The NGO Global Footprint Network carries out a study every year where it analyzes the evolution of the ecological footprint and calculates the amount of the planet’s natural resources that are consumed. Today, just eight months after the start of 2015, we have already exhausted our “green annual budget”. There are five months left until the end of the year and we are already “out of” available resources.
The alarming thing about this study is that each year the period of prudent use of available resources becomes shorter. In 1993, the resources ran out on October 21; in 2003, on September 22 and, in 2013, on August 20. From that year to 2014, only one day passed, since last year the day of the overload was August 19. The most impressive thing is that this year it occurred on August 13, that is, it has been brought forward six days compared to 2014.
This means that the quantity of consumption is much greater than the quantity of production. That is, today we would need a planet and a half to supply ourselves. If this trend continues, this gap will become ever shorter and we will run out of available resources. In fact, according to a study by this same NGO, it is estimated that if we continue with this trend, by 2050 we will need at least three planets to supply ourselves.
According to the World Health Forum (WWF) the countries of the world are “eating” the planet faster and faster, which is why it is becoming impossible to regenerate the resources consumed. When this organization was founded in 1961, most countries on the planet had a positive “ecological balance” and the ecological footprint was much smaller. Today we are out of all limits and our balance is negative.
Marco Lambertini, general director of WWF International, warned that “if we want to build a future for our children, we must conserve the natural capital that we have left and manage the planet’s resources in a sustainable way (…) Although the current trend shows that humanity is abusing the planet’s capacity to supply ourselves, there is still time to take forceful measures and build a future based on a sustainable consumption of natural resources”. Among them, WWF is committed to a change in consumption habits that includes the acquisition of certified products with guarantees of sustainability and the change in the energy model towards renewable energies.
However, all this does not mean that everything is lost and that there is nothing left to do. Although it is a reality that our planet is experiencing an increasingly alarming critical situation, it is necessary that we take this day as a warning and a reminder to adopt more sustainable practices in our lives.
We can start with small things: turn off the tap when we brush our teeth, use a bicycle instead of a car and buy authorized sustainable products that have the FSC logo. There are many things we can do, we still have time to save the planet, we just need to be aware of the damage we cause and begin to change our habits little by little.
If you want to know what changes you can adopt in your daily life to be more sustainable, enter this note.