Since The 1970s Human Demand On Nature Is Larger Than Nature’s Renewable Production
Today, we are using 20% more than what nature can regenerate. In other words, it would take a year and more than 2 months to regenerate everything that we use within one year.
This difference is called the ‘ecological deficit,’ the difference of how much more rapidly we are using resources like forests, fish stock, putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, than nature is able to accommodate.”
Mathis Wackernagel, PhD, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network exemplifies what he calls an “ecological bank statement” in a video presentation, excerpted below, showing how humanity today is using more than what nature can regenerate.
Ecological Bank Statement Shows Humanity’s Using More Than It Has
If we look at this bank statement and say that we’re using more than what we have, is this good news or bad news? I would say it is good news in the sense that it gives us more information. And we still have choice. We can still just not open the bank statement and recycle the envelope, or we can look at it. But if we do spend too much money, we also know what the consequences are, so there is a kind of a feedback loop. In the same way we have to think about nature from a budgeting perspective, and say, ‘what are the consequences of overspending?’”
Watch The Video [if the video is not embedded below, then you can watch it here] [3 min. 30 sec.]:
06 – Overshoot (Exceeding Ecological Limits) – GLOBAL FOOTPRINT NETWORK from WERI on Vimeo.