And the bad news is that the annual interest rate on the credit we’ve all taken out is appalling. Today, 29 July 2019, is Earth Overshoot Day – in other words, humans have used up their annual budget of water, soil, clean air and other resources on Earth for the whole of 2019.
The date marking when humanity consumes more than the Earth can produce has been calculated since the 70s when it fell in December. It shifted back to October by 1997, to September just after the millennium and we’ve been going backwards ever since.
A bit of positive news is that environmentally-aware consumers are making sure that big business now views sustainability as an important part of its remit. You might feel in the wake of the hottest days on record and reports of wildfires in Alsaka, that trying to change the industrial mindset is like trying to herd cats. But at least CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is increasingly being replaced by firmer ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) standards which consumers can use to screen companies.
In the IT industry we operate within, dwindling earth metals continue to be the crucial ingredient, with tons of them ending up irresponsibly dumped at the end of their use. However, the circular economy model of endless use rather than use now, waste later, is gaining purchase, and we are working hard to provide low-resource computing options for organizations worldwide.
We can all do our bit to help #MoveTheDate.
