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Need to know ~ Topics & Events
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Human stuff weighs a lot
Image: Mabel Amber, Pixabay
Why current?
2020-12-26
Imagine you could take all your stuff, pile it up in one big heap, and then weigh it. Now imagine if everyone else on the planet would do the same. And then, add in the weight of all the roadways, railroad tracks, cars, planes, trains, ships, rockets, buildings, machines – and every single other thing that’s been made by people. (Leave out the waste that comes from our stuffed lives.) You would get a pretty high number on your gigantic scale!
Now let’s do the same mental exercise, but this time with all living things on Earth. So that includes all plants (trees, shrubs, grasses, etc.) and animals, from microscopic bacteria to lumbering elephants.
Which do you think would weigh more: the human-made stuff or the natural stuff?
A recent study conducted by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and published in the journal Nature in December, concluded that in the year 2020, the weight of human-made material surpassed that of the natural world (Earth’s entire “biomass”).
More about the mind-boggling bulk of human civilization
We just keep building and building and building….
The heaviest part of what humanity produces is comprised of building materials like concrete and “aggregates” – rocky matter like sand and gravel mixed together to create strong material for construction. These materials are used in most buildings, roads, bridges, and other structures around the world today. All of these, along with brick, asphalt, and metal, plus the other stuff that is found throughout our material culture, like plastic, glass, and wood, were counted by researchers as part of the “human-made mass.” Scientists say that the weight of it all is about 1.1 trillion metric tons (= 1.1 teratons).
If you take plastics alone, you’d already have more mass than if you put all the land and water animals together.
The combined weight of the world’s constructions (houses, roads, skyscrapers, transportation systems, water and electrical networks, etc.) is greater than that of all the trees on Earth.
The weight of the (natural) world
The researchers included all living things in their calculations of the Earth’s “biomass.” Plants make up 90% of the living matter on the planet. Next come tiny things like fungi and bacteria. Animals make up the smallest proportion of the biomass. Humans are included, of course, in the animal group. Also part of the biomass are human-cultivated crops, as well as animals that are bred by humans (domesticated animals).
Humans started farming about 12,000 years ago, and this put into motion a transformational chain of events. It caused people to start settling down, which in turn resulted in the building of settlements, villages, towns, and cities. This led to an increase in population, an expansion of production, and a steadily growing domination over the natural world. In order to produce more food, more land had to be cultivated. More forests had to be cut down. More natural habitats had to be disrupted. It is estimated that from the beginning of farming until now, human activity has shrunk the Earth’s biomass from 2 teratons to 1.1 teratons. That is, we humans have effectively vaporized about HALF of the rest of life on the planet, in order to make possible the way of life we have today. Even though farming involved planting crops, which you could say added to the amount of plants in the world, this is a drop in the bucket when compared to the amount of plant life destroyed by humans. Same goes for animal life: our breeding of domesticated animals does not make up for the decrease in animal populations worldwide brought about by the growth of human civilization.
Explosive growth
The rampant spread of humanity’s impact on earth since that moment in history when we began to farm, has been anything but slow and steady. It started gradually, but then picked up the pace and kept accelerating. And in the last 120 years, it has mushroomed uncontrollably. Researchers say that in 1900, the amount of stuff humans made equaled the weight of just 3% of the world’s biomass. But since then, the size of humanity’s footprint has been doubling every 20 years! The recent study by the Weizmann Institute tells us that an estimated 20 billion tons (20 gigatons) of human-made mass is generated every single year. We have been producing more material – and faster – in order to feed the demands of our ever-burgeoning consumerism. At this rate, it is estimated that the weight of human-made materials will go beyond 3 trillion tons by 2040. That will be three times the weight of the earth’s biomass.
The current study did not include human-made waste in its calculations – only materials that are being currently used. Also, it counted the “dry biomass” and did not include water. It is estimated that human-made mass, including waste, would have exceeded biomass already in 2013. If we include water in the biomass, humans will surpass it in 2031, if waste is included, and in 2037, if waste is left out of the calculations. One scientist, Fridolin Krausmann, at the Institute of Social Ecology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria, says that waste is a major part of our human-made mass. “In the next 20 years,” Krausmann says, “we will get as much waste as from the last 110 years together.” He points to the fact that a lot of the material that was produced in the last 60 years or so is deteriorating and will soon become waste, and he predicts that we will soon be facing a global waste problem of enormous proportions.
So, what now?
To sum up, the problem facing the earth right now is that humans are producing a lot and destroying a lot. Some might say that we are just another species, doing our thing. While that isn’t untrue, we also have to come to grips with the fact that we are unlike any other organism on the planet in terms of our impact. Our presence here is loud, large, self-centered, and short-sighted.
But if we know what the problem is and understand our role in it, why don’t we solve it? Don’t we want to save the planet? And if we find it hard to change our wasteful ways because we are hooked on the way we live, shouldn’t being mindful about future generations and the fact that we will be leaving them a demolished planet, motivate us to stop and turn things around? These are questions that many people are asking today. Young people especially are at the forefront of the environmental movement.
While these questions continue to be debated, action can be taken. First, understanding how things work in the natural ecosystems around the world, but also in social ecosystems, must form the basis of any real change. So keep reading and learning. Second, know your power as a consumer. If we consume less – or differently – and pour our spending money into sustainable alternatives, then businesses and companies will listen and change their ways. Finally, figure out how to influence others. You might be too young to vote, but you can remind your older family members, friends, and neighbors to do so. You can make your voice heard at school. You can educate others in your community about important issues facing the world today.
Sources: Pappas, Stephanie, Scientific American, “Human-made Stuff Now Outweighs All Life on Earth,” https://www.scientificamerican.com/human-made-stuff-now-outweighs-all-life-on-earth/, December 9, 2020; Kann, Drew, edition.cnn, “Human-made materials may now outweigh all living things on earth, report finds,” https://edition.cnn.com/human-made-mass-exceeds-biomass.html, December 9, 2020;