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The new familiar Ecological Footprint model supports this conclusion. It's a way of asking how much we're extracting from the planet to live the way we do. Conventional economics tends to see the environment as a subset of the economy. The footprint approach does the reverse, comparing humanity's ecological impact—resources consumed and waste produced—with the amount of productive land and water available to supply key ecosystem services. It deals in averages so the rich/poor divide is blurred. But the message is clear. It takes about 1.8 hectares to sustain the average person on Earth. Those of us in the rich world are way above the average: Canadians each use about eight hectares, and Americans use 10, more than five times the average.
新的为人们所熟悉的“生态足迹”模型证实了这个结论。它让我们问自己（弄清楚)，保持现有的生活方式，我们到底在从地球上榨取多少资源。传统的经济学倾向于把环境看成是经济的一小部分。而“生态足迹”方法正好相反，它将人类对生态的影响——所消耗的资源和产生的废弃物——与现有的能提供关键生态系统服务的生产性土地和水的数量进行对比。它关注的是人均水平，因此贫富人群对资源需求量的差别就比较模糊，但是它所传递的信息很清楚。要维持地球上一个普通人的生命大概需要1.8公顷的土地。那些生活在富裕国家里的人，则大大超过平均水平：每个加拿大人大概需要8公顷，每个美国人则需要10公顷， 超过平均水平的5倍以上。
In 1961, human beings used about half of Earth's biocapacity; by 2006 we were using 44% more than is available. Mathis Wackernagel, one of the founders of the ecological footprint system, says we will need the equivalent of two Earths by the late 2030s to keep up with our demands. Ecologists call this phenomenon "overshoot." It's a temporary state that becomes increasingly untenable as stocks of resources are depleted.
1961年，人类已经消耗了地球大约一半的生态承载力；到2006年,我们消耗掉的生态承载力已超出地球总生态承载力的44%。“生态足迹”体系的创建者之一马西斯•瓦克纳格尔指出，到21世纪30年代后期，我们将需要相当于两个地球的生态承载力才能满足我们的需求。生态学家们把这种现象称之为“透支”。这是一种暂时的状况，然而，随着所存资源的不断减少，这种状况将日益变得难以为继。
