Overshoot Day:from today Italy consumes natural resources that it would not have available

Starting today, if all humanity consumed like Italians, we would have run out of natural resources produced by the Earth for the whole of 2024, and we would be using those planned for 2025.May 19th is in fact theOvershoot Day Italian, that is, that day in which, by comparing global biocapacity with the ecological footprint of our country, we would virtually run out of all available resources for the current year.The inauguration day of ecological deficit is slightly late compared to last year, in which theOvershoot Day Italian had fallen on May 15th, and it is anyway better than that of the European Union, given that the day of overexploitation has already fallen on May 3rd.In any case, according to the international organization Global Footprint Network, if everyone consumed like Italy, more than 2.5 planets would be needed to meet our annual consumption.

THE'Overshoot Day it is a date that changes every year established by Global Footprint Network, an organization that deals with environmental accounting calculating the footprint of mankind on Earth, as well as that of individual states.Earth Surpass Day is calculated by relating the consumption of the planet's inhabitants to the regeneration capacity of resources and the ability of ecosystems to absorb emissions.Specifically, it is identified by relating the set of resources that the Earth produces in a year (called “biocapacity”) with the biologically productive area necessary to regenerate the resources consumed by a human population and absorb waste (the so-called “ecological footprint”).The result of this ratio is therefore multiplied by the days of the year, providing the index of that same human population.The closer the number obtained is to 1 (in some cases it can even exceed it), the less impactful the consumption of the reference population is.

THE'Overshoot Day Earth is announced every year on World Environment Day, 5 June.The Exceedance Days for individual countries are published on January 1st of each year, and are based on consumption and production data from the previous year.This means that beyond the formal complications due for example to data collection and bias, the established days result estimates also in substantial terms, as the data for the year concerned are not available for obvious reasons.The day obtained still provides an important indicator for establishing how much the individual communities and populations of the world have an impact on the overexploitation of terrestrial resources.About that Global Footprint Network also provides a more in-depth analysis for each country, comparing their ecological footprints not only with global biocapacity, but also with local biocapacity:in short, from the graphs made available by the organisation, it is possible to also relate the production capacity of the territories of a particular country to the consumption of its inhabitants.Specifically, theItaly consumes over 4 times what its territories produce, which translated means that to satisfy the needs of Italians the natural resources of "4 Italies" would be needed.

The data relating to Italy are in line with the environmental policy that the Meloni executive is carrying out within the European institutions.To reverse the trend that emerges from the data and analyses Global Footprint Network, in fact, a substantial rethinking of the production model would be needed, and Italy often has rowed against those community initiatives that tried in some way, even if in the opinion of many in a negative way, to do so.Important, as evidenced by the letter recently drafted by 11 countries of the Union, the law on nature restoration would also result, which would increase the countries' disposal capacities, and against which Rome it has been moving since its conception.

[by Dario Lucisano]