It may seem like any other Wednesday, but it's not. August 2 2017 marks 'Earth Overshoot Day', when humans' annual demand on natural resources exceeds what our planet can reproduce in one year.
This year's Earth Overshoot Day is the earliest yet, coming one day ahead of the 2016 date.
According to international research organization the Global Footprint Network, it takes 1.7 earths to meet our demand on nature and its resources. Food alone represents 26 percent of humanity's ecological footprint.
The consequences of "global ecological overspending" included drought, fresh water scarcity, and the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it added.
"Our planet is finite, but human possibilities are not," Mathis Wackernagel, CEO of the Global Footprint Network, said in a statement ahead of today's inauspicious landmark.
"Living within the means of one planet is technologically possible, financially beneficial, and our only chance for a prosperous future," Wackernagel added.
