Step by step to a zero-footprint future

The world is on the verge of destruction and we humans are the primary cause of it. 

In times when humanity needs what nature provides, it is indispensable to know how much we’re using and how much we have to use. To measure humanity’s demand on nature, environmentalists in the United States came up with an idea. It aims to measure how much land and water a human population requires to produce the resource it consumes and to absorb its wastes, using prevailing technology. They called it the Ecological Footprint. 

Our environment’s situation has gone from bad to worse. Since the 70’s, humanity has been in ecological overshoot, with annual demand on resources exceeding what earth can regenerate each year. As of this decade, the earth takes a period of one year and five months to regenerate what we use in a year or an equivalent of 1.4 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste—a clear sign of something bad happening. 

Overshoot is a vastly underestimated threat to human well-being and to the health of the planet. According to a United Nations report, by the middle of the next decade, we will need the equivalent of two earths to support us. And of course, we only have one. Badly, it is also not adequately addressed with most of us ignoring the signs of it. Most of the time, people know it, but we tend to ignore it. 

In some areas of the world, the implications of ecological deficits can be devastating, leading to resource loss, ecosystem collapse, debt, poverty, famine, and war. 

The good news is it is not too late for us and planet earth. We can still maintain this overshoot by liquidating earth’s resources—recycling, eating naturally-produced foods, and less use of fossil fuels. The antidote to this problem is very simple. Paradoxically, people seem to be ignorant about it. 

By measuring the Footprint of a population, whether it’s of an individual, city, business, nation, or of all of mankind, we can assess our pressure on the planet, which helps us manage our ecological assets more wisely and take personal and collective action in support of a world where humanity lives within the earth’s bounds.
In today’s world where humanity has already exceeded earth’s limits, ecological assets are becoming more critical. Many countries are already running ecological deficits, with footprints larger than their own capacity. It is high time to change the norm. We have to make securing the future a top priority. We should protect our biggest resource—the planet earth. Myke Miravite