The impact of these disasters is growing in part due to the depletion of the ecosystems we rely on to maintain the delicate balance that supports life on our planet. We\u2019ve been borrowing against our ecosystems for a very long time, and we\u2019re now seeing the results of that unpaid debt.<\/span><\/p>\n You may have heard of <\/span>Earth Overshoot Day<\/span><\/a>, the day each calendar year when we begin using more natural resources than the Earth can sustain. It’s calculated by dividing the amount of natural resources (re)generated by Earth in one year (the world\u2019s biocapacity) by humanity\u2019s consumption of that year\u2019s resources (the global ecological footprint) and multiplying by 365. <\/span><\/p>\n When the Earth generates more than is consumed, we have a surplus. When we consume more than is generated, we go into debt. And it\u2019s a particular type of debt: ecological debt, signifying a level of resource consumption and waste (including carbon) discharge that exceeds the sustainable natural production and assimilative capacity of an area. <\/span><\/p>\n By August 2, 2017 we\u2019d already consumed all of the resources Earth could provide last year. The days remaining in 2017 became ecological debt, with the costs to be paid by future generations.<\/span><\/p>\n Unfortunately, this accumulation of debt has been occurring since at least 1971, when Earth Overshoot Day (at that time called Ecological Debt Day) was first reported. If you add up all our days of ecological debt, we’re currently consuming resources that shouldn\u2019t be consumed for another 4,163 days, or 11.4 years. <\/span><\/p>\n That bears repeating\u2014in the last 47 years, we have consumed an additional 11.4 Earth-years\u2019 worth of natural resources <\/span>and are currently consuming resources belonging to 2029<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Some may find it easier to convert this natural capital into terms used for financial capital\u2014dollars. One way to do this is to equate an \u201cEarth year\u201d to the total annual value of Earth\u2019s ecosystem services.\u00a0<\/span>Dr. Robert Costanza and his colleagues calculated one possible value for this<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in their 1997 <\/span>Nature<\/span><\/i> article\u2014US$33 trillion per year in 1997 dollars, or nearly $47 trillion in today\u2019s dollars. <\/span><\/p>\n If you set this $47 trillion equal to an Earth year, you\u2019ll find the hefty price tag for our years of accumulated over-consumption: a truly astounding $535 trillion. And this is the minimum estimate: the authors acknowledge that the figure they developed could be low and that it does not account for other value contributed by Earth\u2019s natural resources, such as biodiversity.<\/span><\/p>\n So what can we do? When in debt, people usually start by paying off liabilities with the highest interest rates. Of all the forms of capital\u2014financial, social, material, spiritual, cultural\u2014I\u2019d argue our natural capital currently has the highest interest rate. <\/span><\/p>\n At a minimum, we should fight to keep Earth Overshoot Day from moving earlier August 2 starting this year, to prevent the acceleration of debt accumulation. Even to do that we\u2019d need drastic and rapid reductions to global emissions of carbon and consumption of other resources. <\/span>A carbon tax could achieve this, or we could start to entertain more <\/span>thought-provoking suggestions, such as a Federal Reserve-financed US government buyout of American oil and gas companies<\/span><\/a>, which could do so more rapidly. <\/span><\/p>\n This would slow or maintain the existing rate of debt accumulation, whereas to actually <\/span>reduce<\/span><\/i> the debt, we need to get the principal down, meaning we\u2019ll also need to start pulling carbon from the atmosphere and consuming fewer natural resources. There may be signs of hope here, with growing interest in <\/span>regenerative agriculture<\/span><\/a>, a <\/span>carbon capture plant going online near Zurich<\/span><\/a> in June 2017 and the opening of <\/span>a negative emissions plant in Iceland<\/span><\/a> later in the year. <\/span><\/p>\n![\"Map](\"http:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/files\/2018\/04\/2017-billion-dollar-disaster-map-1024x614.png\")
<\/a>Overshooting Earth’s resources more and more each year<\/h2>\n
Converting natural capital to financial capital<\/h2>\n
A few ideas for how we can pay down this debt<\/h2>\n