Earth Enters Ecological Debt

The recession may have slowed global consumption down a bit, but we're still consuming our planet's finite resources faster than it can replenish them, according to the Global Footprint Network.

Friday was an ignominious milestone: Earth entered ecological debt.

The day is dubbed Earth Overshoot Day by the Global Footprint Network. It marks the point at which we have used up the planet's annual ecological budget and we start gnawing through our capital.

Earth Overshoot 2009 comes a day earlier than last year.

The Ecological Footprint is a clever way of looking at the carrying capacity of the planet from the viewpoint of a individual or group be it a city, country, or the whole world.

The concept was invented and developed by UBC prof Bill Rees (read my interview with Bill Rees) and his then PhD student Matthias Wackernagel. Wackernagel is executive director of the Global Footprint Network.