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With last week [3]’s news that Earth’s resources have slipped into an “ecological deficit” for the rest of 2014, many countries around the world have come under scrutiny for taking more from nature then their own ecosystems can supply.

What exactly is this ecological debt? Essentially, it means we have used up all the planet’s natural resources available for an entire year-think deforestation, soil erosion and carbon dioxide emissions-so now we’re running a deficit. In other words, human consumption has exceeded our planet’s capacity to regenerate. The calculations are based on dividing the amount of ecological resources the planet is able to provide in a year by humanity’s demand and multiplying it by 365.

It is now estimated that 86% [4] of the world’s population live in countries that require more from nature than their ecosystems can provide. According to the Global Footprint Network [4], if everybody were to live like Americans, it would take four Earths to support the global population. The U.S. was ranked 33 on the 2014 environmental performance index [5] (EPI). […]