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We've used up all the resources the Earth can provide for the year and are now in 'overdraft', campaigners warn

The world has now reached 'earth overshoot day', the point in the year that humans have exhausted supplies such land, trees and fish
We have also outstripped the planet's annual capacity to absorb waste products including carbon dioxide, the Global Footprint Network says

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 00:03, 20 August 2013 | UPDATED: 00:03, 20 August 2013

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Humans have used up the natural resources the Earth can provide for the year and are now in 'overdraft', campaigners have warned.

The world has reached 'earth overshoot day', the point in the year that humans have exhausted supplies such land, trees and fish and outstripped the planet's annual capacity to absorb waste products including carbon dioxide.

For the rest of the year, the world is in ecological debt, with fish stocks and forests being depleted, land degraded and carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere, the Global Footprint Network said.
The world has reached 'earth overshoot day'

The world has reached 'earth overshoot day', the point in the year that humans have exhausted supplies such land, trees and fish and outstripped the planet's annual capacity to absorb waste products including carbon dioxide. Pictured is the remnants of a forest that has been logged and deforested in Washington State

Earth overshoot day is calculated by comparing the demands made by humans on global resources - our 'ecological footprint' - with the planet's ability to replenish resources and absorb waste.

This year, in less than nine months we have used as much of nature as the Earth can regenerate in a year. Earth overshoot day has fallen a couple of days earlier than it did last year.

The Global Footprint Network said that in 1961, humanity only used around two-thirds of the available natural resources on Earth, but by the 1970s increased carbon emissions and consumption began to outstrip what the planet could provide.

Humans now need the equivalent of 1.5 planets to sustain us, and by mid century it will have risen to two planets, the campaigners said.

China has the biggest total ecological footprint, because of its large population, but other countries have much higher demands on resources per person. If everyone were to live like U.S. residents we would need four planets to supply demand, the report said.
Earth overshoot day is calculated by comparing the demands made by humans on global resources - our 'ecological footprint' - with the planet's ability to replenish resources and absorb waste

Earth overshoot day is calculated by comparing the demands made by humans on global resources - our 'ecological footprint' - with the planet's ability to replenish resources and absorb waste

Four-fifths of the world's population live in countries that use more than their own natural systems can provide. In this country, we would need the equivalent of three and a half UKs to sustain current consumption levels.

Not all countries use more than the resources within their own borders can provide but even their 'credit' or reserves is shrinking, the campaigners warned.

The world can no longer sustain the widening budget gap between what nature is able to provide and how much our infrastructure, economies and lifestyles require, they said.

Alessandro Galli, Global Footprint Network regional director, said: 'Everyday life in many Mediterranean countries is showing us what it means to live beyond financial limits.

'Ecological and financial deficits are two sides of the same coin. Over the long run, nations cannot deal with one deficit without addressing the other.'
The world can no longer sustain the widening budget gap between what nature is able to provide

The world can no longer sustain the widening budget gap between what nature is able to provide - such as with commercial fishing (pictured) - and how much our infrastructure, economies and lifestyles require, campaigners have warned

Andrew Simms, climate economist at Global Witness, who came up with the concept of earth overshoot day at UK think tank the New Economics Foundation, said: 'The Government consistently tells us that we must buckle down and live within our financial means, but seems intent on pushing us to break our environmental budget.

'The maths is simple - the UK consumes and produces waste at a rate three and a half times greater than we can sustain, and today humanity has already exhausted what the planet's ecosystems can provide in a year.

'We're in the red and gambling with ecological bankruptcy, as the fracking debate shows. If it chose to, the Government can always print more money, but it can't print more planet. Ecological overshoot should lead the political agenda.'

Iwont say that there are too many people here but during the last war there were 32 million people on this Island and we could just about support them, now there is 80 million or more" never mind the lies about there being only 63 million" so a huge percentage of them have to go or we will be eating each other when the food runs out.