My Ecological Footprint

Too Big For Our Boots

Today is August 2, 2023.

Today, according to the Global Footprint Network, is Earth Overshoot Day.

?? Overshoot: Using more than what's available, or in more technical terms "exceeding the carrying capacity of the system"

"Overshoot" builds on the idea of an Ecological Footprint. This is a way of measuring the resources needed to (a) give us the food, materials and physical space we consume, and (b) absorb our waste. We can compare our footprint - our demand - to what's available in nature - its supply.

Imagine, for example, you're in the desert and once a week you get a delivery of 5 litres of water. If you drink 5 litres by the end of day 4, you've used up everything available - that's overshoot.

Expand this example to a full year, including everyone on the planet and their total demand for food, materials and land. Out of this comes Earth Overshoot Day, and it changes over time as things like population, demand per person and available natural resources change.

What would you need to believe for this picture to be even directionally true (i.e. that human activity will, at some point, lead to an overshoot)?

• Behind our way of life - food, clothes, housing, heating, etc. - is a chain of activities which, in some way, starts with land or sea being used
• Land and sea are not infinite
• The demands of human activity have grown with population and "modern life"

If these don't seem wild assumptions to believe in, you may be curious what is your personal overshoot day.

Mine was six weeks ago.

My Ecological Footprint

I calculated this using an Ecological Footprint Calculator.

If everyone lived like me, we would need 2.1 Earths. How does that make me feel?

• Doubtful - is this number even right?

...but assuming there's even a directional truth to it, I also feel...

• Ashamed - it feels wrong to take at others' expense and I'm uncomfortable with this being a public fact about me
• Concerned - this isn't academic...there are consequences to my demands
• Despairing - I doubt that I, individually, can make a difference just by changing my own way of life
• Optimistic - I have some hope that by learning this, talking about it and doing something about it, I'm part of a bigger shift that could make a difference

If you calculate your footprint, the calculator will actually ask you, specifically how you feel about the result:

I was surprised that a tool so analytical and quantitative raised the topic of feelings. But on reflection, I think it's the most important thing to raise.

What we do about a new piece of information is, of course, hugely affected by how we feel about it. If the information is advocating for us to change our ways, we're psychologically wired to resist. How will we handle the feelings we have when our way of life is challenged - our culture, living standards, practices and so on? Our skills to handle them will be part of our story, for each of us, in the way we own and perhaps adjust our ecological footprint.

Where does that leave us?

Overshoot is the result of humanity demanding 70% more than Earth’s ecosystems are able to regenerate. Food makes up a large part of our Ecological Footprint – feeding humanity currently takes almost 50% of Earth’s "biocapacity".

With a growing human population and increasing demand for healthy food, the ecological pressure of food will mount. By most estimates, the total global food demand is expected to increase significantly in the next 25 years - 2050 demand is expected be more than a third greater than 2010.

Setting aside seafood and what we know about overfishing, the land we use for farming is already more than stretched and 77% of that is for producing animals.

Meanwhile, the capacity for producing food is increasingly challenged due to greater stress on natural resources and climate uncertainty.

It is not clear yet?how the demand for food will be met without overshooting even more. There are hard challenges in the way.

Broadly speaking we need to do food differently, in a new way that meets our dietary needs, serves the people working in the food supply chain and stays within the biocapacity of our planet. Or, of course, we can just leave.

Now what?

I think about two things: (1) the demands I personally create as a result of how I consume, (2) how I contribute to changing the way we collectively meet our needs. I can only speak for myself, given the resources, capacity and opportunities available to me. What's clear to me is that I need to do more, and that I can.

One example of a simple but significant action to consider is what goes on my plate - specifically, how much meat vs plant-based protein. That's something I've made a shift on, lately but, I trust, permanently.

There's clearly more I have to do; my own footprint is clearly far, far too high. Yours too, I imagine (subject to questions about measurement accuracy).

I'm optimistic that new approaches to food production - precision agriculture, regenerative agriculture and cellular agriculture - can help get us to a new way of doing food. Similar to the so-called Green Revolution, but pulling us back from, rather than pushing us beyond, the Earth's limits.

If you calculate your overshoot day, maybe share it in the comments. I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on what it means for you, or how it feels.