Ecological Debt Day

Earth Overshoot Day or Ecological Debt Day ( " Overshoot ", " Ökoschuldentag " or " Erdüberlastungstag " ) is an annual campaign by the organization Global Footprint Network, a certain day of the year on which the human demand for natural resources, the soil's capacity to exceeds reproduction of these resources. Earth Overshoot Day is a vague assumption, taking into account temporal and resource- dependent trends. The appropriate date of the year is calculated by (the number of generated global natural resources within this year) sets the global ecological footprint ( human demand for natural resources within this year ) to the total global biocapacity in a mathematical ratio. The purpose of that campaign is to highlight the limits of natural resources into the consciousness of the people.

Concept

Seen from an economic perspective, humanity is from the Earth Overshoot Day in a deficit because it has already used up all their assets and therefore money from the bank - ie the earth - to borrow. This condition is referred to as overshoot.

The concept of Earth Overshoot Days was originally developed by Andrew Simms, a member of the British think tank New Economics Foundation. The Global Footprint Network measures human demand and the global supply of natural resources and ecological services. Global Footprint Network notes that according to the latest eight months, all renewable resources and CO2 levies an entire year are consumed. The organization uses concepts of economics in the hope to address not only scientists, but a wider audience.

In 2013 the day was on August 20. The trend of the past 25 years shows a significant forward shift to an earlier date. 2003, the day after September 22 was calculated in 1993 for October 21, where it is now because of the refined methodology and new findings to a certain range.

Background: Development of human resource consumption

Since time immemorial, people have natural resources consumed to build cities and roads in order to gain food or produce other products. Mid-1970s has exceeded a critical limit after presentation of the Global Footprint Network humanity: the demand for natural resources have exceeded the global capacity to reproduce and offer new resources. The human demand for renewable environmental resources and services is consistent with the capacity of one and a half earth. With constant development resources annually would be claimed by two planets by 2050. The corresponding indicators of this phenomenon are counted: greenhouse effects that are produced faster than being absorbed and broken down by forests and oceans, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, overfishing.

Assessment

The problematize the global resource consumption is welcomed by other environmental organizations: "Humanity takes more from the Earth than it can be renewed annually in natural resources and absorb greenhouse gases ," said the environmental groups WWF, GLOBAL 2000 and Greenpeace. Critique has Jürgen Knirsch of Greenpeace. " The method has weaknesses, and the network is working partially with data, its origin is unclear and not explained by rounding error. "