What is biocapacity?
- The weight of all biologists in the world combined
- The feedstock, based on biomaterials like wood, that is used in biomass fired power plants
- The amount of biological productive land and sea area to provide resources and absorb waste
- The capacity that a country has to provide food and natural resources for its own demand
What is an ecological footprint?
- It measures human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people and their economies
- It is the inverse of a destructive handshake
- It measures how fast we consume resources and generate waste compared to how fast nature can absorb our waste and generate resources
- The physical space you need to fulfill your needs (like food, energy, car, computer etc)
What is Overshoot?
- Use more natural resources than is regenerated in an entire year
- What’s left over after you shoot a goose
- Spending more than you earn
- Shooting the ball way over the goal
- To go further than the end of or past something, without intending to
What are examples of local overshoot?
- Fisheries collapse – like the Cod fish collapse in Newfoundland
- Deforestation – like the slash and burn in the Amazon forest with forests not recovering
- Stuff in the supermarket that is sold out
- Overgrazing – like having too many cows or sheep on a piece of land.
- Depletion of groundwater, like the groundwater level under cities like Sanaa, capital of Yemen, where water levels dropped from a couple of meters underground to hundreds of meters.
Since when is humanity in Overshoot?
- We are not in overshoot
- 1910
- 1940
- 1970
- 2010
What date is Earth Overshoot Day in 2024?
- April 1st
- June 1st
- August 1st
- November 1st
- None of the above
Order the following countries from highest to lowest biocapacity.
<p>In absolute terms! Put the highest on top.</p>
- Brazil
- India
- Australia
- Sweden
- Kenya
What is the biggest contributor to humanity’s ecological footprint?
- Food that we eat
- Materials for buildings and infrastructure that we build
- The CO2 emissions from fossil fuels that we burn
- Food that we use to feed our animals
Order these countries from biggest to lowest ecological footprint per citizen:
- USA
- Spain
- China
- Colombia
- Philipines
What percentage of the world’s population lives within the Earth limits?
<p><span style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14px”>(Their footprint is equal or smaller than the biocapacity that is available per global citizen.)</span></p>
- Less than 10%
- Between 10% and 30%
- between 30% and 50%
- between 50% and 70%
How are countries able to run ecological deficits?
- They use more than their own ecosystems can renew
- By printing more money
- They import more resources than they export
- They supply cheap loans
- They use the global commons (dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, or fishing in international waters).
What are the consequences of 50 years of overshoot?
- water shortages
- deforestation
- climate change
- biodiversity loss
- chemical pollution
- bad air quality
- inflation
What does overshoot mean for businesses?
- Nothing, as long as they can sell their goods and services with a profit it won’t matter
- It becomes harder, since materials will become more scares and thus harder to secure
- They should focus more on circular economy principles to become less dependent on virgin materials.
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