This year’s Earth Overshoot Day arrived on July 28th. It’s the day our resource
consumption for the year has exceeded the earth’s capacity to regenerate enough to supply our demand. It is arriving earlier every year. The message is clear. We use more resources than nature can regenerate through overfishing, over harvesting forests, and emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than forests can absorb.

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Earth Overshoot Day date for each year is less significant than the sheer magnitude of the ecological overshoot, as well as the overall trend of the date progression year over year—which is rigorously identical to that of the Ecological Over the last decades, the date has been creeping up the calendar every year, although at a slowing rate.

The dates of past Earth Overshoot Days, as calculated with the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts 2022 Edition, are:

In 2021, it was July 30.

In 2020, it was August 22 and this calculation reflects the initial drop in resource use in the first half of the year due to pandemic-induced lockdowns. All other years assume a constant rate of resource use throughout the year.

In 2019, it was July 29.

In 2018, it was July 28.

In 2017, it was August 1.

In 2016, it was August 6.

In 2015, it was August 5.

In 2014, it was August 4.

In 2013, it was August 3.

In 2012, it was August 4.

In 2002, it was September 21.

In 1992, it was October 15.

In 1982, it was November 19.

In 1972, it was December 14.