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A wind turbine stands in front of the Neurath lignite power station in North Rhine-Westphalia
Photo: Rupert Oberhäuser / imago images
The early date in the current year on May 5 is an »alarm signal and indictment of poverty« for the unsuccessful environmental and nature conservation policy of the past few years, says Olaf Bandt, Chairman of the Board of the Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND).
The Earth Congestion Day date is calculated annually by the Global Footprint Network, a think tank based in the USA and Switzerland.
It is given for individual countries as well as for the entire planet.
From the calculated reference date, the population of a country - or humanity as a whole - has consumed all natural resources that can be generated in the course of a year.
According to BUND, the fact that Germany has already used up its natural resources so early in the year is due, among other things, to the high energy consumption, high CO2 emissions in traffic and factory farming as well as the pollution of soil, air and groundwater.
"If everyone around the world were to live as wastefully as we do, mankind would need three earths to cover their consumption of resources," says Bandt.
For some time now, water has also been one of the resources that are becoming an increasing problem in Germany.
Due to lower rainfall and lower groundwater levels, drinking water could become increasingly scarce in some regions.
On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the groundwater has to be extracted more and more, but also to the infrastructure, such as outdated water pipes, which have to be adapted.
Global earth overload day only in summer
From now on, Germany is living on credit and wasting the livelihoods of all countries and future generations.
In their criticism, the environmentalists also referred to the recent ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, which called for improvements to the German Climate Protection Act.
For the earth overload day of the entire planet, the non-governmental organization calculated a date in midsummer, according to the BUND.
The exact date will be announced on June 5th.
Last year, the global earth overload day, August 22nd, was a little later than in previous years, as nature and the environment were spared a little by the consequences of the coronavirus.
joe / dpa