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(NEW YORK) — With 155 days left in 2021, humans have already surpassed what global resources can sustain in a single year, according to international sustainability organization Global Footprint Network.

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when demand for Earth’s ecological resources exceeds what the planet can regenerate. This year, the date is July 29.

The Global Footprint Network, which calculates the date each year, said humans currently use 74% more than what the planet can remake.

Mathis Wackernagel, CEO and founder of Global Footprint Network, told ABC News Radio to think of the resource deficit like a bank account.

“How long can you use 70% more than Earth can renew?” Wackernagel asked. ”You can use more than your interest payment for some time, but it reduces the asset base. And what we see as a consequence, for example, is the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere or deforestation.”

The Global Footprint Network found that the total global ecological footprint increased by 6.6% compared to 2020, based on data from the International Energy Agency and the Global Carbon Project.

Last year, the global forest biocapacity — the natural resources in forests — decreased by 0.5%, mainly due to a large spike in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Forests are a key to slowing climate change because they can store carbon for long periods of time.

“Last year, we had the lockdown. The lockdown changed behaviors instantaneously, quite radically, but just changed behaviors for that time,” Wackernagel said. “It didn’t change the system. So we’re back to where we were before in terms of resource demand.”

The Global Footprint Network estimated carbon emissions in 2021 will be 4.8% higher than 2020, but it will still be below 2019 levels, when the overshoot date was July 26.

According to the organization, the world has been overshooting the planet’s resources since the 1970s, when Earth Overshoot Day was late in December.

The date has since moved up five months, but the rate at which the date has moved up the calendar has decreased. In the 1970s, the day was moving up three days a year, now it moves less than one day a year on average over the past five years.

These are worldwide numbers, though — if the rest of the world consumed resources the way the United States does, according to the organization, the overshoot day would have been March 14.

Wackernagel told ABC News overshoot will end someday.

“It’s a question whether we do it by design or disaster,” Wackernagel said. “All of the global downturns are associated with disaster rather than design, like oil crises, financial crises, pandemic. They have pushed us down, and eventually, it will push us down if we don’t do it ourselves. We can choose a comfortable path, or we will be hit by crises.”

There are ways to push Earth Overshoot Day back.

According to an analysis by the Global Footprint Network and Schneider Electric, retrofitting existing buildings to be more energy efficient and decarbonizing electricity could move the day back 21 days. If everyone in the world decreased their meat consumption by 50%, the date could be pushed back 17 days.

“If we moved Earth Overshoot Day out six days every year continuously, we’d be down to less than one planet before 2050,” Wackernagel said. “But given the huge climate debt, we may have to move faster.”

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(UNITED STATES) — While authorized vaccines have proven safe and effective in holding the line against COVID-19, they are not 100% effective. Reports of uncommon breakthrough cases among fully vaccinated Americans, coupled with the delta variant tearing through the country, threaten to undermine the fiercely fought wins against the pandemic.

For the fully vaccinated who do test positive, if you are at high risk for severe infection, health experts are now turning to Food and Drug Administration authorized, virus-fighting monoclonal antibodies in some cases. They are saying it’s safe and beneficial for those who have been vaccinated, but get infected with COVID-19 nonetheless.

“Receiving antibody treatments in a timely manner could be the difference of ending up in the hospital or getting over COVID (quickly),” Dr. Shmuel Shoham, infectious disease physician at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told ABC News.

Monoclonal antibodies are synthetic versions of the body’s natural line of defense against severe infection, now deployed for after the virus has broken past the vaccine’s barrier of protection. The therapy is meant for COVID patients early on in their infection and who are at high risk of getting even sicker to help keep them out of the hospital. This risk group includes people 65 and older, who have diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiac disease, obesity, asthma or who are immunocompromised.

It can be administered through an intravenous infusion, or a subcutaneous injection, which is less time-consuming and labor-intensive, and more practical in an outbreak situation.

The therapies still in use across the U.S., like Regeneron’s antibody cocktail, has shown to hold up against the variants of concern, including delta.

It’s a new use for a therapy whose authorization predates that of the vaccines.

“The trick is to proverbially cut the virus off at the pass,” Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Though a fraction of breakthrough cases have symptoms, the few that do may need backup to fight off the infection, experts say.

“There are exceptions. Everyone has seen a handful of patients who are vaccinated, you get very, very sick. Those are by and large, people with many risk factors, and perhaps people were vaccinated longer ago, with people in whom we don’t expect the vaccine to work as well,” Dr. Andrew Pavia, Infectious Diseases Society of America fellow, NIH COVID treatment guidelines panel member and chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine said.

