Forget money, the Earth’s budget has just gone bust

This is day four of life on borrowed time. Or life on credit, if you will. You might have missed it, but last Wednesday was Earth Overshoot Day — the day when we used up all the natural resources that the planet can replenish in a single year, writes Clodagh Finn.

From now until the end of the year, everything we use — water, soil, clean air — is unsustainable in the long-term. And a little like talk of Christmas, that day comes earlier every year.

As recently as 1961, the world still produced a surplus. The deficit began in the 1970s when the world’s population had exhausted all of its resources by early December. Since then, that date has been creeping forward year on year and, at the current rate, we will need two planet Earths by 2030 to deal with our consumption rates and growing population.