Each year mankind consumes our planet's renewable resources at a quickening pace. The earth only provides so much fresh water and so much biomass each year. To maintain the ever increasing demands of the global civilization, however, we've had to go into overdraft.
This year we exhausted a full year's supply of renewables on August 20th. That meant four months of our consumption had to be accommodated by tapping into earth's reserves. For example, not enough precipitation and surface water? Drain the aquifers. Our wanton, excess consumption manifests in such things as deforestation, the collapse of global fisheries, and desertification - the exhaustion of once arable farmland and its transformation into barren desert.
Actual numbers vary, country to country. Canada is one of just a handful of nations not yet into ecological overdraft. But what of the others and how are we to make sense of this overconsumption.
Here's a graphic that depicts certain countries by how many more times their consumption exceeds their nation's production of renewables.
China consumes two and a half times more natural resources than the country produces. That means it has to take resources from somewhere else. And, given that the countries with biosurplus can actually be counted on one hand, that means China is buying up resources in countries already in deficit. Japan uses a staggering seven times more resources than the country furnishes.
Now, just how long do you think this can go on? Well here's one way to answer that. About six years ago, World Overshoot Day fell in October. This year it was August 20th. Just a handful of years ago, we were dependent on the planet's reserves to cover two months of overconsumption. Now we're dependent on those steadily diminishing reserves to cover four months of overconsumption.
It's magical thinking to assume this can go on all that much longer especially as our overconsumption is compounded by rapidly increasing overpopulation, increasing per capita consumption and the impacts of climate change.
There's a lot we can do to ameliorate this looming crisis, to enable at least a somewhat soft landing for many (but not all) but that has to begin with an adult conversation. Yet we can't even have an adult conversation about climate change and the urgent need to decarbonize our civilization. That is a critical failure that leaves us incapable of doing anything except to sit around and wait to be overtaken by inevitable events.