One of the three podcasts I host is called The Overpopulation Podcast, a project of World Population Balance. One episode this year featured a conversation with author Laura Carroll about making the choice to be childfree. One listener emailed this comment:

“Dear Dave, It’s not population as population is leveling off. It’s consumption, consumption, consumption.”

I’m writing about this today because this is a fairly common occurrence. That’s one of the reasons I’m hosting a free webinar this week:

Solving Overshoot: End Overpopulation or Stop Overconsumption?

I suspect most people think they know the answer to that question. I think I do. So I doubt many will attend hoping to actually find out the answer. I think most who attend will be there to make sure someone doesn’t offer the WRONG answer. Interestingly, there are differing opinions on what the correct answer is. . . .

Ten years ago I described for a freelance journalist my fledgling documentary project, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth. Her advice? "Just don't get into population. That's deadly." Recent events, however, indicate that it's becoming "okay" to address the subject.

I am not alone. That’s the message I got from the results of our recent Green Living Survey. I didn’t expect to have so much company on a number of fronts. Let’s go through the highlights:

1. How are we currently leaving the Earth each year?

A whopping 92% of respondents understand that we’re currently injuring Earth’s ecosystems, each year leaving the planet a little less capable of supporting our massive global population and economy.

3% feel we leave the planet in better shape each year. I imagine they are CEOs of asphalt or concrete companies.

2. Which is causing the most injury to ecosystems?

There was no right or wrong answer to this question. It will be debated till we’ve run human civilization off a cliff. An impressive 72% chose BOTH overpopulation and over-consumption, avoiding the debate. . . .

Over 7 billion of us are alive on this planet today.

Twice as many as in 1969.

Our $80 trillion global economy has doubled since 2003.

Are we doing what it takes so our children can live good lives?

Take this quiz and let’s see how we’re doing!

(Survey ends midnight 5 October 2016)

For the rest of the year, humanity will be trashing the planet. That’s right, today is Earth Overshoot Day. Scientists at Global Footprint Network calculate that as of today, we’ve burned through the natural resources it would take a year for the Earth to replenish. For the next 4 months and 22 days, we’ll be chipping away at the long-term resilience of our life-supporting ecosystems.