The issue that is often/always missed, when thinking about earth overshoot day, is that it refers only to our capture of primary productivity. It has nothing to say about use of non-renewable resources. It's because of this that, even if the world reduced it's capture of primary productivity to less than Ecuador, it would still be unsustainable if it relied on non-renewable resources.
You mentioned sustainability and Richard Heinberg did a good job of describing what is needed to be sustainable, in his Five Axioms of Sustainability (easily searched for) though I distill them down to the following.
If the activity/society consumes any resource beyond its renewal rate, it isn't sustainable. And remember that non-renewable resources have a renewal rate of, effectively, zero.
If the activity/society produces waste, or damages the environment, beyond the environment's ability to assimilate that waste or damage, it isn't sustainable.
So, not only is collapse inevitable, there is no way to retain anything from modernity indefinitely. The only sustainable way of life appears to be hunting and gathering, though this is only possible in climax ecosystems.
Thanks Mike - yes, failing some kind of miracle, collapse and extinction before the end of the century seems entirely certain. Indeed, I don’t believe there is any kind of ‘sustainable’ off-ramp. It’s not ‘if’ the ship goes down, but ‘how’. Whilst not being any kind of solution, the pursuit of sociao-ecological justice at the end of the world offers some mitigation during the process and, in this regard, the Titanic’s bandleader, Wallace Hartley, serves as a stoic example of our best selves.
There’s no good way out of this predicament, but we can still affect just how bad it has to be. This is the only reason to keep pushing in the right direction. Thank you to you and Just Collapse 🙏
The issue that is often/always missed, when thinking about earth overshoot day, is that it refers only to our capture of primary productivity. It has nothing to say about use of non-renewable resources. It's because of this that, even if the world reduced it's capture of primary productivity to less than Ecuador, it would still be unsustainable if it relied on non-renewable resources.
You mentioned sustainability and Richard Heinberg did a good job of describing what is needed to be sustainable, in his Five Axioms of Sustainability (easily searched for) though I distill them down to the following.
If the activity/society consumes any resource beyond its renewal rate, it isn't sustainable. And remember that non-renewable resources have a renewal rate of, effectively, zero.
If the activity/society produces waste, or damages the environment, beyond the environment's ability to assimilate that waste or damage, it isn't sustainable.
So, not only is collapse inevitable, there is no way to retain anything from modernity indefinitely. The only sustainable way of life appears to be hunting and gathering, though this is only possible in climax ecosystems.
Thanks Mike - yes, failing some kind of miracle, collapse and extinction before the end of the century seems entirely certain. Indeed, I don’t believe there is any kind of ‘sustainable’ off-ramp. It’s not ‘if’ the ship goes down, but ‘how’. Whilst not being any kind of solution, the pursuit of sociao-ecological justice at the end of the world offers some mitigation during the process and, in this regard, the Titanic’s bandleader, Wallace Hartley, serves as a stoic example of our best selves.
There’s no good way out of this predicament, but we can still affect just how bad it has to be. This is the only reason to keep pushing in the right direction. Thank you to you and Just Collapse 🙏