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Earth overshoot day.

Posted by Dobrien 6 years, 7 months ago to Culture
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According to these econonsense no industry fanatics. We used up a years worth of resources by August 2nd the earliest ever according to this group. They say we need 1.7 earths to support our usage. It is likely subjective and meant to discourage production and consumption.

On the site they have a personal use calculator.
According to the calculator if everyone lived like I did , June 18 would be the date and We all would need 2.2 Earths.
What are the other gulchers resource calculations?
SOURCE URL: http://www.overshootday.org/


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    Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 7 months ago
    OK, I took it as a test.
    Assume that:
    1)I am vegan (never eat animals-HAHAHA, I'm walking (yes, walking) to the store to get Ribeyes as soon as I finish this)
    2)I never eat anything packaged at all-all grown in my yard
    3) My house is 50 sq ft freestanding with no running water
    4) Two people live in my house, and it has electricity- no choice of saying if I generate it or not
    5) My house is extremely "Efficiency-centered design (passive heating/cooling, advanced temperature control and ventilation, low electricity use)"
    6) I create almost no trash- composting everything
    7) I do not travel by car at all - ever.
    8) I never (always) ride with someone else-this made no difference in the results
    9) I never use public transport
    10) I never fly anywhere

    OK, Guess what.
    If everyone did exactly what I said above, that is, give up civilization completely and never produce anything at all, ..... drum roll ...
    It still takes one complete earth to live as above.
    That's how biased this "test" is.
    To satisfy these %$@*&^% everyone has to go live in a cave and live on roots and berries... except that there aren't enough roots and berries, so we have to die.

    BTW, Dobrien, my real result was 2.5 earths since I do drive a car about 3000 miles a year, and live in a house with running water and electricity. I do compost though.
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    • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 7 months ago
      They want us all...gone! off the face of the earth...until that is, they realize...that means them too!

      They have no clue that the universe showers our earth, our sun and the other planets with resources everyday...if not directly then it's effects upon earth itself creates and replenishes resources. (electric universe theory). Will it keep up with us?..not likely, but we, as amazing value creators, get closer everyday to creating resource for ourselves.

      I remember, back in college in economics class the professor always stated that economics was the study of the efficient use of resources but every example of past use of resources showed a dramatic waist of resources...he failed to include mankind's learning curve...a learning cuve the "Left" seems to forget cause they not only judge the past by the present but also think their own excrement does not stink.

      I'm tempted to repeat a statement of a Richard Prior skit in response...(you might imagine how that goes)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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    • Posted by 6 years, 7 months ago
      Thanks Freedomforall,
      I retook the calculater with a better picture of meat and pork consumption and I added public transportation ( that I never take) and I came in at 3.5 Earths. Sheeez I would like a carbon footprint
      To tatto their asses.
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      • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 7 months ago
        They need a Big Carbon size 10 up their behinds...spare your footprint on their butt...spoil the child...
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        • Posted by 6 years, 7 months ago
          From a wingtip.
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          • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 7 months ago
            Funny...or what we used to call: Puerto Rican Fence Climbers!....

            (Note for the audience: This is a SHOE!!! and not a racial entity).
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            • Posted by mccannon01 6 years, 7 months ago
              Bwaa, ha ha! Haven't seen that reference in decades. Had a pair in the '60s!
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              • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 7 months ago
                Only we called them "Beetle Boots"! Ya Ya Ya...
                We should check our privilege...
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                • Posted by mccannon01 6 years, 7 months ago
                  Yes, Beatle Boots after the Fab Four footwear. As I recall, though, even non-boot (ankle height) shoes with pointy toes were also referred to as "PFCs". Kept my Beatle Boots and a bunch of vinyl albums in a box with a few other things from the era. Tossed the whole thing out about 15 years ago when we cleaned the attic. Who'd have thought vinyl would be making a come back. I had all the albums on CD anyway. Heck, I tossed Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Dylan, Joplin, and a few others that are now all showing up in the antique markets. I guess if you live long enough you get to be an antique along with all the stuff you used to have, LOL!
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                  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 7 months ago
                    Ah...yes, if we only knew then what we know now.

