I always find it very unfortunate when people and organisations simplify this deeply sad day into: ‘we have used up resources for an entire year, we are now living at the expense of future generations’.

This is my response to that:

And not just at the expense of future generations. The rich western countries, which had their Overshoot Day 2024 much earlier, are living at the expense of poor countries. Any person, any company, any country with an ecological footprint larger than 1 earth is a ruthless thief, both of the now and the future, both of fellow earthlings and our children and grandchildren.

Moreover, Earth Overshoot Day 2024 is not just about resource use. It is also about creating far more waste and the horrific pollution of air, soil and water than what the earth (and humanity!) can ever handle. Raw materials may still be extractable elsewhere or replaced with other raw materials, the incredible mess we have made of it is not.

Finally, 'just mentioning', species extinction... The ecological footprint that is basis for Earth Overshoot Day 2024 calculation doesn’t include al planetary boundaries... See the explanation and image below the artwork.

That is the junkyard Humans make of this beautiful planet.

Artwork: Earth Cries

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Earth Cries High waves of toxic water drown the land Dead eyes, the earth cries
Earth Cries (1)

Planetary Boundaries

Planetary boundaries are a framework to describe the limits of the impact of human activities on the Earth system. If we go beyond these limits, the environment may no longer be able to regulate itself. This would mean that the earth system would leave the period of stability of the Holocene, during which human society developed.

The framework is based on scientific evidence that human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change. And of course, we are mainly talking about those of industrialised societies since the Industrial Revolution

According to the framework, ‘crossing one or more planetary boundaries can be harmful or even catastrophic . This is because of the risk of crossing thresholds. Crossings that trigger non-linear, abrupt environmental changes within systems at continental to planetary scales."

Planetary Boundaries 2023

Recently, scientists advocated adding ocean oxygen levels as the 10th planetary boundary.

new paper, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, shows that in the ocean, oxygen-deficient waters have increased fourfold since 1960. There have been significant decreases in many freshwater and coastal areas as well. Some scientists and researchers want the ocean’s oxygen levels to be classified as the tenth planetary boundary.

Living organisms in the ocean need oxygen to change food into energy and to breathe. Dramatic drops in oxygen in the ocean will have profound and detrimental effects on the ocean food web.

[Matt Orsagh, Can Dark Oxygen Save the Ocean?]

History of the crossing of boundaries

The concept has since become influential in the international community (e.g. United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development). This ncludes governments at all levels, international organizations, civil society and the scientific community.[5] The framework consists of nine global change processes. In 2009, three boundaries were already crossed (biodiversity loss, climate change and nitrogen cycle), while others were in imminent danger of being crossed.

In 2015, several of the scientists in the original group published an update, bringing in new co-authors and new model-based analysis. According to this update, four of the boundaries were crossed: climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen). Then the scientists also changed the name of the boundary "Loss of biodiversity" to "Change in biosphere integrity" to emphasize that not only the number of species but also the functioning of the biosphere as a whole is important for Earth system stability. And similarly, the "Chemical pollution" boundary was renamed to "Introduction of novel entities", widening the scope to consider different kinds of human-generated materials that disrupt Earth system processes.

In 2022, based on the available literature, the introduction of novel entities was concluded to be the 5th transgressed planetary boundary. Freshwater change was concluded to be the 6th transgressed planetary boundary in 2023.

Read more about Planetary Boundaries here: Wikipedia

ALL WE NEED IS LESS CONSUMING

Through my artworks I ask you to reflect for a moment on the nature around you, on the beautiful feeling that nature can evoke. Thus to think about your actions to support the wellbeing of the earth and everything that lives on it. And on what humanity loses when many of us continue on the destructive path of ever more greed and consuming. And please, reflect on how you can survive in this rapidly changing world…

So do you want to know your ecological footprint? 

Then visit this website: https://www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en 

And do you want to reduce your ecological footprint?

Then ask me, I will help you. For free. Or simply visit my website and choose in the menu for Your Footprint.

And if you appreciate my writings and art and want to support me, you can buy me a piece of fruit here: https://ko-fi.com/jacobberghoef, thank you 🍏 !

Read more about System Change, Man's impact on the earth, Organic Change, Regenerative Agriculture, Regeneration