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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.
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 don't understand. How can we possibly use more than the Earth can provide? Where's the extra coming from? Mars?
More than sustainable. For example if there are a million fish in the ocean, you could technically harvest all 1 million of them in a single year but then you wouldn't have any the next year. This makes sense for renewable resources like fish and even water tables but not sure how this relates to gold or oil. Both are fixed quanities. In the case of gold, very little of it is really consumed. In the case of oil, once it is gone, it is gone. In both gold and oil, there isn't a sustainable level that we can extract either resource. We can keep extracting as little or as much as we want and there will still be a day when there is no more. For stuff like fish, this is a very real number as if we continue to extract fish faster than they can repopulate then we are creating a disaster.
This is one of those non-story stories, like that stupid "doomsday clock at midnight" things. Just some stupid number crunching, nothing to see here.
Earth is a recycling planet. It will never not be a recycling planet. One guy once did a calculation for the biomass of all the dinosaurs, times the millions of years the dinosaurs have ever existed, times the water usage of a typical large reptile we see today, divided by all the water on earth. He determined that 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? Supply and demand. We will always make more when more is in demand. That's free market economics for you. Today, we have more wood than we consume. If that changes, it will be profitable to plant trees and grow more wood. There are trees that take 100 years to come to market. Those trees are worth planting, even if the farmer doesnt realize his crop. Why? Because the tree at 10 years old is worth more than the tree at 0 years old.
If we need more water than all the rain on earth, we will desalinate. Too expensive? We will innovate. Same thing goes for just about every natural resource. If you think there are things we can't innovate around and will perish without, I present to you the miracle of intelligence, the ingenuity of our species, and the enduring spirit of mankind. We don't need to worry and save. If it gets to a point that rarity will cause a shortage, prices will adjust and we will slow down our consumption when the market tells us to. The market will also signal that it is time for new entrants, or innovation to make more, make alternatives, or improve efficiency. That's what R&D is for. Why don't we build more coal plants? Because solar is getting cheap, and democratizing energy production. That's what the market does.
Tell these bozos to buzz the fuck off.
We will always make more when more is in demand.
Yes, because land area, and area suitable for growing trees, is infinite -- and everything else wrong with your poorly-reasoned argument, that started with the phrase, "Just some stupid number crunching", that you apparently did yourself.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Until the solution is large numbers of humans dying off. Yeah the Earth itself will balance, but there are more ways than one to decrease demand.
I bet Thanos sponsored the study :-)
this sig is deprecated
You're under the assumption that fish don't reproduce. I've got some news for you.
If we consumed *all* the fish in the ocean in one year, as the GP stated, which fish in said ocean would be left to reproduce?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It's not different. That's the problem - if we were more self-regulating our extinction won't be the final solution.
Because populations aren't static. Fish fuck and produce baby fish which grows the population, and then predators consume fish which shrinks the population. What it means when someone says we are consuming 1.7x what the earth can provide in a year, is that for every 1 fish born, we consume 1.7 fish. Or if you don't like fractions, then for every 10 fish born, we eat 10 fish plus 7 more.
If you don't like fish, then lets look at trees. Also lets look at a smaller population than 1 million. Lets say we start with a population of 100 trees, that no matter how much empty land there is we can only grow 10 trees per year, and it takes 1 year for a tree to reach harvesting size.
So we begin our year having planted 10 trees, and throughout the year we harvest 17 trees. And at the end of the year, we have 93 trees standing. After 2 years we have 86 trees. After 3, 79 trees. And so on, because we are harvesting the trees faster than we can replenish them.
Whether or not those numbers are right I don't know and not the point of my post. My point is simply that consuming more in a year than earth can provide in a year does make sense.
Huh?
If the reservoirs of drinking water are going down and there's no rain then we have a problem. Period.
It's not a "non-story story" when things like that happen.
If we need more water than all the rain on earth, we will desalinate. Too expensive? We will innovate.
Yep, we'll just push a few buttons and it'll all happen overnight.
Trump's golf courses are important enough that we should spend a few trillion tax dollars to build an artificial water supply for the country.
No sig today...
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?
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?
worlds population was 3.762 billion in 1971 and is now 7.442 billion, that half calculation might not be far off
"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
We just have to kill 1/2 the population of the Earth.
That should fix it!
You have wonderfully highlighted the difference between serious scientific measurement, where the method is provided and error in measurements is quantified, and pure blathering, which is what you are doing.
