earth overshoot day

On August 21 - of course I overshot noting it.   The date when our ecological demand during the year matches the yearly budget we have.

Of course there are many ways to calculate this and I suspect it may be much worse - the current extinction rates are about 1000 times higher than background for example.  But this isn't good and it is cumulative.  

snip

Every year, Global Footprint Network calculates nature's supply in the form of biocapacity, the amount of resources the planet generates, and compares that to human demand: the amount it takes to produce all the living resources we consume and absorb our carbon dioxide emissions. Earth Overshoot Day, a concept devised by U.K.-based new economics foundation, marks the day when demand on ecological services begins to exceed the renewable supply.

People keep trying to find mechanisms to make people think and change behavior.  Thus far there has been very little success.   I doubt that this will make a difference even though it may be a nice way of looking at things.  As a species we seem to be poorly equipped to deal with this challenge.

Thanks for the link Greg!