Insights Static Quiz -25, 2018

Solution: c)

Earth Day

Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22. Worldwide, various events are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, Earth Day events in more than 193 countries^[1] are now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network.^[2]

On Earth Day 2016, the landmark Paris Agreement was signed by the United States, China, and some 120 other countries. This signing satisfied a key requirement for the entry into force of the historic draft climate protection treaty adopted by consensus of the 195 nations present at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.

Earth Hour

Earth Hour is a worldwide movement organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The event is held annually encouraging individuals, communities, and businesses to turn off non-essential electric lights for one hour, from 8:30 to 9:30 pm on a specific day towards the end of March, as a symbol of commitment to the planet.^[1] It was started as a lights-off event in Sydney, Australia, in 2007. Since then, it has grown to engage more than 7,000 cities and towns across 187 countries and territories.^[2]

Occasionally, in years when Holy Saturday falls on the last Saturday of March, Earth Hour is moving a week early rather than its traditional date.

Earth Hour 2018 will be on March 24, from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

Solution: c)

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961, working in the field of the wilderness preservation, and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States. The Living Planet Report is published every two years by WWF since 1998; it is based on a Living Planet Index and ecological footprint calculation.

Solution: b)

Global Footprint Network, founded in 2003, is an independent think tank originally based in the United States, Belgium and Switzerland. It was established as a charitable not-for-profit organization in each of those three countries. Global Footprint Network develops and promotes tools for advancing sustainability, including the ecological footprint and biocapacity, which measure the amount of resources we use and how much we have. These tools aim at bringing ecological limits to the center of decision-making.

Global Footprint Network’s goal is to create a future where all humans can live well, within the means of one planet Earth. The organization is headquartered in Oakland, California. The Network brings together over 70 partner organizations,[1] including WWF International, ICLEI, Bank Sarasin, The Pictet Group, the New Economics Foundation, Pronatura México, and the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi.

Solution: d)

Earth Overshoot Day (EOD), previously known as Ecological Debt Day (EDD), is the calculated illustrative calendar date on which humanity’s resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year. Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by dividing the world biocapacity (the amount of natural resources generated by Earth that year), by the world ecological footprint (humanity’s consumption of Earth’s natural resources for that year), and multiplying by 365, the number of days in one Gregorian common calendar year:

When viewed through an economic perspective, EOD represents the day in which humanity enters an ecological deficit spending. In ecology the term Earth Overshoot Day illustrates the level by which human population overshoots its environment.

Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by Global Footprint Network and is a campaign supported by dozens of other nonprofit organizations.^{[1][not in citation given]} Information about Global Footprint Network’s calculations and national Ecological Footprints are available online

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day

Solution: a)

The biocapacity or biological capacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.^[1][2] “Useful biological materials” are defined as those demanded by the human economy.

Biocapacity is expressed in terms of global hectares per person, thus is dependent on human population. A global hectare is an adjusted unit that represents the average biological productivity of all productive hectares on Earth in a given year (because not all hectares produce the same amount of ecosystem services). Biocapcity is calculated from United Nations population and land use data, and may be reported at various regional levels, such as a city, a country, or the world as a whole.

For example, there were 12 billion hectares of biologically productive land and water on this planet in 2008. Dividing by the number of people alive in that year, 6.7 billion, gives a biocapacity of 1.8 global hectares per person . This assumes that no land is set aside for other species that consume the same biological material as humans.^[3]

Biocapacity is used together with Ecological Footprint as a method of measuring Human impact on the environment. Biocapacity and Ecological Footprint are tools created by the Global Footprint Network, used in sustainability studies around the world.