See, if you looked into this at all, which is what this wonderful technology called the internet allows with minimal effort, you'd see that there is real data backing the Earth Overshoot Day estimate. In fact, their data is covered by a creative commons license so you can go over it with a fine-toothed comb and make constructive criticisms or contribute improvements.
But you didn't do that. Instead, you just called it "Pure Propaganda" without bothering to back up your statement. Your statements, sir, are much closer to propaganda.
To be fair, the most accessible parts of their material are dumbed down for a general audience, and I don't like that a bit of digging finds Schneider Electric as a prominent sponsor of the project's data source, but the message is completely fair: Mankind is running up against resource limits.
The problem with TFA is that is conflating many unrelated issues into one made up number.
Are we cutting down too many trees? Yes. We shouldn't cut them down faster than they regrow.
Are we mining too much coal? Yes, but there is NO sustainable level, since no new coal is being made.
Are we using too much iron ore? No, not really. Dig deep enough, and there is an essentially infinite source of iron, and most other metals.
So are stories like this helpful in "raising awareness"? NO, they are not. Stupid alarmism with no specific practical steps just make people roll their eyes, and leads to empathy fatigue.
Also, I have a hard time believing that people in Luxembourg are really as horrible as they claim. I have been there, and there are plenty of thriving forests, efficient vehicles, and recycling bins by every home. If Luxembourg is the "worst of the worst", then I think there is something seriously wrong with their methodology.
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.
Which will actually fix the problem. Call us back when people are starving for reasons other than poor distribution of resources, most of which are caused by political upheavals.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
But even trees need an environment to grow in, and good ecology is a web that evolved over hundreds of millions of years, and was destroyed beyond repair within decades. Remove the wild land, lose the wild animals and plants. Trees don't grow in a vacuum. Fish the last fish, trap the last fur, kill the last bear for sport, or cut down the last wild tree and there will be no more wild things, ever. How are the trees doing on Easter Island or in Ireland?
I don't believe it is the human mass at large that is depleting resources. It is a handful of individuals and corporations driven by greed to package everything under the sun without restraint and offer it to sale to the human mass that is killing life on Earth.
Unless big changes happen, like immediately, yesterday not tomorrow, and this involves regulating big business whose business it is to rape the Earth as efficiently as possible, we are fucked. I hate to be negative. But I think we are rightly fucked.
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!
Just some stupid number crunching, nothing to see here.
Performing some analysis of our footprint on the planet by "crunching numbers" is better than having no idea or perspective of where we're at at all, don't you think?
It's better to have a plan and be prepared than to have no plan at all, even if the plan is not perfect and based on incomplete information.
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!
most of which are caused by political upheavals.
Change that to political corruption...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You need a citation that there are no dinosaurs? You must not get out much. And why is slashdot now filled with anti-science dumbasses modding me down?
A meteor struck the earth, clouded out the sun. Plants and other animals disappeared, and dinosaurs died from not having those resources. A meteor did not hit each dinosaur on the head directly. Instead of a meteor we now have humans destroying all the resources. We are heading for another mass extinction. https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Africa alone has enough arable land to feed the whole world at the moment in a perfect scenario. Sure, if we have enough fertilizer (we'll get to that), if we have enough clean water (we'll get to that), a stable climate (we'll get to that), and no pollution (we'll get to that) we could support a much larger population.
Fertilizer - this isn't just magically created- a lot of the ingredients in good fertilizer can't just be upped to support more people. Over harvesting seaweed, or fishmeal or bones, or goodness knows what else will cause other problems.
Water - ironic, so much water locked in the ocean. Yet we don't desalinize much. But if we had to we would right? Strangely, there are cities by the ocean with water shortages. If we grow slowly, perhaps water desalinaztion will match population growth- but it's expensive, requires a lot of polluting energy... etc.
Stable Climate - Cliamte change makes some places wetter, some drier, some hotter, some too hot. One area may be set up for an industry to grow one type of crop one day- and then not in a few years. Extreme events- heat waves, drought, etc... kill crops.
Pollution - do I really need to go into that? We all know what that does.
So yes, today's Africa could feed the world if it were managed right- add the rest of the continents and theoretically we could have a much larger world population... But each person you add adds extra strain on all the things above... it makes it more expensive to maintain human life- more of a technological challenge... and it takes away the quality of the lives of the other people on the planet because of that.
Could we squeak by with three times the population we have now... maybe... but I wouldn't want to live amongst that many people.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch