On October 9 this year we all went into debt...

According to their recent study, humans have taken just over nine months to exhaust the resources that can be naturally replenished in one year.

Effectively that means that we are all dipping into the Earth's capital during October, November and December.

If this situation is likened to economics, the human race is living beyond its means and if it continues, there is only one way that we can go and that is towards bankruptcy.

According to the GFN this is not a new phenomenon, but has got steadily worse since the first time that the human race entered a deficit of this nature.

In order to arrive at this conclusion, the GFN has calculated the amount of resources available, the replenishment rate, the carrying capacity for various pollutants and demand for resources.

The resources that have been included are built land, crop land, carbon dioxide absorption, nuclear, wood fuel, timber, fisheries and pasture. In addition to the global picture, GFN has also calculated data for 150 countries around the world.

This is slightly more complicated because imports and exports have to be taken into account.

Data has been gathered since 1961, although the overdraft situation we now find ourselves in o