Encroachment

ENCROACHMENT



The human population is now over 8 billion. Scientists estimate that if everyone on Earth could achieve a European standard of living, the planet could only sustain around 2 billion. The 6 billion difference is called overshoot. When populations overshoot the carrying capacity of their environment, they degrade its ability to sustain life, eventually depleting resources or creating so much toxic waste that the population crashes.

The ramifications of human overshoot affect not only humans, but all life: climate change, habitat loss, ocean acidification, and species extinctions are all happening at an alarming pace.



The direct human consequences are also horrific, with climate refugees, wars, famine, water shortages, and extreme poverty all exacerbated by overpopulation.



These abstract images depict human encroachment into formerly natural lands and waters (represented in the images by the green and blue areas) fragmenting them and compromising their integrity. Agriculture, housing, extraction industries, businesses, and our waste products all have an ever-expanding footprint.



Each of these images is titled with the estimated human population at the time the images were created. The images shown here are the master image titled: 8,091,826,881 which is displayed in 9 large panels as shown in the gallery mock-up, the full image, and and 6 of the individual pan