ICLEI tracks humanity’s ecological footprint

The homepage for the ICLEI European Secretariat, found at www.iclei.org/europe, is displaying a clock that is illustrating our global consumption of the earth’s resources. This visual reminder of our over consumption of ecological resources will remain until the end of the calendar year.

Ecological Footprint accounting shows that, as of 9 October, humanity has already consumed the total amount of new resources nature will produce this year. Rising consumption of ecological resources is pushing the world into ever-earlier ecological deficit, or ‘overshoot’.

In the words of Dr. Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director of Global Footprint Network, ‘Humanity is living off its ecological credit card and can only do this by liquidating the planet’s ecological assets. While this can be done for a short while, overshoot ultimately leads to the depletion of resources, such as the forests, oceans and agricultural land upon which our economy depends.”

For more information on ecological footprints, please go to www.footprintnetwork.org