Humanity Overshoots Biological Capacity by 39%

Humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds the planet’s capacity by 39%, according to Redefining Progress, a nonprofit policy organization based in Oakland, California. The ecological footprint is a measure of the amount of “nature” it takes to sustain a given population over the course of a year; comparing this footprint to the same area’s biological capacity shows the degree to which the population is living sustainably, or within its ecological means. The new report finds humanity’s current footprint to be an average of 57 acres (23 ha) per person, while Earth’s biological capacity is just 41 (17 ha). It identifies overfishing, industrial agriculture, urban sprawl, and carbon emissions as the chief culprits driving the overshoot. The U.S. has the world’s third highest ecological deficit, coming in well behind the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. The entire report is online at www.ecologicalfootprint.org.