Explanation here before you look at their graph:

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. This ecological deficit spending is possible because we can liquidate stocks of ecological resources and accumulate waste, most prominently carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
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Earth Overshoot Day is computed by dividing the planet’s biocapacity (the amount of ecological resources Earth is able to generate that year), by humanity’s Ecological Footprint (humanity’s demand for that year), and multiplying by 365, the number of days in a year.

So according to the graph, if we all had our ecological demand exceeding supply to the degree of the Oil Sheiks in Qatar, we’d hit Earth’s regenerative limits as early as February 6. Or to think of it another way, if we all lived like Qatar we’d need almost another 9 Earths.

As overspending can not last, overshoot will end. The question is only how: by design or disaster.

Uh huh. I think I’ve heard this before:

The battle to feed humanity is over. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.

That of course was the famous opening argument from Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book The Population Bomb, and we all now know how human technological development proved that wrong.

Since they’re likely aware of this the “Overshoot” crowd make the specific claim that they’re not doomsters:

First, we should mention that we’re not ecological resource- or climate-“doom-and-gloom” people. We’re also not over-optimistic, “change-your-lightbulbs-and-we’ll-be-OK” types, either. We assess honestly, with open eyes what is, so we can identify the most effective possibilities.

Perhaps, but the reality of their numbers and graphs is that we all have to live like the poorer nations on that graph. While not having looked into the detail of their calculations I also can’t help thinking there’s something off when I see that the nation with the “best” Overshoot Day is Uruguay.

Now I don’t know a lot about the place but it’s never struck me as a poverty-stricken shit hole and actually seems like a pretty well-developed nation with economic problems that ebb and flow as they do with all nations. In other words it likely wouldn’t screw with my lifestyle, or perhaps the lifestyles of a lot of the West, to live there.

So how is it doing so much better on this measurement than New Zealand? Are they really that much better at not screwing the environment? Further investigation of “Overshoot” calculations is warranted.

“Overshoot” is part of another outfit called The Footprint Network, but the pinciple is the same: they calculate each nation’s Ecological Deficit or Reserve (credit).

An ecological deficit occurs when the Ecological Footprint of a population exceeds the biocapacity of the area available to that population. A national ecological deficit means that the country is net-importing biocapacity through trade, liquidating national ecological assets or emitting more carbon dioxide waste into the atmosphere than its own ecosystems absorb. In contrast, an ecological reserve exists when the biocapacity of a region exceeds its population’s Ecological Footprint

You’ll be pleased to know that New Zealand’s reserve is 51%, even though having everybody living at our levels would exceed the planet’s carrying capacity as early as April 30, 2025. For all to live like Kiwis would require only another two Earths.