Clinical trials for monoclonal antibody therapies were conducted prior to vaccines’ authorization, before shots started going into arms and far before breakthrough infections were a part of daily discussion. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specifies that for vaccinated people who have subsequently contracted COVID, a vaccine should not preclude seeking further treatment.

The chances of an allergic or adverse reaction is low, experts said. Regeneron’s product targets the virus, not a protein produced by the body, a company spokesperson said — so, it likely wouldn’t trigger a haywire immune response with an antibody “overdose” from both the vaccine and the monoclonal therapy. And clinical trial data has shown authorized monoclonal antibody therapies can sharply reduce hospitalizations and deaths by as much as 70%.

A Regeneron spokesperson said as long as a patient has tested positive for COVID and meets the other criteria to receive the treatment, they can receive the therapy.

“We are not screening those patients out. If they have been vaccinated and come in testing positive and are at high risk for a more severe infection we are giving them monoclonals,” Schaffner said. “I think that was decided pretty quickly.”

It’s a question of targeting the appropriate group of infected patients, experts said and it’s not for anyone who has symptoms after testing positive. Doctors prescribe the therapy for patients with specific risk factors that make them unlikely candidates for fighting off the virus on their own. With your antibodies already being made to combat coronavirus, experts said another helping won’t do as much good.

But Shoham calls it a “missed opportunity” for patients eligible to receive it — who don’t.

“If they had gotten a monoclonal antibody, their chance for hospitalization would have been significantly reduced,” Shoham said.

“The vaccines are so good, that most people who have one or two risk factors that are vaccinated are less likely to become infected, and if they are — the vast majority have done very well,” Pavia said. “What we’re trying to do is identify that small sliver of people with breakthrough infection that may get quite sick.”

The antibody cocktail medications work best if it is delivered within days of a positive test or onset of symptoms. So, doctors recommend acting quickly after getting a positive test to seek treatment, if the high-risk criteria fit — whether you have been vaccinated or not.

“This is a targeted treatment that is not for everyone — it’s not ‘spaghetti at the wall’ for when vaccines don’t work,” Schaffner said. “But this is good news on the therapeutic side.”

ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss contributed to this report.

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New vaccine requirements for federal employees expected to be announced by President Joe Biden Thursday “very well” could mean troops will be required to get the shot, a senior Pentagon official told ABC News on Wednesday. But if not, it still may only be a matter of time.

Because COVID-19 vaccines are available to the military under the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorization (EUA), the shot has so far been strictly voluntary.

“It is not FDA approved, and therefore, it is still a voluntary vaccine,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters earlier this month. “I would like to add that as we speak, almost 69% of DOD personnel have received at least one dose. That’s not bad.”

By last week, the proportion of fully vaccinated troops had risen past 70%, based on data from the Department of Defense. That’s significantly higher than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s estimate of 49% for the U.S. population as a whole.

While the DOD can’t independently decide to force service members to take a vaccine that isn’t fully approved, the president “may under certain circumstances waive the option for members of the armed forces to accept or refuse administration of an EUA product,” according to the FDA.

Biden said Tuesday that a federal mandate is “under consideration” and sources familiar with the discussion told ABC News the president is likely to announce federal employees will be required to be vaccinated, or else abide by “stringent COVID-19 protocols like mandatory mask wearing — even in communities not with high or substantial spread — and regular testing.”

The president demurred on the issue when asked by ABC News White House correspondent Karen Travers as he arrived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday.

“I’m talking about made in America today, that’s all I’m going to talk about,” Biden replied. “Tomorrow I’ll talk about whatever you want to talk about, including COVID.”

If Biden doesn’t include service members in a mandate for federal workers, one could still come later.

Pentagon officials have publicly said they would consider requiring COVID vaccinations, as is done with more than a dozen other vaccines, after the FDA fully approves the vaccines.

“I believe that when it’s formally approved, which we expect pretty soon, we probably will go to that, and then that question will kind of be moot,” Vice Adm. John Nowell told a sailor in a town hall question-and-answer video posted to Facebook last month.

On July 1 the Army Times reported it had obtained an internal Army memo that said commanders should “prepare for a directive to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for service members (on or around) 01 September 2021, pending full FDA licensure,” the order said.

“As a matter of policy we do not comment on leaked documents. The vaccine continues to be voluntary,” Maj. Jackie Wren, an Army spokesperson told ABC News. “If we are directed by DOD to change our posture, we are prepared to do so.”

Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense and ABC News analyst, said evidence should determine the issue.

