2024-07-31 21:24:19
(ANSA) – ROME, JULY 31 – Earth Overshoot Day 2024 begins on August 1st, the day of overexploitation of the Earth calculated every year by the Global Footprint Network, which indicates that in just 7 months humanity has already used what the Earth takes 12 months to regenerate. Globally, we are consuming the equivalent of 1.7 Planets per year, a figure that could reach two planets in 2030 based on current trends. This was announced by WWF Italy. Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by dividing the biocapacity of the Planet (the quantity of ecological resources that the Earth is able to generate in that year) by humanity’s ecological footprint (the demand of our societies for that same year) and multiplying everything by 365, the days in a year. This means that from Thursday 1st August 2024 humanity has already “finished” all the resources that Nature produces in an entire year and is starting to go into debt. Humanity, with its over 8 billion inhabitants, consumes in excessive quantities, beyond the regeneration (and reabsorption) capacity of the Planet. Fifty years ago, in 1974, Overshoot day fell on November 30th: we exceeded our annual budget by a month. In 2004, on September 2nd, in 2014 on August 5th. The date has always been brought forward and our ecological debt has grown. Italy is also one of the countries with the highest ecological debt. Overshoot Day for our country has already arrived on May 19th. The persistence of this state of overexploitation of nature for over half a century has led to a drastic loss of biodiversity, an excess of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the effects of which are becoming more evident with the increase in the frequency and intensity of heat waves, forest fires, droughts and floods, representing a threat to our very survival. (ANSA).
2024-07-31 21:24:19