                    Last year, I got the bug to find my old car, it was a supped up 61 Ford Starliner...low and behold I did,.
                    The guy wants 55K and aside from new tires and wheels...it's the same as when I sold it...it haunts me...I just can't afford or justify the price of that old memory.
                    It only cost me 175.00 dollars back in the day...and it took a summer to save up for it.
                    Who'd a thunk!?
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                    • Posted by mccannon01 6 years, 7 months ago
                      '61 Starliner. OMG, gorgeous car! Same as you I had to work all summer to get my first car, which was a used '64 T-Bird for $200. It was actually junk except the engine (390) ran fantastic and earned me my first speeding ticket during my misspent youth. The iron ants were eating it faster than I could repair it. Oh, I won't even talk about the '65 La Mans convertible I picked up for $31 after the Bird. At least the top still worked, LOL! Gave it away after a couple of months. My third used car was a '69 GTX (440) I picked up for $475 and I had a ball with that one. Those three cars taught me auto mechanics because I was fixing them almost as much as driving them. Any of those cars in good shape are worth a lot today. Like you say: "Who'd a thunk"?
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                      • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 7 months ago
                        Those were the days when each car model and brand was unique. Today, however, we have nothing but a collective of equal and almost identical, global ugliness to chose from.

                        Here she is: bottom row, right, second to last...black with louvered hood sitting on an upgrade.
                        https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p...
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                        • Posted by mccannon01 6 years, 7 months ago
                          Gorgeous, OUC! Love the style and I really miss having a working visor window. I also notice the rarity of when you roll down the front and rear windows there isn't a post in the way of the view. Love the tail light look! You are sooooo right about the uniqueness of style and selection of those days. "Who'd have thunk" a day would come when you'd have to look twice to tell the difference between a Mustang and a Toyota. Hey, Honda, Hyundai, Impala, Malibu all have the same look. My only guess is the new sameness "look" is being driven by aerodynamic physics and fleet gas mileage to satisfy the EPA. I figure when they all look like upside down bathtubs it won't matter what you buy or drive.
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                          • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 7 months ago
                            Yes, it's economical but the overall practice, I see as a sign of the collective progressive times.
                            Hell, we are charged most recently now to check our premise and privilege if one should be born smarter than the average bear...everyone and everything Must be the same.
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                            • Posted by mccannon01 6 years, 7 months ago
                              Yeah, OUC, the collectivists give lip service to a thing called diversity, but they are clueless as to what diversity really is. Their real goal is to make us all the same and "equal" with no diversity at all. The problem is, as I've pointed out elsewhere in the Gulch, the only place all of us are truly equal is in the graveyard. Hmmm, maybe that's their goal.
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                              • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 7 months ago
                                Oh...but what if I've made stronger more numerous quantumly entangled connections than the rest...then we'd not be equal in death either.

                                I can assure you that they certainly will not be equal to us in any way shape or form, in life nor death for it is They that are the Great Unwashed and we, the Elite on the Streets.
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                                • Posted by mccannon01 6 years, 7 months ago
                                  "...stronger more numerous quantumly entangled connections..." and "Elite on the Streets" +1

                                  Oh, just to stay on topic, I'm sure I must have overshot an earth or two by the time I was 25 and we're still here!
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                                  • Olduglycarl replied 6 years, 7 months ago
  • Posted by Herb7734 6 years, 7 months ago
    What a bunch of horse pucky!
    Did anyone see what the Israelis did via raising crops in the dessert? There are tens of thousands of acres lying fallow all over the world, not to mention farming methods allowing for more food per acre than could be imagined just a few decades ago.The fact that socialist countries like Venezuela and North Korea would allow their populace to starve is not the fault of mismanaged environmentalism, and as for the atmospherics, that's been debunked over and over, ad nauseum.
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  • Posted by nyctech 6 years, 7 months ago
    It is really funny to see the biases in this quiz. I might have done "worse" if some of the questions were different. As an example, I currently rent 2 different places - one in NJ, and another in WI due to out of state work. I guess I'd have a double footprint on that...as well as several other areas. Either way - my personal offshoot day is....January 20th. 18.7 earths.
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  • Posted by CTYankee 6 years, 7 months ago
    I got Nov 2 -- I have solar panelsm I don't waste paper or plastic, my car has accumulated 4k miles in the last 10 years, etc, etc...

