Editing Carrying capacity (section)

=== Ecological footprint accounting ===
[[Ecological footprint]] accounting measures the demands people make on nature and compares them to available supplies, for both individual countries and the world as a whole.<ref name=":2">Mathis Wackernagel and Bert Beyers, 2019. ''Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budget.'' New Society Publishers.</ref> Developed originally by [[Mathis Wackernagel]] and [[William E. Rees|William Rees]], it has been refined and applied in a variety of contexts over the years by [[Global Footprint Network]] (GFN). On the demand side, the ecological footprint measures how fast a population uses resources and generates wastes, with a focus on five main areas: carbon emissions (or [[carbon footprint]]); land devoted to direct settlement; timber and paper use; food and fiber use; and seafood consumption.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Global Footprint |url=https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/ecological-footprint/ |website=Global Footprint Network}}</ref> It converts these into per capita or total hectares used. On the supply side, national or global [[biocapacity]] represents the productivity of ecological assets in a particular nation or the world as a whole; this includes “cropland, grazing land, forest land, fishing grounds, and built-up land.”<ref name=":3" /> Again the various metrics to capture biocapacity are translated into the single term of hectares of available land. As Global Footprint Network (GFN) states:<blockquote>Each city, state or nation’s Ecological Footprint can be compared to its biocapacity, or that of the world. If a population’s Ecological Footprint exceeds the region’s biocapacity, that region runs a biocapacity deficit. Its demand for the goods and services that its land and seas can provide—fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, wood, cotton for clothing, and carbon dioxide absorption—exceeds what the region’s ecosystems can regenerate. In more popular communications, this is called “an ecological deficit.” A region in ecological deficit meets demand by importing, liquidating its own ecological assets (such as overfishing), and/or emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If a region’s biocapacity exceeds its Ecological Footprint, it has a biocapacity reserve.<ref name=":3" /></blockquote>According to the GFN's calculations, humanity has been using resources and generating wastes in excess of sustainability since approximately 1970: currently humanity use Earth's resources at approximately 170% of capacity.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Footprint Data Platform |url=https://data.footprintnetwork.org |website=Global Footprint Network}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |title=Living Planet Report 2020: Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004322714_cclc_2020-0074-0399 |access-date=2023-06-30 |website=Climate Change and Law Collection|doi=10.1163/9789004322714_cclc_2020-0074-0399 }}</ref> This implies that humanity is well over Earth's human carrying capacity for our current levels of affluence and technology use. According to Global Footprint Network:<blockquote>In 2024, [Earth Overshoot Day] fell on August 1. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year. For the rest of the year, we are maintaining our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We are operating in overshoot.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Earth Overshoot Day |url=https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/earth-overshoot-day/ |website=Global Footprint Network}}</ref></blockquote>The concept of ‘[[ecological overshoot]]’ can be seen as equivalent to exceeding human carrying capacity.<ref>Catton, W. R. (1982). ''Overshoot: The ecological basis of revolutionary change''. University of Illinois Press.</ref><ref name=":2" /> According to the most recent calculations from Global Footprint Network, most of the world's residents live in countries in ecological overshoot (see the map on the right).  
[[File:Ecological_footprint.png|thumb|[https://data.footprintnetwork.org/?_ga=2.21888827.1692355221.1664332869-1465536352.1663440999#/ Nations living within their ecological means (shaded green) or in ecological overshoot] (shaded red) in 2022.]]This includes countries with dense populations (such as China, India, and the Philippines), countries with high per capita consumption and resource use (France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia), and countries with both high per capita consumption and large numbers of people (Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States).<ref name=":3" />