mother earth cover letter

In 2012 we will all of our account; earlier than last year, The Earth Overshoot Day comes ever closer. 27. September 2011 was a sad milestone: It marked the day of the year in 2011, from which the needs of the world’s population to natural resources for the entire year that are available is not exceeded.

“This is so, as would be already used up to now, our annual income and we would have to see the Rest of the year, from our savings lives,” said Mathis Wackernagel, President of the international Think tank Global Footprint Network (www.footprintnetwork.org). Is calculated as the Earth Overshoot Day by comparing the Biocapacity: The offer, the nature of the demand of the world is compared to the population according to resources, more precisely of the nature of services that are needed to satisfy the appetite for products and services.

What is behind this measure?

Simply put, he shows, when our total ecological footprint (measured in global hectares) of the total Biocapacity (in global hectares) that nature in a year can produce. To this day, for the Rest of the year, gathering only a waste, and running up ecological debts, we live on the ground floor of the natural capital

The Berlin-Example

The ecological footprint of a Berliner is 4.4 hectares per year. This means that the provision of natural resources to satisfy the consumption needs of a Berlin-based Person, on average, an area of 4.4 hectares per year, i.e. more than six football fields. For all the residents of Berlin along the surface would amount to more than 15 million hectares. You would put Berlin in a circle with this size, so cities such as Rostock, Dresden and Braunschweig would lie within the circle, and even almost to Hamburg.

This Text comes from the book sustainability of Iris Pufé – will be published soon at UTB: 14,99 € (D), 1. Edition, 260 pages, ISBN 978-3-8252-3667-0