Awareness Day

In 2018, Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 1. The earliest ever. This reminds us of the urgency of the climate crisis and pressure on natural ecosystems: despite the indisputable progress made over the last years, Overshoot Day is still moving forward.

Aug. 1, marked this year’s Earth Overshoot Day, the day of the year by which humanity has exhausted its annual resource budget. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1, humanity used more from nature than the planet’s ecosystems are able to renew in the entire year.

This coming Wednesday (August 1), humanity will hit Earth Overshoot Day – the day when we have used more resources than Planet Earth can regenerate. Every day from now until the end of the year, we are spending past our limit. Thankfully, the planet has a buffer (a natural bank account, if you will) to pay those bills. But we are carrying a balance, and that balance is getting bigger and bigger.

Humanity is currently using nature 1.7 times faster than our planet’s ecosystems can regenerate. On August 1, humanity will have used nature’s resource budget for the entire year, according to Global Footprint Network, an international research organization that has pioneered the Ecological Footprint resource accounting metric. Since the world went into ecological overshoot in the 1970s, D-day of August 1 this year will be the earliest.

Known for taking the fun out of picnics, trips to the beach and other outdoor activities, mosquitoes especially earn their annoying reputation during warm summer months. Marking the start of National Mosquito Control Awareness Week, the mosquito experts from the SC Johnson Institute of Insect Science for Family Health are offering three useful tips to help protect you and your family from mosquito bites.

eBay for Charity, a platform that easily connects buyers and sellers with the causes they care about, announced its partnership with GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy group, to launch a campaign in celebration of Pride Month this June.

Single-use plastics (including straws, cutlery and containers) are contributing to the overall threat our oceans are facing. Every year, more than 8 million tons of plastic enter the seas. And no, this is not plastic that fell off a boat. It came from the land via river systems. It was carelessly littered, improperly disposed of, or escaped from our global waste management systems.

World Environment Day: An annual time to bring awareness to and spur action for the protection of our ecosystem. “Beat Plastic Pollution” is the theme for 2018 and all companies should be looking at how they can reduce plastic pollution.

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