Earth Overshot Day
Today marks the day in the year when the human race has collectively used one year’s worth of natural resources. To put it another way, we are on a path to use 125% more resources than the earth can generate in 2008.
You don’t need a science degree to understand that this is not sustainable.
I’ve noticed a strange trend in the public dialogue (particularly in the U.S.) about sustainability. Most people take the fact that living sustainably is difficult in our society and use that to discredit the very premise that sustainability is important or a legitimate concern.
In short, we’ve all got our heads in the sand and we’re proud of it!
Take, for example, gasoline prices. Burning gasonline is a highly unsustainable activity. Not only are we running out of oil, but the contribution to CO2 levels in the atmosphere is accelerating global climate change. In other words, we should probably find a way to burn less gas. In spite of this, politicians are scheming for ways to drive down prices and thereby encourage burning more gas. Huh?
It’s never going to be easy to convert our high-energy lifestyle to a low-energy mode. It’s never going to be cheap. But we had better start now while we still have a little bit of capital left to spend! (Oh wait, I think we just lost that this week as well.)
Filed under climate change, environment : Comments (2) : Sep 23rd, 2008 by tadfad
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
It’s the “American Dream” to get rich and flaunt wealth by burning as many resources as possible. Or if not rich, just rack up a bunch of credit so to pretend to be rich and consume as much as possible.
It’s just how we roll. But now even the dumbest amongst us are starting to realize the signs of our folly. That’s why they’ll gleefully cast their vote for Sarah Palin so she can use the Alaskan and other remainint resources to try extend our little American Binge by garnering even more energy and recklessly consuming even more resources.
Why not? By the time we finally do run out, Jesus wil have returned and raptured all of the good little consumers up to Heaven anyway, leaving the pillaged Earth for Satan and people like us!!
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:37 am
We need to continue burning oil or using other “non-renewable” resources until such time that viable and cost effective alternatives are widely available. Also, it has not been proven that CO2 has any impact on the environment. It is naturally occurring, and I think there are some harmful pollutant that we should really be worrying about, like mercury levels in our lakes and streams. Maybe the government should stop touching things and let the free market work. We could get closer to energy independence in this country by allowing us to use the resource we have, and buy us more time for companies to invent better alternatives.