Today is Earth Overshoot day – the day we begin to use more natural capital from a given year than the Earth is able to replenish. It’s like putting everything from now until Dec 31st on a resource credit card. We do this over and over again, every year, putting more on our resource credit card each year, so that eventually, there will be no more natural resources left. From overshootday.org:
“Global overshoot occurs when humanity’s annual demand for the goods and services that our land and seas can provide—fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, wood, cotton for clothing, and carbon dioxide absorption—exceeds what Earth’s ecosystems can renew in a year. Overshoot means we are drawing down the planet’s principal rather than living off its annual interest. This overshoot leads to a depletion of Earth’s life-supporting natural capital and a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
Global Footprint Network, the organization that measures humanity’s demand for natural resources, teamed up with The World Wildlife Fund, Earth Day Network, and Art Works for Change to create “Footing the Bill: Art and our Ecological Footprint”, an exhibition addressing the urgent need to live sustainably within the Earth’s finite resources.
The image included is by one of the artists highlighted in Footing the Bill, Alexandre Dang. His work is titled “Dancing Solar Forget-Me-Nots”, and was installed in the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert in Brussels in 2009. His work is animated with solar and wind power to celebrate renewable energy as the key to our future.
Explore the other artists featured in Footing the Bill online at www.artworksforchange.org.
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