August 21 – Earth Overshoot Day

nPostednon August 21, 2013

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Accordingnto the Global Footprint Network, today is the day that thenhuman race has used up our year’s quota of renewable resources. ThenEarth cannot replenish

nrenewable resources as quickly as humansndemand them, and it cannot deal with carbon dioxide emissions asnquickly as they are…well…emitted! Even ignoring all thennon-renewable resources we are using, such as oil and coal, we havennow used up our year’s supply of renewable resources.

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Andnthere is still about one third of the year to go! (132 days left innthe year.) We are soooo overdrawn!

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nSpreadnthe word. Raise awareness. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Switch to solarnpanels and an electric car. n

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nManynpeople shrug their shoulders. They feel that environmental problemsnare way too big, and what they themselves can do is way too small.nBut lots and lots of small actions add up to something big. I say, donwhat you can, and don’t lose hope!

We don’t have a lot of back-up
Earths. So we need to solve
some problems we are making
for the only Earth we’ve got.

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nI’venbeen thinking that we (as in all humankind) need to work on twonfronts:

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n Reducen poverty. Studies have shown that reducing poverty also reducesn population growth. Of course, people who do NOT live in abjectn poverty live longer and use more resources per year…but the worldn will benefit by fewer people yet happier, healthier people.

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n Trainn more scientists and engineers. More scientists and engineers meann more knowledge and more inventions and more innovation. I think itn is inevitable that some of our environmental problems will be solvedn with technological solutions, such as carbon-dioxide scrubbers orn asteroid mining. And the more knowledge, the better, because we can base our long-term, globaln thinking on reality rather than on wishfuln thinking.

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nCannyou work on one of these two fronts? Even if you aren’t engaged withnfighting poverty or extending scientific knowledge, keep onnconserving resources, using renewable power, and reducing your carbonnfootprint. And keep on talking about it to other people.

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nAlsonon this date:

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