What Is the Ecological Footprint?

◎Micky

什么是生態足跡？你的生態足跡是多少呢？閱讀文章后你可以進入https://www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en 進行測試。

Humans need food, shelter and heating (in some locations)to survive.Our planet’s ecological resources help fulfill these needs.But how many resources do we1)consume?This question can be answered using the Ecological Footprint.

Just as a bank statement tracks income against2)expenditures, Ecological Footprint accounting measures a population’s demand for natural ecosystems’ supply of resources and services.

On the demand side, the Ecological Footprint measures an individual or a population’s demand for plant-based food and3)fiber products, livestock and fish products, timber and other forest products, space for urban infrastructure, and forest to absorb its carbon dioxide emissions from4)fossil fuels.

On the supply side, a city,or nation’s biocapacity represents its biologically productive land and sea area, including forest lands, grazing lands, cropland, fishing grounds, and builtup land.

The Ecological Footprint can be calculated for a single individual, city, country and the entire planet.

The gap between the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity is determined by several factors.Personal Ecological Footprint is the product of how much we use and how efficiently this is being produced.The biocapacity per person is determined by how many hectares of productive area there is, how productive each hectare is, and how many people (in a city, country, or the world) share this biocapacity.

Many countries are “in the red”, which means they use more natural resources (Ecological Footprint) than their ecosystems can regenerate (biocapacity).When a country’s biocapacity is greater than its population’s Ecological Footprint, on the other hand, the country boasts an “ecological reserve”.

Nations (also cities) can run ecological deficits by liquidating their own resources, such as by overfishing; and emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than their own ecosystems can absorb.

What is Earth Overshoot Day?

When the entire planet is running an ecological deficit, we call it “overshoot”.At the global level, ecological deficits and overshoot are the same, since there is no net import of resources to the planet.

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services (Ecological Footprint)in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year (biocapacity).

Overshoot occurs when:

HUMANITY’S ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT > EARTH’S BIOCAPACITY

1) consumev.消耗

2) expendituren.經費；支出額

3) fibern.纖維

4) fossiln.化石

人類需要食物、住所和供暖（在某些地方）才能生存。我們地球上的生態資源有助于滿足這些需求。但是我們消耗了多少資源？這個問題可以使用“生態足跡”來回答。

正如銀行對賬單可以計算收入與支出一樣，生態足跡衡量的是人口對自然生態系統提供的資源和服務供應的需求。

在需求方面，生態足跡衡量個人或人口對植物性食品和纖維產品、牲畜和魚類產品、木材和其他林產品、城市基礎設施空間以及森林吸收化石燃料產生的二氧化碳排放的需求。

在供應方面，一個城市或國家的生物承載力代表其具有生物生產力的土地和海洋面積，包括林地、牧場、農田、漁場和建成地。生態足跡可以針對個人、城市、國家和整個地球進行計算。

生態足跡和生物承載力之間的差距由幾個因素決定。個人生態足跡是指個人的使用量和其生產效率的乘積。人均生物承載力取決于有多少公頃的生產面積、每公頃的生產力以及有多少人（在一個城市、國家或世界上）共享這種生物承載力。

許多國家處于“赤字狀態”，這意味著它們使用的自然資源（生態足跡）超過了其生態系統可以再生（生物承載力）的程度。另一方面，當一個國家的生物承載力大于其人口的生態足跡時，該國就擁有“生態盈余”。

國家（城市也一樣）“變賣”自己的資源可能會產生生態赤字，例如過度捕撈，向大氣中排放超過其自身生態系統吸收能力的二氧化碳。

什么是地球生態超載日？

當整個地球都出現生態赤字時，我們稱為“超載”。在全球范圍內，生態赤字和超載是相同的，因為地球上沒有凈進口資源。

地球生態超載日是指人類一年對生態資源和服務的需求（生態足跡）超過地球在該年可以再生的（生物承載力）程度的那一日。

在以下情況下會發生超載：

人類的生態足跡＞地球的生物承載力