What Can We Do About Ecological Debt?
Posted on April 15, 2009 by
These days, we hear a lot about people living outside their means. Most of the time, this refers to people spending more money than they bring in, and I think we can all agree this is a dangerous cycle that needs to stop. But there’s another kind of debt that is arguably even worse, and unfortunately, it can’t be bailed out.
A country officially moves into ecological debt each year when it has used up all the resources it can produce in one year, effectively rendering it dependent on other countries for food and energy. As of this past Sunday — Easter Sunday — the United Kingdom is officially in ecological debt, and we’re just a third of the way through this year. As you can imagine, as populations and consumption grow and increased pressure is put on ecosystems, this date — also called Earth Overshoot Day — moves further and further up the calendar each year. For the UK, it was July 9 in 1961 and May 14 by 1981. Last year, the United States made it to September 23 before declaring it Ecological Debt Day. In 2007, it was October 6 (which happens to be my birthday, woo-hoo.) I couldn’t find a prediction for 2009, but I’d bet good money it’ll be well before September 23.
It would be great if we could all set an environmental budget for ourselves and stick to it, just like we (should) all make a financial budget. Unfortunately, measuring your individual impact on the environment isn’t as easy as balancing your checkbook. You have to take into consideration the types of food you eat, the fossil fuels you use to power your home and car, the things you buy, the waste you create, how you dispose of it, and the countless other little dents we all put in our environment every day. It’s going to take a major lifestyle change for the majority of people, not to mention some serious government involvement, if we want to push our Ecological Debt Day back towards the end of the year where it belongs.
What do you think? What are some ways we can set environmental budgets for ourselves and others?
Somewhere I read about someone who set monthly utility limits for their family and when they’d used them up, they were done until the next month. Not everyone can do that, I know, but it would be an interesting experiment.
I like that idea of being able to set limits on the utilities! I would totally experiment with that (and if anything, it would help keep me in check).
A friend of mine said that she has a timer she uses for the shower to try to keep it under 5 minutes.
Great post, and something I haven’t thought much about. I guess even without knowing whether I’m using more than my share, I can still do better to set limits on my consumption. I may try setting a limit on how much I can fill my garbage can each month.
This puzzles me: if you drink coffee or tea; if you drive a car; if you buy clothes; if you smoke cigarettes; if you use anything that’s made in China–do these count towards ecological debt? I mean, how does one use up the resources a country can produce if the country doesn’t produce them to begin with (coffee, for instance)?
It is ridiculous to expect that a country like, say, the Netherlands (where I live) could sustain a population of 16 million on the acreage it has available for tilling. And if you did optimize every last square acre for food/resource production, you’d have to eliminate vast tracts of wild lands. Things might be different in the US, which could (probably) develop an insular economy, but again–at what cost?
This is a fascinating concept.
I appreciate Jules’s perspective and I think it’s right on. Smaller countries can’t be expected to not incur any debt because they don’t have the resources for self-sustenance.
What we should look at is where does the buck stop? We’re passing our ecological debt on to someone, but who? (other nations? the future?)
[...] another kind of debt that is arguably even worse, and unfortunately, it can’t be bailed out. A country officially moves into ecological debt each year when it has used up all the resources it c…, effectively rendering it dependent on other countries for food and [...]