Earth Overshoot Day

20th August was Earth Overshoot Day, and it passed by with barely a media comment. OK, there are some very pressing political affairs taking up much media time at the moment, mainly Syria and the Middle East, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to ignore the groans and pains of the earth itself which supports all of us.
This year on 20th August the world used up, in just under 8 months, the resources of the earth that it takes one year to renew. We have run out of the earth’s income for the year. We are in overdraft. The earth is not big enough, productive enough, for our greedy needs.

If the whole world lived like the greedy, high consuming Western world we would need far more than one earth to supply our needs unless we are to go into ever spiralling resources debt. But we only have one earth, and it is finite!

And we go on about the continual need for growth. Why must we grow? Because our capitalist economy demands it. Without growth we die, says the capitalist mantra. And so we continue to put more and more pressure on food and energy resources.
But there are other ways to run our economy, based on co-operation rather than competition, based on social justice and supplying the needs of all. We have to explore other ways of living, for the sake of the earth, and those who live and breathe on it.

When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can't eat money... Greenpeace message on one of their longest banners.