“Readiness has always been a key component of any military, especially one as expeditionary as the U.S. Ever since the existence of vaccines they have been a part of the readiness capability,” Mulroy said. “If the medical professionals in the CDC and the DOD determine it is safe and critical to protect our force from COVID and all its variants, then that should be dispositive on the issue.”

So far, the Pentagon has not announced any official decisions for the future.

“There has been no change to our use of the vaccine as a voluntary measure of protection,” Kirby said in a statement to ABC News Tuesday. “We continue to urge everyone in the department to get vaccinated.”

A defense official confirmed on Wednesday that this stance has not changed.

ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Molly Nagle and Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega contributed to this report.

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(UNITED STATES) — With the COVID-19 delta variant surge once again prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend masks indoors for teachers and other vaccinated school employees, many parents are left wondering if the new landscape of the pandemic means it’s safe for their still-unvaccinated young children to return to school this fall.

Early in the pandemic, epidemiologic data showed parents a reassuring trend: children were less likely to be infected and more likely to have mild infections. However, as COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out and the country made progress toward herd immunity, there came a shift: The viral spread is now predominantly among the unvaccinated, and of the largest unvaccinated populations is children under 12, who are not yet eligible for the available vaccines.

Data from the American Academy of Pediatrics has shown that children have made up a higher proportion of overall COVID-19 infections over the past couple of weeks.

“This increase is concerning, and yet not surprising, as the virus is going to infect those who are not protected,” said Dr. Amanda D. Castel, pediatrician and professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at George Washington University. “Children are still at risk for developing severe complications from COVID-19.”

Fall classrooms will be ground zero for a recipe that epidemiologists fear: Unvaccinated populations combined with close proximity and limited social distancing could become an avenue for disease spread.

While children are not necessarily more vulnerable than they were before, the biology of the disease has changed. The delta variant is more transmissible regardless of age and spreads more efficiently across unvaccinated populations.

“Make no mistake, this is a virus that can cause children to suffer and die,” said Dr. Paul A. Offit, pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

An important question now circulates in parent and teacher circles: how do you mitigate risk and still give kids a normal school year? The CDC updated its prior guidance on Tuesday, saying that children and teachers should be wearing masks in school this fall.

Experts agree that a nuanced approach to preventing transmission and creating herd immunity with high vaccination rates is key.

“Teachers can enforce proper social distancing practices and keep extra personal protective equipment (PPE) for themselves and students in supply,” said Kamon Singleton, M.Ed, a teacher at Heyward Gibbes Elementary School in Columbia, South Carolina. “Although most schools may provide some PPE, teachers may want to keep an excess of supplies.”

Castel said she believes “layers of protection” are the answer.

“The first layer is to have everyone who can receive a vaccine do so,” Castel said. “Parents of children age 12 and older can make an appointment now. The shots create a bubble of protection not just for kids who have been vaccinated but also for kids who cannot get the vaccine yet. For those that can’t get vaccinated, wearing masks.”

While the pandemic is now largely fueled by those who decide not to vaccinate, this fall and winter, the focus will shift to keeping children from becoming the pandemic’s next target until vaccines are available for all.

Nancy A. Anoruo, MD, MPH, is an internal medicine physician at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and public health scientist. John Brownstein, Ph.D., is chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an epidemiologist. Both are faculty at Harvard Medical School and contributors to ABC News’ Medical Unit.

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(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.

More than 611,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Just 57.6% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC on Tuesday, citing new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant, changed its mask guidance to now recommend everyone in areas with substantial or high levels of transmission — vaccinated or not — wear a face covering in public, indoor settings.

Worldwide, the virus that causes COVID-19 has infected more than 195 million people, with over 4.1 million dying from the disease.

Here’s how the news is developing Thursday. All times Eastern:

Jul 29, 5:41 am
Dozens of cases across US linked to Christian summer camp

At least 75 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across 17 U.S. states have been linked to a Christian summer camp in North Carolina, officials said.

The outbreak is associated with campers and staff who attended The Wilds camp near Rosman in North Carolina’s Transylvania County between June 28 and July 17, according to a statement from the local public health department.

Last week, a spokesperson for the camp told Ashevile ABC affiliate WLOS that they had cancelled sessions that week to work on enhancing COVID-19 protocols. Although there was no plan to cancel further sessions, the spokesperson said the camp was working to limit the number of attendees and started asking campers to get tested for COVID-19 before their sessions.

“We’ve been checking our staff, we’ve been doing screenings for everyone who comes onto the campsite and anticipating they’re coming to our campsite healthy,” the spokesperson told WLOS during a telephone interview last week. “And the anticipation is that they would leave healthy as well.”