    But the survey asks questions like: "Do you have running water in tour house?" "Do you have electricity?" The answer I wanted to give them was a resounding basso-profundo "F&@% YOU!" but there was no option for comments.

    I wonder how many resources the creators of that survey squandered on the survey itself. These Ultra-Green morons are a waste of Oxygen.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 7 months ago
      Kind of like if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it. If all the people were off of the planet
      Who would know what is here? and who would care?
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 6 years, 7 months ago
    This is an example of the same kind of static thinking that predicted worldwide famine before the "green revolution" that gave us more sustainable crops and increased harvest. Technological breakthroughs are underway now that promise production of laboratory grown meat products much more efficiently than traditional herd sources. Genetically engineered sea flora and fauna will deliver highly nourishing food at much higher rates. Protein from insects and microbial growth will soon be available.

    Earth's water supply is constant. It is not consumed, but merely changes states as it moves through the environmental chain. You can't "use it up."

    Power production and use are likewise transitioning to ever higher levels of efficiency. Predictions of mineral and fuel shortages have been proven erroneous more times than I care to remember.

    Like economic models, the flaw is that the measurers don't seem to realize they're shooting at a very fluid moving target. Humans are very good at adapting to changing conditions, so I consider this a waste of time.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 7 months ago
      Hi Doc, I for one thank you for taking your time to share those logical connections to reality.
      The water supply varies geographically and should be monitored due to constant needs and intermittent fluctuations of rain fall.
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      • Posted by DrZarkov99 6 years, 7 months ago
        There are simple engineering solutions to proper distribution of water. The problem is usually politics. Since moving to Oklahoma, I've been extremely impressed that the state took aggressive action to manage water resources, taking the dust bowl years to heart. The solution isn't complex, just adequate reservoir capacity and smart use of canals and pipelines to deliver water where and when needed. Contrast this with California's foolish waste of their plentiful water resources, diverting billions of gallons from farmland where water is scarce, only to dump it into the ocean to supposedly protect a local baitfish which has plentiful habitat elsewhere.
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  • Posted by ohiocrossroads 6 years, 7 months ago
    7.5 Earth's for me. That test is so eco-biased, it's ridiculous. I'm nervous that I had to give them my e-mail address to start the test; they might report me to the EPA.
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  • Posted by Lucky 6 years, 7 months ago
    That scare has been around before.
    See- The Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth. 1972
    It was predicted (by modeling techniques usual in those studies) that
    major resources would have been used up by the mid nineties.
    See also 'peak oil'.
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  • Posted by rls1951 6 years, 7 months ago
    My overshoot date is February 18th and 7.5 earths. Who thinks up these calculations. And how many people do you think actually believe in this? Just one more fabricated measurement that will soon be mainstream.
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  • Posted by evlwhtguy 6 years, 7 months ago
    I haven't looked at it but I suspect that it may even be accurate....however it probably assumes that everybody in the world uses resources at the rate you do....and for that matter...I do. This assumes every guy in India or Africa or in outer Mongolia that barely lives a subsistence lifestyle would use resources at the rate we do. If that was to happen....yes there would not be enough! In order to put weight on something like this you have to be a collectivist and reason somehow that resources have to be divvied up equally amongst everybody. Well that is communism and we all know how destructive that is to the resource base, never mind humanity. Fact of the matter is...while we are all born the same way [equally in the eyes of god if you are so inclined] we are not born in to the same opportunities and we certainly don't have the same outcomes. If you are one of these nitwit collectivists that is wealthy enough to have the leisure think that we should all have the same and no one should have any more, you should kill yourself because there is no way to divvy it up equally and you are getting too much...[you greedy bastard]. If you are like me....you are going to be grateful that you were born in the west and have all these fabulous opportunities to [as a middle class american] actually live better than a Roman emperor of old.
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  • Posted by edweaver 6 years, 7 months ago
    6.3 for me. We should all be dead by now.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 7 months ago
      I think the more Earths you use in regard to this calculator the higher your standard of living. We will all be dead at some point.
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      • Posted by edweaver 6 years, 7 months ago
        I'm not rich nor poor, so not sure about the standard of living. But I am a producer that is not sitting around in my cave cowering because a group of cronies are trying to get rich at my expense.

