Excessive Consumption

Earth Overshoot Day is a calculated date each year when humanity’s consumption of resources that year exceeded Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources in the same year. In 2019, the Overshoot Day for the UK was 17 May. To live within our means – to moderate our levels of resource extraction, consumption and the resulting pollution – requires a fundamental shift in our collective behaviour and starts with our own attitudes towards consuming more and more stuff. If we are resourceful in outlook and actions, then we can address the fundamental issue behind the ecological crisis of living beyond our means.