Jul 29, 1:20 am
FDA approves shelf life extension for J&J vaccine

The Food and Drug Administration has approved another extension to the shelf life of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot COVID-19 vaccine, from four-and-a-half months to six months, J&J said in a statement late Wednesday.

“The decision is based on data from ongoing stability assessment studies, which have demonstrated the vaccine is stable at six months when refrigerated at temperatures of 36 – 46 degrees Fahrenheit,” J&J said.

Jul 29, 12:38 am
CDC changes testing guidance for vaccinated people

On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly updated its guidance on testing for vaccinated people on its website.

While the CDC had previously said vaccinated people did not have to get tested for COVID-19 after being exposed to someone with the virus, unless they had symptoms, that is no longer the case.

The government agency now recommends: “If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you should get tested 3-5 days after your exposure, even if you don’t have symptoms.”

“You should also wear a mask indoors in public for 14 days following exposure or until your test result is negative. You should isolate for 10 days if your test result is positive,” the updated guidance states.

Jul 28, 10:20 pm
Disney World brings back indoor mask requirement for all guests

Masks once again will be required while indoors at Disney World, regardless of vaccination status, the company announced Wednesday, as Florida has quickly become a COVID-19 hotspot.

Starting Friday, face coverings will be required for all guests ages 2 and up while indoors, including upon entering and throughout all attractions.

They are also required while riding Disney transportation.

Masks are still optional in outdoor common areas, the company said.

The theme park had initially dropped its mask requirement for vaccinated guests last month.

The updated rule will also go into effect Friday at Disneyland in California.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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(NEW YORK) — The Pacific Northwest is bracing for another heat wave as large wildfires continue to burn through the region.

While the spread of wildfires has slowed in recent days, that could soon change. Temperatures near Portland, Oregon, and Spokane, Washington, are expected to approach 100 degrees by Friday and dry lightning originating from the deadly monsoons in the Southwest could spark more fires.

Currently, dozens of uncontained wildfires are burning in the U.S., with the majority of them located in the West — a region experiencing tinderbox conditions as a result of megadrought and climate change.

The Dixie Fire near the Feather River Canyon in Northern California has grown to nearly 218,000 acres, destroying more than a dozen structures, and was 23% contained. Crews are prepping for structure protection in Taylorsville, California. The fire is now the largest burning in the state and more than 8,000 people are under evacuation orders, according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

The Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, currently the largest in the country and the third-largest in state history, has burned through more than 413,000 acres and was 53% contained by Tuesday.

The Tamarack Fire near Gardnerville, Nevada, has scorched more than 68,000 acres by Monday and was 59% contained.

A heat wave is blanketing much of the country outside the West as well.

The heat dome is continuing to build from the north and central Plains to New Orleans. Fifteen states are currently under heat warnings and advisories.

The humidity and high temps will make it feel more like 110 degrees for some areas. Some cities in the upper Midwest, such as Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Minneapolis, could break records as temperatures climb toward 100 degrees.

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(MILWAUKEE, Wis.) — A judge announced Wednesday that he has found probable cause to bring homicide charges against a Wisconsin police officer, five years after a local district attorney declared the officer was justified in his use of deadly force on a man he found sleeping in a car in a suburban Milwaukee park.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Glenn Yamahiro said at a hearing that there is probable cause that former Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah committed the crime of homicide by negligent handling of a dangerous weapon when he killed 25-year-old Jay Anderson Jr. in 2016.

“This decision has not been taken lightly, nor was it predetermined. It is the result of a careful and extensive review of the evidence in this case,” Yamahiro said.

Yamahiro came to his conclusion after holding a rarely used “John Doe hearing,” which provides a forum and a procedure in Wisconsin for a citizen to ask a court to review a district attorney’s decision not to issue criminal charges in cases where the citizen believes one or more crimes have occurred.

“There is reason to believe, based on the testimony, that Officer Mensah created an unreasonable, substantial risk of death,” Yamahiro said as he read his lengthy decision in a courtroom packed with Anderson’s relatives.

Yamahiro said he will appoint a special prosecutor within 60 days to review the case and “decide which charge or charges, if any, they believe can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, a far higher standard than probable cause.”

Anderson’s loved ones, including his parents, burst into tears and applause upon hearing the judge’s decision. Outside the courtroom, a large crowd of supporters cheered and began chanting Anderson’s name.

“It’s awesome, I can breathe,” Anderson’s mother, Linda Anderson, said after the hearing.

