On October 9 this year we all went into debt...

According to their recent study, humans have taken just over nine months to exhaust the resources that can be naturally replenished in one year. Effectively that means that we are all dipping into the Earth's capital during October, November and December. If this situation is likened to economics, the human race is living beyond its means and if it continues, there is only one way that we can go and that is towards bankruptcy. According to the GFN this is not a new phenomenon, but has got steadily worse since the first time that the human race entered a deficit of this nature. In order to arrive at this conclusion, the GFN has calculated the amount of resources available, the replenishment rate, the carrying capacity for various pollutants and demand for resources. The resources that have been included are built land, crop land, carbon dioxide absorption, nuclear, wood fuel, timber, fisheries and pasture. In addition to the global picture, GFN has also calculated data for 150 countries around the world. This is slightly more complicated because imports and exports have to be taken into account. Data has been gathered since 1961, although the overdraft situation we now find ourselves in only began in 1987. At that time the point at which we started to borrow from the earth's capital was December 11, but since then it has receded to mid November by 1995 and was calculated to be October 9 this year (dubbed "World Overshoot Day"). While all of this is interesting, why is this incredible amount of work being done and what is being done about the results? The main reason for carrying out this work is to help with policy making to try to come up with methods to make better use of the finite resources of the world. How much progress is being made is arguable, however, given that the picture appears to be getting worse year on year. Scarily, when the figures are broken down country by country, there is a huge difference across the world, with some developed countries exceeding their "footprint" several times over. What is meant by footprint is the extent to which that country can provide for its own needs. A country with a small footprint compared to its size can be classed as a "creditor" while a country with a larger footprint than its size can be considered a "debtor". The UK is a debtor in this respect with four hectares required to meet the needs of each person in this country. If the whole world required this amount of land resource, effectively we would need four planets to meet our needs. Thankfully, not all countries are like this, otherwise we would be heading for environmental bankruptcy more quickly. When will we acknowledge this debt we owe to the developing world? Hopefully, not before it's too late.