{"id":36524,"date":"2018-08-07T09:31:45","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T14:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36524"},"modified":"2018-08-07T09:31:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T14:31:50","slug":"today-weve-consumed-more-resources-than-the-planet-can-renew-in-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36524","title":{"rendered":"Today we\u2019ve consumed more resources than the planet can renew in a year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we\u2019ve consumed more resources than the planet can renew in a year<\/a><\/h3>\n

Our economies are operating a giant planetary Ponzi scheme: borrowing far more from the Earth\u2019s ecosystems than they can sustain.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"\"Photo by Jenny Ta\u00f1edo<\/div>\n

Today is Earth Overshoot Day, the date when we have taken more from nature than it can renew in an entire year. Unsustainable extraction is occurring on a planetary scale: we are using natural resources 1.7 times faster in 2018 than the Earth\u2019s ecosystems can regenerate this year. Critically, this year is the earliest date that we have gone into ecological deficit, the only deficit that truly matters.<\/p>\n

Earth Overshoot Day is a clear and growing signal that our economies are,\u00a0in the words of the Global Footprint Network, operating a giant planetary Ponzi<\/a> scheme: borrowing far more from the Earth\u2019s ecosystems than they can sustain. But we are already having to pay the price. From deadly heat waves to mass extinctions, soil erosion to dwindling water supplies, we are entering a new era of accelerating environmental collapse.<\/p>\n

And on current trends, this is only set to worsen. Critically, those most likely to bear the violence of climate and other environmental change will be those with least past responsibility for our current situation.<\/p>\n

The continued reliance on carbon to power our economies means that we are highly unlikely to limit global warming to 1.5\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels, the ambition agreed at the Paris climate summit<\/a>, increasing the chance of severe climate disruption and the resulting social stress. Meanwhile, the global food system has destroyed a third of all arable land and, at current rates, global top soil degradation means that there may only be 60 global harvests left. The collapse of ecosystems means we are in the age of the sixth mass extinction \u2013 the last being the dinosaurs \u2013 with nearly two-thirds of all vertebral life having died since the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we\u2019ve consumed more resources than the planet can renew in a year Our economies are operating a giant planetary Ponzi scheme: borrowing far more from the Earth\u2019s ecosystems than they can sustain.\u00a0 Photo by Jenny Ta\u00f1edo Today is Earth Overshoot Day, the date when we have taken more from nature than it can renew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[2418,8077,1647,20856,20855,3197,16940,681],"class_list":["post-36524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-earth","tag-earth-overshoot-day","tag-finite-resources","tag-laurie-laybourn-langton","tag-mathew-lawrence","tag-overshoot","tag-red-pepper","tag-resources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36525,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36524\/revisions\/36525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}