Ecological Footprint

Natural Capital

• resource production (such as fish, timber or cereals), waste assimilation (such as CO2 absorption or sewage decomposition) and life support services (such as UV protection, biodiversity, water cleansing or climate stability).

Biocapacity

the ability of an ecosystem to regenerate useful biological materials (resources) and to absorb wastes generated by humans.

Malthusian Crisis

• There are lots of ways that nature reduces overpopulation in an animal population.

• The ultimate way, according to Malthus, was when there would be more people than food to feed them

Malthus’s ideas were used to justify social darwinism

Since Malthus’s time, world population has increased from 1.6 billion to 7 billion

Science and technology has resulted in there being enough to feed 7-9 billion (if we wanted to)

• The same science has technology has been very resource and energy intensive Meaning

1) We use more renewable resources than the earth can regenerate in a year and

and2) we put more waste in the air and water than

the earth can reabsorb in a year

• When the earth’s population uses as many resources as can be regenerated, and whose waste can be reabsorbed, in one year, than the earth is in

Ecological Balance

Some countries use more resources per capita than others, far more than their own land can regenerate and reabsorb

Such a country imports resources from other countries and export its waste back to them in terms of the air and water the world shares

• To use half of next year’s biocapacity now this year,

is the same as saying that we use 1 ½ earths per year

One country alone can use on its own a whole earth’s year’s worth of biocapacity – or more!

• When a country, or the whole world, uses more resources and creates more waste than the earth can reabsorb in one year, it ”borrows” from the earth’s future capacity

• The world is then in ”ecological debt” to the future.

• Musn’t there be a limit to how much can be borrowed from the future

• The day each year when we start borrowing from the next year’s capacty is called

Overshoot Daythe day when humanity’s demand for ecological

resources and services in a given year exceeds what the Earth can regenerate in that year. We uses stocks of resources and accumulate waste, primarily CO2 in the atmosphere.

Overshoot: 3 Factors

how much we consume

how many of us there are

how much nature is able to produce.

Technology has helped expand biological productivityover the years, but that expansion has not comeclose to keeping pace with the rate at which populationand resource demand have expanded.

Slowly increasing results of overshoot

• water shortages, desertification, erosion, reduced cropland productivity

• deforestation, rapid extinction of species, collapse of fisheries and global climate change

1987 was ”year zero,” when resource usage was about the same as the earth’s ability to regenerate / reabsorb it

Overshoot Day this year was August 22, 2012

Every year it moves up a week or two based on earth’s population, amount of CO2 in the air, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuGuTsExN4Q&feature=player_embedded

Carbon emissions is ½ of the footprint

Ecological Footprint

• The Ecological Footprint measures the amount of productive land and sea area it takes to produce all the resources a population consumes and absorb its waste, using prevailing technology.

• It can be measured for an individual, town, nation, and the whole earth

Personal CalculatorHow much land area does it take to support your lifestyle?

Personal Footprint

• Choose Switzerland, then New User

• Food, shelter, mobility, goods, and services

• WRITE DOWN YOUR PERCENTAGES FROM THE ABOVE PIE CHART, AND

• YOUR ”ENERGY LAND” PERCENTAGE

• Climate change, deforestation, overgrazing, fisheries collapse, food insecurity and the rapid extinction of species are all part of a single, over-arching problem: Humanity is simply demanding more from the Earth than in can provide