Ecological Deficit 2013 Is Starting… Now

August 20th, 2013 by Guest Contributor

Originally published on Climate Progress.
By Jeff Spross

Today is Earth Overshoot Day 2013: the day humanity uses up all the natural resources the planet can sustainably provide for a given year. Our ecological footprint — our pollution, fishing, agriculture, fresh water use, greenhouse emissions, etc. — uses up the planet’s biocapacity — the ability of an ecosystem to regenerate resources and absorb waste. After today, the former will overwhelm the latter for the rest of the year. We’ll be in ecological deficit, inflicting more damage on the global ecology than it can naturally repair.

It’s like drawing more money out of a bank account than the interest can replace. The account gets smaller every year, and eventually hits zero. As a result, Earth Overshoot Day has arrived earlier each year. We first overshot in the early 1970s, then in 1993 Earth Overshoot Day arrived October 21, and then on September 22 in 2003. So the gap between our ecological footprint and Earth’s total biocapacity is growing.

As the graph shows, our ecological footprint actually leveled off in the 1970s. Because it’s like drawing down the principle in a bank account, the degeneration of biocapacity is now the main driver of overshoot. The story is basically the same for the United States specifically.

Different parts of the planet overuse natural resources in different ways, thanks to unsustainable land use, waste production, air and water pollution, and of course carbon emissions and the failure to properly price the damage they cause. Those emissions now make up over half of our ecological footprint, and are also its fastest-growing part.

Population growth is a big part of this, but so is growth in the ecological footprint per capita: how much bio capacity an individual person uses up. China, for instance, has a far bigger population than the United States, but our per capita footprint is far larger.

The good news is that our per capita footprint is amenable to reform. Technological innovation and energy efficiency can help us maintain productivity while consuming fewer resources. By eliminating carbon emissions, improving farming methods, reforming fishing practices, managing water and waste better, and a host of other efforts, we can reduce the strain we place on the Earth’s systems. That will hopefully give the Earth’s biocapacity a chance to regenerate.

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Tags: biocapacity, Earth Overshoot Day, Earth Overshoot Day 2013, ecological deficit, global biocapacity

About the Author

Guest Contributor is many, many people. We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people. :D

David

Our ancestors are going to love us.
Steeple

Wow, a graph with actually no apparent science whatsoever to support it. Novel approach.
agelbert

I just read this and believe Cleantechnica might want to do a story on it so I’m passing it on to you:

”
August 14, 2013

NREL Analyzes Solar Energy Land-Use Requirements

The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published a report on the land use requirements of solar power plants based on land-use practices from existing solar facilities. The report, “Land-use Requirements for Solar Power Plants in the United States,” gathered data from 72% of the solar power plants currently installed or under construction in the United States.

Among the findings were that a large, fixed-tilt photovoltaic (PV) plant that generates 1 gigawatt-hour per year requires an average of 2.8 acres for the solar panels. This means that a solar power plant that provides electricity for 1,000 homes would require 32 acres of land.

Also, small single-axis PV systems require on average 2.9 acres per annual gigawatt-hour, or 3.8 acres when considering all unused area that falls inside the project boundary.

And finally, concentrating solar power plants require on average 2.7 acres per annual gigawatt-hour for solar collectors and other equipment, or 3.5 acres when considering all land enclosed within the project boundary.

By the third quarter of 2012, the United States had deployed more than 2.1 gigawatts of utility-scale solar power generation capacity, with another 4.6 gigawatts under construction.

A previous NREL report, “Land-use Requirements and the Per-capita Solar Footprint for Photovoltaic Generation in the United States,” had estimated that if solar energy was to meet 100% of all electricity demand in the United States, it would take up 0.6% of the total area in the United States.

For the newer report, the data come not from estimates or calculations, but from compiling land use numbers from actual solar power plants. See the NREL press release and complete report.”

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=19506
- http://www.energyquicksand.com/ Edward Kerr
  
  I might also note that such land would not be decimated, say like the land in Alberta where we are exploiting that low grade bitumen. If things were to change in the future (and they surly will) that land cold easily be reconfigured for other uses. CSP seems to be the way to go!
J_JamesM

Usually it takes something drastic to happen before significant action is taken- for example, an ecosystem collapsing which causes an entire industry to capsize. If any of the species are left, usually we are able to muster enough support to protect and breed them back a bit.
- agelbert
  
  Agreed. I wonder what would be the ecological deficit crossover date if the U.S. had 100% renewable energy penetration in the electrical grid AND most of our vehicles were EVs.