it OK to exhaust all of our resources here on Earth because we will just mine off-world planets is pretty violently stupid.
That sure would be! Luckily that's nothing like what I said. Thinking that's anything like what I said would be, well, pretty lethargically stupid. Because it's not putting any effort into considering the discussion at hand.
I'll let you have the last response since I don't have the time to deal with low energy binidiots.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do not bash this thing for the obvious flaws ANY estimate has losing sight of the real point of the whole thing. Putting some effort into THINKING before bitching about the obvious problem of how we can use > 100% of anything and when you figure that out THEN discuss it because you're not doing any good beyond fishing for help for yourself. Yes, it's easy to just hide your mental laziness or lack of time by framing "I'm confused" as a form of a criticism (or critical tone to hide your honest expression of confusion.)
Think of what Peak Oil is; if you understand that, then you have an idea of how these estimates can be done. Remember when Peak Oil happened? I do and there were people doing the same thing out of ignorance and confusion back then (but fewer people.)
People like to blab about the Drake equation for life in the universe too; which is a total waste of time. This at least can serve a purpose of making people think about a real problem.
To mean anything, this has to be a more complex equation and no matter how good it is, most people will not put in the effort to understand it and only rely upon somebody else's summation of it. Their own biases will give the result they would like to hear. This is the SAME kind of problem we have with FACTS today.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
What a nothing sandwich. Can I please get the time back I took to read this useless story?
Liquid soylent green!
How can we use "1.7 Earths" worth of resources in a single year, or at all? I can guarantee that we did not use up all of the resources on Earth, much less ".7 Earths" worth of resources coming from some other place.
I am all for reducing climate change, emissions, pollution, and lowering the resource footprint; but this kind of sentimentalization helps exactly nobody.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Get back on those bikes and start peddling you plebs!
Idiots and lies, the 2 things that will never run out.
IIRC oil and coal formed because there were no bacteria to break down some plant and animal life. Now the bacteria exist so I don't think we will get new oil or coal deposits.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
You're and idiot. It's not just cleaning up water. It's using more than naturally replenishes. Desalination is extremely energy intensive and not done anywhere at the scale required. Aquifers that have taken thousands of years to fill are being depleted.