Friday, 14 May 2021, 11:49 am
On Saturday, New Zealand becomes the 48th country to
begin living on borrowed time in
2021. This is the day when we have used all of our
environmental resources for the year and move into
overdraft. The costs of ecological overspending is seen in
deforestation, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and the
build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
While we
are doing slightly better than 2020, when we hit our
overshoot day on 5 May, it is likely much of that success
can be attributed to coronavirus lockdowns. Earth
Overshoot Day 2020 fell on August 22. The global 2021
date has yet to be announced.