How do we know at what level our consumption is sustainable, and when we\u2019re in planetary overshoot? How do we quantify what the planet\u2019s capacity is to meet human demands, and how much of that capacity is renewable, and how much of it is just being permanently depleted? And once we had a way to quantify that, what would we do with that information? Would we use it to inform our actions and avert overpopulation and disaster? Would we ignore it at our peril? Or would reality just unfold in some messy fashion along a default path somewhere in between? Is a deliberate transition to a sustainable energy system even possible?<\/p>\n
Our guest in this episode created a scientific methodology called \u201cecological footprint analysis,\u201d a kind of ecological accounting, to inform policymakers about our resource demands on the world as compared with Earth\u2019s ability to meet those demands. Earth Overshoot Day, which the Global Footprint Network calculates every year, arrived on August 2, meaning \u201cthat in seven months, we emitted more carbon than the oceans and forest can absorb in a year, we caught more fish, felled more trees, harvested more, and consumed more water than the Earth was able to produce in the same period.\u201d After listening to this discussion, you\u2019ll never quite think of energy transition the same way again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When humanity\u2019s demands exceed Earth\u2019s ability to satisfy them, is energy transition even possible? Father of ecological footprint analysis Bill Rees explains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[266,334,329,327,330,328,335,332,326,331,333,167,336],"class_list":["post-1302","xen_episodes","type-xen_episodes","status-publish","hentry","category-energy-transition-show-podcasts","tag-collapse","tag-degrowth","tag-eco-footprint","tag-ecological-economics","tag-ecological-footprint-analysis","tag-footprint","tag-olduvai","tag-overconsumption","tag-overshoot","tag-population","tag-renewable-energy","tag-resources","tag-steady-state-economics","xen_guests-william-rees"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n