        I do live in the country and drive 70 miles a day round trip to my office. I've also bought a small farm and doing many repairs so considered that I create more trash than my neighbors. But that is a loaded question itself. I don't have a clue how much garbage my neighbors generate nor do I care.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 6 years, 7 months ago
    In October, I teach a week of environmental literacy to my Intro to Chemical Engineering students. I teach it as objectively as possible, including a question about how much extra, on a percentage basis, that they would be willing to be to pay for energy that had no environmental impact whatsoever.

    Should I have students take the Earth Overshoot Day questionnaire as a homework assignment to introduce a little more humor into the class? Would it illustrate absurdity by being absurd, or ... would some people actually take it seriously?
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    • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 7 months ago
      Might be a good idea, pointing out the absurdity within itself.
      Mankind has evolved from bicameral left brain only to an integrated two brained conscious being, (maybe 50% of us anyway), and that's not the end of the story either. In order to evolve we must experience, we were never destine to be stagnate creatures, what is good for us today may not be tomorrow. We might go the hydrogen route in the future only to find we've too much, expelled too much oxygen and tipped the balance of nature and on and on.
      The key, is to learn from our experience while not putting all our eggs in one basket and being open, not reactionary, to what happens, what is and collect all the time tested truths we find along the way.
      After all, there would be no point or purpose to existence if not for an awareness of it, participation within it and ultimately, a perpetuation of it.
      We also must take heart that if all this was to be so damn easy there would of been no need for forgiveness, the learning process, successes nor failures...it's just the way things are...get over it, live it and for pete sakes...enjoy it.
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    • Posted by Lucky 6 years, 7 months ago
      However absurd an idea that you introduce in class, a good many students will accept it.
      If you want to try, give some clues so there is no loss of face when the the correct conclusion comes out.

      Your course in environmental literacy- you may like this about a prof who teaches journalism, he gets his students to check on claims. This often does not require 'science' as much as honesty.

      http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/20...
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 6 years, 7 months ago
        Thanks for the advice. The environmental literacy is not an easy issue for me. There is a valid basis based on free radicals (an Organic Chemistry 2 concept) for ozone depletion. Ozone was at one point depleted, and has partially repaired itself; however the time scale for such repair is on the 50-100 year timeframe. There are plenty of verifiable facts to teach regarding environmental literacy, and ... there is an overwhelming amount of myth.

        I always tell my students to verify everything for themselves.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 6 years, 7 months ago
    It all boils down to pledge #6. The other pledges elicit guilt and #6 is supplied to assuage that guilt. That tactic is centuries old. Don't remember the name of the movie, but when I see this stuff I recall a scene spoofing a TV preacher while the collection plate is being passed: "God knows the depths of a mans heart and God knows the depths of a mans pockets. So dig deep into those pockets and give to the Lord... Give to the Lord... Give to the Lord... quiet money only, please, I'm allergic to the noisy kind".

    Hmmm, they're running a contest where the give away is a GoPro. Are they not aware of the level of tech and industrialization that was required to finally produce a product like GoPro? Ha! If these people have their way, you'd have to feel guilty just owning one.
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  • Posted by ReneeDaphne 6 years, 7 months ago
    I'm a little concerned that the elephant in the room is not being addressed. What you are all missing in their stupid rhetoric is....they have a vision not only of exactly what they want but how to get it and, sadly we don't. I hear the same kind of clap trap below when I do work on the "other side" in tandem with our principles. It is obviously stuff said by people who never cross the political line in a friendly and helpful manner, extending the olive branch of "let's see if we can work this out together" Koom-by-yah. Folks, reality check. If you aren't out there talking to folks on the other side, they will bury you with their energy, their efforts, organization and dogged determination to get their goals and visions fulfilled.

