Overshoot and Its 7 Fundamental Drivers
Frankly #68
In this week’s Frankly, (coincidentally released the day after Earth Overshoot Day), I break down seven factors contributing to humanity’s increasing overshoot – which is defined as the point at which species’ use of ecological resources and services exceeds what Earth can regenerate in a given time period – as well as some things that might engender a retreat from current overshoot levels.
For the first time in Earth’s history, a species is able to access, extract, consume, and inject waste into the entire biosphere - testing the limits of our planet’s stability and capacity to provide. The human system is based on the foundation of a huge energy surplus in the form of fossil fuels with the (inaccurate) worldview of limitless resources. As such, all of our institutions, lifestyles, and expectations require growth, even as we increasingly understand the damage it does to the planet.
How did humanity end up in the unique predicament of expanding its consumption beyond the limits of the most bountiful planet that we know of? Is it possible that the primary factors getting in the way of a more sustainable human future are rooted in our social and cultural structures, rather than our technologies? What opportunities still lie ahead of us to mitigate the damage we’ve already done and find a new ecological equilibrium?
In case you missed it…
Last week, I spoke with environmental scientist Johan Rockström to unpack his team’s work on Planetary Boundaries and the pressure that humanity is putting on them. While the mainstream conversation about our planet’s future is heavily dominated by the topic of climate change, there are other systems which are just as critical to consider when thinking about the health and livability of our world. Just like climate change, each of these systems has its own limits within which humanity and the biosphere can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come.
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Been watching all your posts on YouTube….all very thought provoking! Sorry you’ve been ill recently. Hope you’ve completely recovered.
Man, there is something patently wrong with preaching simplification on the one hand, and on the other hand going for a bike ride in a hot weather, running up a fever, thinking that you got COVID, and testing yourself to see whether you do.
Even without getting into the nonsensical rebranding of the flu as COVID and the testing phantasmagoria, this screams contradiction.
People will not achieve simplification through complexity. I wonder what you'd have done were the test positive. Put yourself on a ventilator?
Isn't that obvious, or has it not been to countless generations in the past, that prolonged exposure to heat will make you sick, especially if you're doing hard physical work?
Best way to start simplifying is to think of what grandmother would have done. Or great-grandmother. It's probably safe to assume that people back then were not so idiotically reliant on what this industrial shit-civilization is shoving down our throats.