August 22 is Earth Overshoot Day 2020.
It's World Environment Day! Today we announce Earth Overshoot Day 2020 lands on August 22. The date is three weeks later than in 2019 due to the impact from coronavirus-induced lockdowns around the world. This is a far cry from the intentional changes we strive for. We envision a world where humanity lives on our planet’s ecological budget by design rather than by disaster, so that all thrive within the means of Earth.
To assess humanity's current resource situation and determine this year's Earth Overshoot Day, our researchers combined the most reliable data and formed the most reasonable assumptions. We estimate an overall 9.3% reduction in humanity's Ecological Footprint from January 1st to Earth Overshoot Day. The main drivers are the carbon Footprint (reduced 14.5% from 2019) and the forest products Footprint (reduced 8.4% from 2019).
Our contest to guess the date of Earth Overshoot Day became quite a tall order this year with uncertainties and limited data. We were thrilled to receive everyone's best guesses. The winners are student Bruce Smart and his teacher Prof. Alexander Lautensach from the University of Northern British Columbia. We spoke to them this week. We were excited to learn about Bruce's summer adventures planting trees in wildfire-ravaged land and about Alex's upcoming online book on "human security."
We look forward to sharing more stories with you during this year's Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Stay tuned!
7 June 2020
The Earth Overshoot Day team
