No Exit: Ecological limits and Climate Change

October 6, 2007, marked the year’s Ecological Debt Day. Ecological Debt Day marks the point in the year where we have consumed over our annual sustainable ‘allowance’ of resources for that year. Similar to that of a bank account, if you spend / consume too much it will lead to debt. Unlike a bank account though, the environment has no single person who can be held responsible or forced manage the debt. Ecological Debt Day is to become an annual mark based on the same criteria for explaining, measuring and advertising our increasing consumption of endogenous resources.

This measure of ecological debt unlike our actual ecological debt is reset each year. This is because we accept it is very unlikely we will ever be able to repair the damage or renew the wasted recourses from the past. By marking the day in which we have over consumed the policy aims to attract people to assess and revise their consumption. We are currently consuming in our ‘over draught’ for approximately the last ¼ of the year (3 months). This means a large intervention must occur in order to change or debt pattern.

Imagine the difficulty of driving ¼ less, using your heating ¼ less or traveling ¼ less. It would be a sacrifice, but this appears to be the obvious solution to our crisis. Although our contribution is valid, the problem is globally. Should a whole nation such as the UK achieve this target we would still be globally consuming and emitting an increasing amount each year. As the GEO4 explains, “with an ever increasing population the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available.”

Developing countries such as China and India, with populations over 1 billion are some of the worlds most polluting regions. This is not only a result of their high population but, a result of their development rate and industrialisation process. Therefore we are seemingly forced with a compromise; restrict financial and social development by decreasing industrial growth rates or sacrifice our resources and environment for a better global economy. The solution though must be finding ways to live sustainably now before all endogenous resources such as oil run out and we are faced with social, political and economical disasters.