Beyond Overshoot - Rethinking Health and Wellbeing in an Unbalanced World
By Manushi Sharma & Lydia Samuels, September 26, 2025
Earth Overshoot Day marks when humanity’s resource use outpaces what our planet can regenerate—pushing ecosystems and human health past their limits. These crises show that protecting the Earth is inseparable from protecting ourselves, and that climate action is a public health imperative.
July 24, 2025, was this year’s Earth Overshoot Day. Simply put, Overshoot Day is the point in time when:
Humanity’s consumption > Earth’s ability to regenerate those resources within the year.
In relative terms, in 1972, humanity would have needed 1.01 Earths to support the world’s consumption habits, but by 2024, that number increased to 1.7 Earths needed to provide enough resources to match our consumption. As per the World Health Organization, this overconsumption has direct and indirect impacts on human health worldwide, including rates of mortality, nutrition, heat stress, and infectious diseases.
My Cup Runneth….Dry
It took over four billion years for the Earth to evolve and develop the intricate ecosystems of today that sustain life. Forests, oceans, mountains, soil, pollinators, and the overarching climate patterns that shape these parts of nature are all components in a delicate balance that keeps our planet in the “safe operating zone” for humanity. In just a few decades, we’ve managed to throw that balance off-kilter drastically. As we push the planet beyond its limits, we’re seeing the consequences spill into our lives in major ways: increased heatwaves, flash floods, forest fires, food insecurity, and the displacement of climate refugees.
A Recent Example: The Texas Floods of July 2025
For instance, take the Texas flash floods as an example of what disrupting the global climate balance can do. To say that “it rained a lot” is a dangerously shallow view. The flash floods were a result of multiple strains on regional ecosystems. Humanity’s (over) consumption of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution has churned out greenhouse gas emissions at alarming rates, trapping more and more heat in the atmosphere. For every degree Celsius that Earth’s atmospheric temperature rises, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere can increase by about seven percent. Warmer air means denser clouds, which produce more intense rainfalls. In Texas, this is a double threat. Not only do droughts become longer and more severe, but the soil also loses its ability to absorb water. So when it rains, it floods. What used to be a steady rhythm of give-and-take in the water cycle has turned into a violent swing between extremes. This imbalance manifests globally. In 2023, disasters such as Cyclone Freddy, earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, and Cyclone Mocha resulted in 26.4 million internal displacements—amounting to 56 percent of all new internal displacements recorded that year.
It's a balancing act - you take some, you give some. Everything depends on a healthy ecosystem, including humans alongside all organisms, which thrive when there is balance and reciprocity. But this equation is skewed, sometimes beyond survival for some species. Emitting greenhouse gases that trap heat and destabilize weather, cutting forests that absorb carbon and store moisture, and paving over wetlands and grasslands that soften floodwaters.
Health Horizon: Nature’s Limits Are Our Limits
The Lancet Commission on Planetary Health calls this the “health horizon” of environmental limits: once we cross certain thresholds, it’s not just ecosystems that collapse, and with them the health systems, food systems, and safety nets humanity depends on.
Source: Lancet Planetary Health
We cannot treat the planet and the patient as separate. The health of the Earth and of humanity are bound together. The same forests that filter our air also slow down storms. The same rivers that irrigate crops also quench our thirst. When one system falters, the other feels it. Think of a heatwave: it’s not just “hot weather;” it means more ER visits for heatstroke and heart strain, missed school days, and increased electricity bills. Or a flood: it’s not just water in the streets, but outbreaks of waterborne disease, closed clinics, mental health trauma, and families uprooted.
More important to remember that Earth Overshoot Day isn’t a doomsday clock; it’s more like a check-up that tells us we’re straining the very systems that keep us well. It also leaves us with a pressing question: how do you protect people’s health in a world where the climate is changing faster than our systems can adapt?
CLIMATE AND HEALTH SERIES
This piece is part of our ongoing #OurClimateOurHealth Series, which explores how the climate and environment shape our health outcomes and healthcare systems. We highlight both the risks and the solutions, showing that climate action is also a public health imperative. Our goal is to inform, inspire, and equip readers, practitioners, and policymakers to safeguard health in the face of environmental change.
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