Earth Overshoot Day

Earth Overshoot Day EOD is a calculated illustrative calendar date on which humanity's resource consumption for a year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year. The term "overshoot" represents the level by which human population's demand overshoots the sustainable amount of biological resources regenerated on Earth. When viewed through an economic perspective, the annual EOD represents the day by which the planet's annual regenerative budget is spent, together with humanity enters environmental deficit spending. EOD is calculated by dividing the world biocapacity the amount of natural resources generated by Earth that year, by the world ecological footprint humanity's consumption of Earth's natural resources for that year, in addition to multiplying by 365 366 in leap years, the number of days in a year:

In 2020 the calculated overshoot day fell on August 22 more than three weeks later than 2019 due to coronavirus induced lockdowns around the world. The president of the Global Footprint Network claims that the COVID-19 pandemic by itself is one of the manifestations of "ecological imbalance".

Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by Global Footprint Network and is a campaign supported by dozens of other nonprofit organizations. Information about Global Footprint Network's calculations and national Ecological Footprints are available online.

Criticism

The ecomodernist Breakthrough Institute regards the conviction of Earth Overshoot Day and how numerous earths we consume as "a nice publicity stunt". According to United Nations data, forests and fisheries are, as a whole, regenerating faster than they are depleted but admitting that "the surplus might be more a reflection of poor UN fisheries data than healthy fisheries", while cropland and pasture use is make-up up to what is available. Hence, EOD does a poor job at measuring water and land mismanagement e.g., soil erosion and only highlights the excess of carbon dioxide that humanity releases above what the ecosystem can absorb. In other words, the additional equivalent number of Earths that humanity requires is equivalent to a land area that, if filled with carbon sinks like forests, would balance carbon dioxide emissions. Researchers associated with Global Footprint Network answered these criticisms in a response in the same PLOS journal. More detailed discussions about criticism is usable on Global Footprint Network website.