What is Earth Overshoot Day?

This Thursday 29 July has been marked as Earth Overshoot Day. This day is not a commonly known day to many across the planet, you might be forgiven for thinking its something to do with space and satellites. However, it has a far more serious and down to Earth message: We are consuming and destroying too much for our planet to remain habitable.

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.

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How is this calculated?

Earth Overshoot Day is hosted and calculated by Global Footprint Network, an international research organization that provides decision-makers with a menu of tools to help the human economy operate within Earth’s ecological limits.

As you can see from the red lines on the graph below, the day marked for this event has been getting earlier and earlier since 1970 (with the obvious exception of last year where there was a reduction in resource use due to the COVID-19 Pandemic).

This worldwide calculation is also broken down into countries. So we can understand how, if everyone lived like those in certain countries, when our Overshoot Day would be each year. In the UK we have already passed this day in May – if everyone in the world lived like we do in the UK we would have already used up more resources this year than the whole planet can provide.

See here how we would fare depending which country we base our consumption on.

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What can you do to help move the date back?

We can all help to #MoveTheDate back to 31 December by reducing our consumption and destruction of our natural resources.

Warwick and other businesses and organisations can support the moving of this date by implementing some of the many solutions offered via the campaigns website or by Project Drawdown.

You can commit to one of the many pledges today to #MoveTheDate. You can also check out the many steps you can take to reduce your carbon footprint by signing up to Giki.

With the World Meteorological Organisation saying we now have a 40% chance of reaching the 1.5 degree ceiling the IPCC have warned us about by 2026 it is time for all of us to take action at all levels to #MoveTheDate.