Every year, NPG highlights the importance of Earth Overshoot Day. We also use the opportunity to stress how population size and growth must be a prominent part of any conversation about environmental sustainability and encourage more environmental organizations to fully recognize this. Human population is relevant. If our numbers continue to increase, we have no hope of ever preserving our natural resources or protecting our environment indefinitely into the future.

Last year, NPG was happy to note that the Global Footprint Network (GFN) included Population as one of the five areas it considers as possible solutions to solving our environmental imbalance. The other areas are: Planet, Cities, Energy, and Food.

GFN also offers a personal overshoot day calculator – for those interested in learning more about their earthly impact. This tool is meant to provide users with an idea of their ecological footprint. While taking the quiz, NPG staff noticed that there were not any questions regarding family size and planning. This is surprising to NPG because we know, as mentioned in a past forum paper, that: “There is one lifestyle choice that reduces emissions on a scale attainable by government action: having one less child.”  In fact, having one less child would reduce one’s CO₂ equivalent emissions by more than 58 tons per year.  For comparison, living care free would reduce those emissions by 2.4 tons per year, and recycling saves only .2 tons per year.

In discussing population, GFN successfully bridges the gap between environmental sustainability and world population. Their work to present human population as a valuable avenue to discuss and explore in regards to earth’s natural resources is remarkable. Ideally, GFN will edit their overshoot calculator to include family size and planning in the near future. In the meantime, NPG hopes that all environmental groups will be empowered one day to tackle the profound and measurable topic of population growth.

At our present population numbers, seven months of human activity in 2022 has already depleted the natural resources that Earth can renew in a year. This means that every day until the end of the year will be lived in a deficit of Earth’s natural resources. As our planet strains to meet human needs, we are simultaneously taking more than can naturally be replenished. Earth Overshoot Day is the right time to engage in conversations within your community to enact change to help ensure future generations can enjoy and thrive in concert with nature.

Did you use the calculator to see how many planets we would need if everyone lived like you? Tell us your results in the comments below!