It’s called “Overshoot Day”, the moment each year when we humans have used up more natural resources that the Earth can renew in 12 months.
euronews.com
And this year that day came on Saturday, August 22nd.
Put another way, it would take 1.6 Earths this year to meet the needs of the world’s population in a sustainable way.
The calculations were made by American NGO Global Footprint Network — since 2003 it’s been raising the alarm on the ever faster consumption of an expanding human population on a limited planet.
I took the list of dates published by Global Footprint Network and posted on overshootday.org and added a few extra details, such as number of days that passed and were remaining each year when the Overshoot Day occurred. You can find this enhanced dataset on Kaggle.
And here’s a simple visualization of the data.
1970 December 29
Earth lasted 362 days, 3 days left in the year
1971 December 20
Earth lasted 353 days, 12 days left in the year
1972 December 10
Earth lasted 344 days, 22 days left in the year
1973 November 26
Earth lasted 329 days, 36 days left in the year
1974 November 27
Earth lasted 330 days, 35 days left in the year
1975 November 30
Earth lasted 333 days, 32 days left in the year
1976 November 16
Earth lasted 320 days, 46 days left in the year
1977 November 11
Earth lasted 314 days, 51 days left in the year
1978 November 7
Earth lasted 310 days, 55 days left in the year
1979 October 29
Earth lasted 301 days, 64 days left in the year
1980 November 4
Earth lasted 308 days, 58 days left in the year
1981 November 11
Earth lasted 314 days, 51 days left in the year
1982 November 15
Earth lasted 318 days, 47 days left in the year
1983 November 14
Earth lasted 317 days, 48 days left in the year
1984 November 6
Earth lasted 310 days, 56 days left in the year
1985 November 4
Earth lasted 307 days, 58 days left in the year
1986 October 30
Earth lasted 302 days, 63 days left in the year
1987 October 23
Earth lasted 295 days, 70 days left in the year
1988 October 15
Earth lasted 288 days, 78 days left in the year
1989 October 11
Earth lasted 283 days, 82 days left in the year
1990 October 11
Earth lasted 283 days, 82 days left in the year
1991 October 10
Earth lasted 282 days, 83 days left in the year
1992 October 12
Earth lasted 285 days, 81 days left in the year
1993 October 12
Earth lasted 284 days, 81 days left in the year
1994 October 10
Earth lasted 282 days, 83 days left in the year
1995 October 4
Earth lasted 276 days, 89 days left in the year
1996 October 2
Earth lasted 275 days, 91 days left in the year
1997 September 29
Earth lasted 271 days, 94 days left in the year
1998 September 29
Earth lasted 271 days, 94 days left in the year
1999 September 29
Earth lasted 271 days, 94 days left in the year
2000 September 23
Earth lasted 266 days, 100 days left in the year
2001 September 22
Earth lasted 264 days, 101 days left in the year
2002 September 19
Earth lasted 261 days, 104 days left in the year
2003 September 9
Earth lasted 251 days, 114 days left in the year
2004 September 1
Earth lasted 244 days, 122 days left in the year
2005 August 25
Earth lasted 236 days, 129 days left in the year
2006 August 19
Earth lasted 230 days, 135 days left in the year
2007 August 14
Earth lasted 225 days, 140 days left in the year
2008 August 14
Earth lasted 226 days, 140 days left in the year
2009 August 18
Earth lasted 229 days, 136 days left in the year
2010 August 7
Earth lasted 218 days, 147 days left in the year
2011 August 4
Earth lasted 215 days, 150 days left in the year
2012 August 4
Earth lasted 216 days, 150 days left in the year
2013 August 3
Earth lasted 214 days, 151 days left in the year
2014 August 4
Earth lasted 215 days, 150 days left in the year
2015 August 5
Earth lasted 216 days, 149 days left in the year
2016 August 5
Earth lasted 217 days, 149 days left in the year
2017 August 1
Earth lasted 212 days, 153 days left in the year
2018 July 29
Earth lasted 209 days, 156 days left in the year
2019 July 29
Earth lasted 209 days, 156 days left in the year
2020 August 22
Earth lasted 234 days, 132 days left in the year
And here’s some of the data charted using my Data Visualization plugin I’ve been working on showing the portion of the year our planet lasted each year.
| Year | Portion of the year |
|---|---|
| 1970 | 99% |
| 1971 | 97% |
| 1972 | 94% |
| 1973 | 90% |
| 1974 | 90% |
| 1975 | 91% |
| 1976 | 87% |
| 1977 | 86% |
| 1978 | 85% |
| 1979 | 82% |
| 1980 | 84% |
| 1981 | 86% |
| 1982 | 87% |
| 1983 | 87% |
| 1984 | 85% |
| 1985 | 84% |
| 1986 | 83% |
| 1987 | 81% |
| 1988 | 79% |
| 1989 | 78% |
| 1990 | 78% |
| 1991 | 77% |
| 1992 | 78% |
| 1993 | 78% |
| 1994 | 77% |
| 1995 | 76% |
| 1996 | 75% |
| 1997 | 74% |
| 1998 | 74% |
| 1999 | 74% |
| 2000 | 73% |
| 2001 | 72% |
| 2002 | 72% |
| 2003 | 69% |
| 2004 | 67% |
| 2005 | 65% |
| 2006 | 63% |
| 2007 | 62% |
| 2008 | 62% |
| 2009 | 63% |
| 2010 | 60% |
| 2011 | 59% |
| 2012 | 59% |
| 2013 | 59% |
| 2014 | 59% |
| 2015 | 59% |
| 2016 | 59% |
| 2017 | 58% |
| 2018 | 57% |
| 2019 | 57% |
| 2020 | 64% |
Yep, things are looking pretty dire. And while this year’s slight improvement almost puts a positive spin on COVID-19, things are not all that great.
