


What Are The Consequences Of Ecological Overspending?
Since The 1970s Human Demand On Nature Is Larger Than Nature’s Renewable Production Today, we are using 20% more than what nature can regenerate. In other words, it would take a year and more than 2 months to regenerate everything that we use within one year. This difference is called the ‘ecological deficit,’ the difference of how much more rapidly we are using resources like forests, fish stock, putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, than nature is able to accommodate.” Mathis Wackernagel, PhD, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network exemplifies what he calls an “ecological bank statement” in a video presentation, excerpted below, showing how humanity today is using more than what nature can regenerate. Ecological Bank Statement Shows Humanity’s Using More Than It Has If we look at this bank statement and say that we’re using more than what we have, is this good news or bad news? I would say it is good news in the sense that it gives us more information. And we still have choice. We can still just not open the bank statement and recycle the envelope, or we can look at it. But if we do spend too much money, we also know what the consequences are, so there is a kind of a feedback loop. In the same way we have to think about nature from a budgeting perspective, and say, ‘what are the consequences of overspending?’” Watch The Video [if the video is not embedded below, then you can watch it here] [3 min. 30 sec.]: 06 – Overshoot (Exceeding Ecological Limits) – GLOBAL FOOTPRINT NETWORK from WERI on...
Ecologize Growth
The words “Economy” and “Ecology” both come from the Greek word “Ecos,” meaning “household.” In other words, Ecology is the science about how to arrange our household on the planet Earth, and Economy sets forth the rules by which this household should operate. Therefore, we shouldn’t separate ecology from economy. Economy and ecology both have their own natural laws. And if we’re building an artificial economy, one that’s based on our own invented rules instead of the rules embedded in nature, then we’re leading ourselves to bankruptcy. Nature is a massive, complex, harmoniously designed, living household. By meddling in it and violating its laws, we induce the crisis. The entire economy must be reconstructed from being an economy of consumption to an ecologically correct economy – an economy of sensible...