Today, we are in debt.
August 8, 2016 marks the date that humanity has used up the supply of natural resources that the Earth can regenerate in one year. With over 4 months left in 2016, we have overshot our planet's natural budget.
Agriculture is a huge contributor to ecological and environmental change, producing massive amounts of waste and using important natural resources. Is there a way to produce enough food for growing populations while mitigating the harmful effects of meeting these demands? WLE hopes to provide real solutions that benefit people and the environment so that humanity can feed itself while living within the ecological boundaries of our planet.
Earth Overshoot Day is hosted and calculated by the Global Footprint Network.
Jeremy Bird in the Huffington Post: Can Our Weary World Keep Feeding Us?
On the occasion of Earth Overshoot Day 2016, the Director General of the International Water Management Institute Jeremy Bird published an opinion piece in the Huffington Post:
For most of us in Europe, 8th August is just another summer’s day. But it also marks a more chilling moment in our calendar: the day our world starts going into debt. By the 8th we will have used up the supply of natural resources that the Earth can regenerate within one year. For the remaining 40 percent of the year, we will add to the overdraft of nature’s budget...
Sustainable intensification of agriculture for human prosperity and global sustainability
Co-authored by head of the WLE steering committee, Johan Rockstrom, with other members of the WLE steering and management committees, this paper calls for a radical change in the way we produce and consume food. It argues that a global agricultural revolution must take place if we are to meet the twin objectives of feeding humanity and living within biophysical planetary boundaries that define the limits to which we can sustainably use the earth’s resources. Read the paper.
People and Fresh Water Ecosystems: Pressures, Responses and Resilience
A new paper, authored by WLE research coordinator Nathanial Matthews, discusses the importance of freshwater ecosystems are to the healthy functioning and resilience of other ecosystems and human well being. However, human threats to these fresh water ecosystems, combined with increasing demand for water resources, mean that by 2025, two-thirds of the world's population may be living in conditions of severe water stress. The paper argues for solutions that provide for the maintenance of freshwater ecosystems while meeting human needs. Read the paper.
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