Earth has reached 'Overshoot Day' by the earliest date ever

The planet has reached Earth Overshoot Day for this year on July 28th, 2022.

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Earth Overshoot Day marks the date on which humanity has consumed the number of resources since the start of the calendar year that the Earth is capable of sustainably regenerating in an entire year. Passing this milestone about a month past the halfway mark of the year indicates that it would take 1.75 Earths to produce the resources required by the world's population sustainably.

"From January 1st to July 28th, humanity has used as much from nature as the planet can renew in the entire year. That's why July 28th is Earth Overshoot Day. The Earth has a lot of stock, so we can deplete Earth for some time but we cannot overuse it for ever. It's like with money; we can spend more than we earn for some time until we're broke," said Mathis Wackernagel, president of the Global Footprint Network.

The first year an Earth Overshoot Day was recorded for is 1971, with the date falling on December 25th, 1971. The date has steadily crept earlier into the year, with July 28th becoming the first date earlier than August for Overshoot Day in 2018. It came a day later in 2019 and much later in 2020, near the end of August, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, by 2021, the trend had almost restabilized, with July 30th marking Overshoot Day, and this year with July 28th marking the day once more in a tie for the earliest Overshoot Day yet.

You can read more about how the date was calculated here.