    While we......what exactly do we ever DO or VISION and share with anybody?

    SUNDAY Aug 6th here in Portland O. Joey Gibson has organized another walk/rally/gathering at 2pm at the Salmon Fountain on the waterfront. Come help us restart Re3VOLution...you remember 2008 don't you?
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    • Posted by 6 years, 7 months ago
      I can't disagree with the elephant being in the room.
      The lack of any plan to address health care costs or the uninsured by the Republicans got us the ACA.
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  • Posted by chad 6 years, 7 months ago
    I do my part by being a second hand vegetarian. Cows eat grass and I eat cows removing the need for the cowboy this idiot is worried about.
    All the renewable resources these guys talk about require massive amounts of subsidy in order not to go broke, or as in the case of Solyndra get massive subsidies and go broke anyway with the managers retiring wealthy and the slave labor (taxpayers) have less to live on. The subsidies indicate that none of the 'renewable' resources really work and the only way to keep them going is to produce more co2 by the payers who go to work to pay those looters to produce something from the Scientific Institute that doesn't work, killing the earth even faster. If all the socialists in the world and environmentalists in the world offered to get off to save the planet it would be a very quiet place with very little resource requirement. Unfortunately they want only those who are free thinkers and workers to get off. When he says we 'must' work together what he means is I want the right to use violence to control all those I do not agree with.
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  • Posted by $ Snezzy 6 years, 7 months ago
    PLEDGE 1: I try a new vegetarian recipe
    -- I eat vegetarians daily, and enjoy finding new ways to cook them.

    PLEDGE 2: I ride social!
    -- Not sure what that means. "Socially" or what? I took my horses with me yesterday when I went to the vet. Maybe that was social.

    PLEDGE 3: I dive into data
    -- I avoid diving. I frequently inspect data to discover whether or not it is valid. A preponderance of the digits 1, 3, 7 and 9, over 0, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8 in a set of data suggests that someone who believes odd digits are "more random" than even ones made up the numbers.

    PLEDGE 4: I reach out to my city leaders to challenge them to #movethedate
    -- I avoid my city leaders. As Tevye said, "May the Lord bless and keep the Tsar--far away from us!"

    PLEDGE 5: I take on food waste
    -- Daily. I shovel food waste produced by my horses. Lots of it. I also occasionally read words produced by people in Washington.

    PLEDGE 6: I donate to support one planet prosperity
    -- "One person" prosperity, if possible. Me.

    PLEDGE 7: I calculate my own Earth Overshoot Day and become a Footprint
    -- My horses do this for me. They overshoot by a few inches and step on my feet. I become their footprint. Ummm, hoofprint.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 7 months ago
    I use 7.7 Earths according to the site, and I bike to work over half the time. This sounds grim. You have to click through to Explore Solutions to reach the positive messages. I understand what they're saying, but human ingenuity has escaped the Malthusian trap this far. I think we'll find ways to give everyone the affluent lifestyle I have and to deal with the environmental costs. Not long ago frequent travel by plane, which probably accounts for my large footprint, was for the rich "jet set". Now it's routine.

    It reminded me of how earlier this year on a business trip I drove to the Italian village where my great-grand parents came from 100 years ago. It was a long trip with no going back, back then. Now I rented a car and worked it into a routine business trip. My grandparents couldn't have dreamed of this technology, of the world supporting such an affluent life for so many people. I don't think this is the peak b/c of peak oil or environmental issues. I think in 100 years the world will support an affluent life with things like space travel, life extension, virtual reality, in ways I cannot imagine now.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 7 months ago
      Thanks for sharing your results and story.
      "My grandparents couldn't have dreamed of this technology, of the world supporting such an affluent life for so many people"
      That afluent life brought to us curtesy of the freedom and capitalism that made America the economic powerhouse. Both are being undermined by most of our so called "public servants".
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