Anderson’s father, Jay Anderson Sr., added, “We feel good. This is something that should have been done five years ago. This is justice, you guys, this is justice.”

Now a Waukesha County, Wisconsin, deputy sheriff, Mensah left the Wauwatosa Police Department after fatally shooting 17-year-old Alvin Cole in 2020, an incident that sparked large protests in and around the Milwaukee area.

It was the third on-duty fatal shooting in five years that Mensah was involved in. His use of deadly force was justified by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm in each case, including the 2015 killing of 29-year-old Antonio Gonzales.

The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on Yamahiro’s ruling.

“What happened today is historic not just for the state of Wisconsin but for this country,” said Kimberley Motley, an attorney for the Anderson family who requested the John Doe hearing.

Motley also represents the families of Gonzales and Cole.

Anderson’s death unfolded just after 3 a.m. on June 23, 2016, when Mensah found him sleeping in a car in Madison Park.

“Approximately five and one-half minutes after Officer Mensah entered the park, Mr. Anderson was shot,” Yamahiro said.

Mensah claimed he opened fire in self-defense when Anderson “lunged for a gun” that was in the passenger seat of the car he was in, according to evidence presented at the John Doe hearing Yamahiro held between Feb. 19 and May 19 of this year.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Yamahiro said Mensah failed to activate his body-worn camera until after the shooting and did not turn on his squad car’s emergency lights, which would have automatically switched on his vehicle’s dashboard camera. Mensah’s body-worn camera, however, activated automatically and recorded about 25 seconds of the incident without audio and captured the shooting.

“The court has also heard testimony that Officer Mensah failed to activate his emergency lights or recording equipment at the time Antonio Gonzales was shot in 2015,” Yamahiro noted.

In an interview with Milwaukee Police Department investigators, the agency assigned to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting, Mensah claimed that when he approached the vehicle Anderson was in, he saw a handgun through the open passenger-side window lying on the passenger seat.

Mensah claimed that Anderson initially complied with orders to put his hands up, but during the encounter, he claimed Anderson appeared to reach for the gun with his right hand four different times before he lunged for the weapon, according to his statement to investigators.

During the John Doe hearing, two retired police homicide detectives testifying as expert witnesses claimed Mensah’s story of how Anderson was shot conflicted with the physical evidence at the crime scene and the findings of an autopsy that showed Mensah was shot three times in the right side of his head and once in the right shoulder.

Ricky Burems, a retired Milwaukee Police Department detective who has investigated more than 1,000 homicides, testified that if Anderson had been lunging for the gun, he would have sustained wounds to the front of his body, the front of his head or his upper chest and even the top of his head. Burems also said there would have been blood on the passenger seat.

“All of the blood was on the driver’s seat, the driver’s floor, the roof of the driver’s seat, the backrest, the pad or bottom where your legs and butt are and also the driver’s headrest,” Burems said, according to a transcript of his testimony that Yamahiro read in court Wednesday.

“So that tells me that when Mr. Anderson was shot, he was facing straight ahead. If Mr. Anderson had been lunging toward the passenger seat, that’s where his body would have been,” Burems testified. “So there’s no way that he could be shot while extending or leaning or lunging toward the passenger seat and then afterward be upright in the driver’s seat with his hands on his lap.”

Yamahiro also said that before Milwaukee police investigators arrived at Madison Park, the crime scene was compromised by other Wauwatosa police officers who removed the gun from Anderson’s car without first taking photos of the weapon and the position it was in when Anderson was shot.

“That is critical evidence that the Milwaukee Police Department didn’t get to, because Wauwatosa had already handled the gun and already moved it from the car, and already cleared it,” Yamahiro said. “I don’t know if that means they unloaded it or if they looked and saw there were no bullets in it, to begin with.”

Efforts by ABC News to reach Mensah on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office, where Mensah now works, released a statement saying, “In light of Judge Glenn Yamahiro’s decision regarding Joseph Mensah, Sheriff Eric Severson will be reviewing all of his options, and will have a more detailed statement and decision forthcoming.”

Wauwatosa Police Chief James MacGillis, who has been on the job for just three days, read a statement during a brief news conference, saying, “The officers of the Wauwatosa Police Department continue their dedication to public safety for all citizens and understand that this is a time for community healing and trust-building.”

MacGillis said he has contacted the Anderson family in private to express his condolences.

“Now is the time to process the judge’s decision and then move forward,” MacGillis said. “The legal process has played itself out, and it’s going to continue to play itself out. My role is to lead this department, look at processes, look at how we function as an organization.”

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