The United States of America's Ecological Deficit Day arrived this year with little fanare on July 14th.
That is the date on which it is estimated that the Americans have consumed an entire year's worth of their nation's renewable resources. Six and a half months to use up twelve months worth of renewables. That means five and a half months of running on empty, draining the steadily dwindling reserves (i.e. groundwater) and importing goods, mainly foodstuffs, from abroad. It also means a build up of various forms of pollution normally cleansed by nature.
You can read the State of the States Report here. It's a well-illustrated, easy to comprehend study of how the US and individual states are doing and where they're heading. It's full of little gems such as how it would take eight Californias to support California residents' ecological footprint.
2 comments:
I have to wonder how Canada stacks up to this scrutiny?
The Global Footprint Network (one of the top rated NGOs) offers reports on a country by country basis.
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/trends/canada/
You'll see that our ecological footprint is still only about half of our biocapacity, a blessing entirely due to the size or our country and our relatively small population.
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