What does the Ecological Footprint tell us?
Humanity's Ecological Footprint can be illustrated in numbers of planets, where one planet equals the total biocapacity of the Earth in any one year. Since the late 1980's, we have been in 'overshoot': currently the Ecological Footprint exceeds the Earth's biocapacity by about 25 per cent. In other words, at the global level, we are currently living beyond the means of nature by one-fourth.
Ecological Overshoot
The Ecological Footprint illustrates that, as a global community, we currently need about 1.2 planets to meet our average consumption levels.
The average global Ecological Footprint is 2.2 global hectares per person, while there are only 1.8 hectares of biologically productive area per person available on the planet. This is called 'overshoot'.
Much like spending more money than you earn, it is possible to exceed ecological limits for a while, but this "deficit spending" leads to the destruction of ecological assets on which our economy depends, such as depleted groundwater, collapsing fisheries, Carbon dioxide (CO2), accumulation in the atmosphere, and deforestation.
Ecological Overshoot, therefore, means that we are reducing the ability of the earth's land and water to support humans and other species into the future.
