Earth Overshoot Day 2022- Take action, Germany!

Image Source: wownature.eu

Earth Overshoot Day comes a little earlier every year: On July 28, 2022, humanity will have used up all the resources the Earth can provide within a year worldwide. The consequences are devastating and well known: shrinking forests, overfished seas, loss of biodiversity, degradation of soils, overburdening the Earth and its atmosphere with waste and greenhouse emissions, etc. The fires, droughts, storms and floods are a result of global warming: greenhouse gases are being released into the air faster than they can be absorbed by forests and oceans.
If we halved global C02 emissions, Earth Overshoot Day would be pushed back 93 days (Global Footprint Network).

Globally, the mining and processing of iron ore into steel and of bauxite into aluminum are responsible for at least 11% of C02 emissions (source: Powershift). Germany is the world’s fifth largest metal consumer. If every country would consume as many resources as Germany, we would not need 1.75 Earths as now, but 5 Earths! This would certainly set the stamp on “the irreversibility of the change of ecological systems in their regeneration” (Prof. Dr. Göpel, BPK 2019).

Therefore, development organizations such as Powershift and Inkota call upon the government to finally initiate a resources transition! In the planned resources strategy, the reduction of raw materials to a reasonable level must be established. At the same time, the enormous potential for saving metals through better recycling of wind turbines, for example, must be exploited.

Powershift expert Michael Reckordt: What is needed is a “real resources transition” with specific goals for reducing the consumption of metal raw materials.