The Global Footprint Network today revealed October 6 is Ecological Debt day – the day when humanity has consumed all the resources the planet will produce this year. Data from Global Footprint Network and UK-based partner nef (the new economics foundation) shows that starting in the mid 1980s humanity’s Ecological Footprint has been bigger than what the planet can supply, and we have been adding more to our ecological debt each year. By 1996, humanity was using 15 percent more resources in a year than the planet could supply, with Ecological Debt Day falling in November. Today, with Ecological Dept day falling on October 6th, our overshoot is 30 percent.

“Humanity is living off its ecological credit card,” said Dr. Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director of Global Footprint Network, “Just as spending more money than you have in the bank leads to financial debt, ecological overshoot, or using more resources than the planet can renew in a year, accumulates an ecological debt. This can go on for a short time, but ultimately it leads to a build up of waste and the depletion of the very resources on which the human economy depends.”

One of the most significant consequences of our global overshoot is climate change, but collapsing fisheries, deforestation, and topsoil loss around the world are also indicative of our mounting ecological debt.

Each year, Global Footprint Network, an international organization whose mission is to end overshoot, calculates humanity’s Ecological Footprint—the global demand on cropland, pasture, forests and fisheries—and compares it with the ability of these ecosystems to generate resources and absorb our wastes. Globally, we consume as if we had 1.3 planets to support us.

In addition to acting as planetary accountants, Global Footprint Network and its international partner network are focused on solving the problem of overshoot. To balance our ecological budget, we must strengthen nature’s resource supply with sound management of the world’s ecosystems, and address the three factors that determine humanity’s demand on nature—per capita consumption, efficiency of production, and the size of the population.

Citizens can take action to get out of ecological debt in their own lives: eating less meat, driving and flying less, and using less energy in the home are the most effective ways to reduce your personal Footprint. Citizens can encourage government and business leaders to build cities and organizations that help to end overshoot with smart infrastructure planning and best-practice green technology. Individuals can also contribute by helping to restore and protect ecosystems, and supporting organizations that help curb population growth by empowering women around the world with education and access to family planning.

With international commitment to end overshoot, Ecological Debt Day can become history instead of news.