Today (I’m writing on August 8) has been named Earth Overshoot Day 2016.

Earth Overshoot Day marks the point where we have pulled more resources, like fish, fuel and water, out of the planet than can be replenished. It’s also the point where we have put more pollution into the air and water than Earth can successfully deal with. Humans have been doing that for a long time, but ever since 1971, Overshoot Day has crept disconcertingly earlier and earlier. This year, Overshoot Day is a full 5 days earlier than last year. That’s the earliest it has ever been.

This is another way of attempting to communicate the ecological footprint concept. It would take 1.5 Earths to produce the amount of ecosystem services we deplete in one year, so that means we have depleted them two thirds of the way through the year, or month 8 of 12. The footprint is growing every year, which doesn’t just mean things are getting worse, it means they are getting worse at a faster rate. We don’t know how much worse they can get before our civilization enters decline, or whether the decline would be a sudden catastrophic one or a long slow one (which could have already begun without our realizing it.) But we know logically that there is such a point of no return. Reducing our footprint would be good, but it would just mean things were getting worse at a slower rate. To actually reverse our path toward the tipping point, we would have to reduce our footprint all the way to 1 Earth or push Earth Overshoot Day all the way back to December 31.