Earth Overshoot Day: Humanity using more than Earth can renew
TORONTO, Aug. 1, 2023 – The Earth’s account is once again overdrawn, but rather than money it is natural resources that humanity has used up. Tomorrow is the day that becomes official – Earth Overshoot Day – when the Earth is no longer able to renew what humans have used this year.
“During the pandemic when we weren’t using quite as many resources, we actually did better, but now were back to where we started. Seven months into the year and the account is empty,” says Eric Miller, director of the Ecological Footprint Initiative in York’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change.
Miller leads a team of researchers and graduate students to produce the National Footprint Accounts for the Footprint Data Foundation, a Canadian not-for-profit organization.
Since 1970, humanity’s Ecological Footprint has overshot the capacity of nature to sustain it.
Humanity’s goal of getting to “net zero emission” will require ending Earth overshoot, he says.
Miller is available to speak with media about Earth Overshoot Day and what it means for Ontario and the rest of Canada. He can also speak about the detailed calculations and what the results mean. He is a member of Ontario’s Biodiversity Council and is the former head economist at the Ministry of Natural Resources.
