From Wikipedia
How Earth Made Us
Episode Five
The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological
capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically
productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human
population
consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste.
Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth
(or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if
everybody lived a given lifestyle. For 2006, humanity's total
ecological footprint was estimated at 1.4 planet Earths – in other
words, humanity uses ecological services 1.4 times as fast as Earth can
renew them.
Every year, this number is recalculated — with a three year lag due to
the time it takes for the UN to collect and publish all the underlying
statistics.