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Living on credit: humans blow 2017 budget for Earth’s natural resources a day sooner than last year

Earth Overshoot Day will arrive on August 2 this year, according to environmental groups WWF and Global Footprint Network

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The fist-sized tree-dwelling tarsier, considered as the world's smallest primate, are in danger of extinction due to increasing deforestation in the Philippines. Photo: EPA

Humanity will have used up its allowance of planetary resources such as water, soil, and clean air for all of 2017 by Wednesday, a report said.

Earth Overshoot Day will arrive on August 2 this year, according to environmental groups WWF and Global Footprint Network. This is a day earlier than in 2016.

It means humanity will be living on “credit” for the rest of the year.

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Smoke billows from chimneys at a chemical factory in China. Photo: Reuters
Smoke billows from chimneys at a chemical factory in China. Photo: Reuters
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“By August 2, 2017, we will have used more from nature than our planet can renew in the whole year,” the groups said in a statement.

“This means that in seven months, we emitted more carbon than the oceans and forests 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.”

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