Earth Overshoot Day will arrive one day earlier this year on August 2 , according to environmental groups WWF and Global Footprint Network (GFN). 

It means humanity will be living on "credit" for the rest of this year because the allowance of planetary resources such as water, soil, and clean air for all of 2017 will be used up by next week.

"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."

Hosted and calculated by GFN, Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. To determine the date for each year, GFN calculates the number of days of that year that Earth’s biocapacity (the amount of ecological resources Earth is able to generate that year) suffices to provide for humanity. As a remainder of consumption's overshoot, Earth Overshoot Day is computed by dividing the planet’s biocapacity, by humanity's consumption of Earth’s natural resources for that year, and multiplying by 365.

The equivalent of 1.7 planets would be required to produce enough to meet humanity's needs at current consumption rates.

Calculated since 1986, the grim milestone has arrived earlier each year. In 1993, it fell on October 21, in 2003 on September 22, and in 2015 on August 13. 

Greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, oil and gas make up 60 percent of mankind's ecological "footprint" on the planet, said the groups.

There was some good news.  While coming earlier every year, the advance of Earth Overshoot Day has slowed down, said the statement. Individuals can contribute to stopping, and eventually reversing, the trend by eating less meat, burning less fuel, and cut back on food waste, said the report.

(With input of AFP)