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EARTH OVERSHOOT DAY

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Thursday, 11 July 2019

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29th July 2019

The concept of Earth Overshoot Day was first coined by Andrew Simms, from the UK think tank – New Economics Foundation, in association with Global Footprint Network, which is an international Research Organisation working towards putting an end to the ecological overshoot by making ecological limits central to decision making.

Earth Overshoot Day is that day of the year, where mankind's demand for ecological resources and services that should be ideally consumed in a year, exceeds the consumption what the Earth can reanimate in that particular year. According to Global Footprint Network (https://www.footprintnetwork.org) , humanity within eight months demands more amount of renewable resources and CO2 Sequestration than that the planet can provide for the whole year. According to the calculation, we as humans, are exhausting the natural resources that are available, on an accelerated speed of 1.7 times faster than how much can be regenerated by the ecological community.

As species, living on planet earth, there is so much that we can do in order to prevent the early onset of Earth Overshoot Day. Start with basic, we can reduce consumption of meat if not give up , for example if China targets to reduce their meat consumption by 50% by the year 2030, it would reduce the Ecological Footprint by an approximate of 210 million global hectares that would result in the change of the Earth Overshoot Day back by 3 days.

All of us living on this planet earth and availing its natural resources, need to stop for a moment and think about the consequences that follows every action we do.

Last year's Earth Overshoot Day, i.e. 1st August 2018 was the earliest ever. We have come THREE days earlier this year, i.e. 29th July 2019. Participate in #MOVETHEDATE campaign by Earth Overshoot Day and get to know how can you help https://www.overshootday.org/solutions.