What is Ecological Overshoot?
What is ecological overshoot and why is it important? Is it a more important predicament than climate change? What about energy and resource decline – more important than it? The answer to the latter two questions is YES and ecological overshoot is important because it is the predicament which is causing all the other predicaments such as climate change, pollution loading, energy and resource decline, and the list of files included in this post. Practically every article I’ve written here is about ecological overshoot in one way or another. Put simply, ecological overshoot is the collection of predicaments that our unsustainable lifestyles have brought forth. Collectively, humans globally use far more energy and resources than the planet can provide in a given unit of time and we produce toxic wastes that the planet cannot process within that same unit of time – that is ecological overshoot.
Because of ecological overshoot, each predicament we face exacerbates the other ones. For instance, this article points out how agriculture and food security threaten environmental sustainability, and both amplify other predicaments such as water security, GHG emissions, aerosols, land use changes, species and biodiversity decline, and on down the list.
This article points out how the climate system is much more sensitive than previously thought, making us much closer to tipping points; some of which have already been passed. This shouldn’t surprise too many people considering how many articles are constantly laden with the “faster than expected” and “more than previously thought” phrases, but many of these types of articles tend to focus on one or two specific predicaments rather than explaining the interactions and multiplying and cascading effects these predicaments have with each other…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
