August 1, 2019

Andrew Campbell 

On July 23 the Global Footprint Network (GFN) announced 2019 Earth Overshoot Day has moved up to July 29, its earliest date ever. The date of Earth Overshoot Day 1988 was October 15. In 1998, it was September 30 and fell on August 15 in 2008, and it moved up to August 1 in 2018. The record shows Earth Overshoot Day 2019 has moved up two months over the past 20 years.

The campaign of Earth Overshoot Day was originated from Andrew Simms, an author, analyst and co-director of the New Weather Institute, a research associate with the Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the British think-tank New Economics Foundation, and jointly launched with the GFN in 2006. Simms introduced the concept of Earth’s ecological deficit to measure when human economy operates beyond environmental limits, and initiated the annual counting of the Earth Overshoot Day when the world begins “overshoot”.

Based on scientific data from UN and other researches including carbon dioxide emission and deforestation, the GFN derives the date of Earth Overshoot Day by dividing the Earth’s biocapacity (the annual production of Earth's ecological resources) by humanity’s ecological footprint (annual consume) and multiplying by 365 days/year and reports it in press releases of multiple languages each year.

For years the GFN has been rigorously stressing the importance of one-planet context to tackle climate change and maintain eco-environmental sustainability. In its 2019 press release, the GFN promotes a variety of solutions in efforts such as cutting back 50% on fossil fuels, inventing renewable energy technologies, reducing meat consumption, restoring forests, recycling and cutting single-use plastics in order to move presumably the date of Earth Overshoot Day back 5 days each year.

Photo:Webshot.