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Consumption is having a marked effect on the Earth.
Picture: Shutterstock
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Australia's Earth Overshoot Day was on March 22, only the third month on the calendar.
Sustainable Population Australia's Jenny Goldie said the day should fall on December 31 if humanity wants to return to it's natural resource base.
"Earth Overshoot Day gets earlier and earlier," she said.
"In the past 20 years, the date has come forward by three months.
"Global humanity is currently using natural resources 1.75 times faster than our planet's ecosystems can regenerate, the equivalent to using 1.75 Earths.
"If everyone consumed at the level of Australians, however, we would need over four Earths to provide resources and absorb our wastes."
If everyone consumed at the level of Australians, we would need over four Earths.She said continuing population growth had impacted global consumption.
Jenny Goldie
According to ABS data, Australia's population was 25,694,393 people on December 31, 2020.
In 2019, there were 136,300 more people than the previous year.
Only 2.4 per cent of that growth can be attributed to net overseas migration.
"Australia's population growth was right down last year because of Covid-induced border closures which led to very low net migration," Ms Goldie said.
"Poorer countries have dates much closer to December so are less of a problem. For example, Papua New Guinea's Overshoot Day is 16 November.
"Nevertheless, such countries often have high population growth rates and they will have trouble moving the date back to December as they lift their people out of poverty and consume more."
The sustainability advocate said Australia should help developing countries in the region keep population stable as their economic situation developed.
"Australia must not only get its own house in order in terms of stabilising population, it must help others to do so through the foreign aid program, with more money directed to family planning, girls' education and gender equality," she said.
"Surely it would be imprudent of us to ignore the warnings of the world's scientists about the human growth enterprise, and unethical to bequeath an impoverished planet to our children."
Why climate change threatens public health. ABC News America
Links
- Earth Overshoot Day marks date planet has used up resources for the year
- Earth Overshoot Day: 100 Days of Possibility
- About Earth Overshoot Day
- Country Overshoot Days
- The carbon Footprint makes up 57% of humanity’s Ecological Footprint
- Canberra named world's most sustainable city
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When we rebuild our economy, we must do it with sustainability
- Supermarkets make sustainability promise
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