Submit Your Contributions for IYPF’s November 2006 Newsletter Theme – Sustainable Consumption & Sustainable Energy

Our next newsletter will focus on sustainable consumption and sustainable energy. Two events – one observed in October this year, and the other coming up this month – are relevant to this theme.

1. World Overshoot Day
As humanity’s consumption of resources increases, World Overshoot Day creeps earlier on the calendar. Humanity’s first Overshoot Day was December 19, 1987. By 1995 it had jumped back a month to 21 November. Today, with Overshoot Day on October 9, humanity's Ecological Footprint is almost thirty per cent larger than the planet’s biocapacity this year.

In other words, it now takes more than one year and three months for the Earth to regenerate what we use in a single year.

How is Overshoot Day Calculated?
[ world biocapacity / world Ecological Footprint ] x 365 = Overshoot Day

The day of the year on which humanity enters into overshoot is calculated by calculating the ratio of global available biocapacity (supply) to global Ecological Footprint (demand) and multiplying by 365. From this, we find the number of days of demand that the biosphere could supply, and the number of days we operate in overshoot.

This ratio shows that in just 282 days, we demand the biosphere’s entire capacity for the year 2006. The 282nd day of the year is October 9th.

www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=overshoot


2. The Buy Nothing Day

Get ready and save up to buy nothing. This November 23 (North America) or 25 (outside North America), for 24 receipt-free hours of realization: Hey, we can survive without shopping! Make an important choice to participate by not participating. Join the event in dozens of countries and choose to resist the all-encompassing forces of consumption that drive our problematic world culture. For more information, click here or send an email.


Send us any stories on your activities and projects relevant to the themes above, resources and information of use to young professionals, and anything else that you believe can inform and inspire young professionals around the world to create a better world for current and future generations. Send all your contributions to newsletter [at] iypf [dot] org.