Jan Zalasiewicz, University of Leicester and Mark Williams, University of Leicester
Our deficiencies have always driven us, even among our distant ancestors, back in the last Ice Age. Having neither the speed and strength to hunt large prey, nor sharp teeth and claws to tear flesh, we improvised spears, flint knives, scrapers. Lacking a thick pelt, we took the fur of other animals. As the ice receded, we devised more means of survival and comfort – stone dwellings, ploughs, wheeled vehicles. All these inventions allowed small oases of civilisation to be wrested from a natural wilderness that seemed endless.
The idea of a natural world that dwarfed humanity and its creations long persisted, even into modern times – only to run, lately, into concerns that climate was changing, and species were dying through our actions. How could that be, with us so small, and nature so large?
Now a new study in Nature by a team of scientists from the Weizman Institute in Israel upends that perspective. Our constructions have now – indeed, spookily, just this year – attained the same mass as that of all living organisms on Earth. The human enterprise is growing fast, too, while nature keeps shrinking. The science-fiction scenario of an engineered planet is already here.
It seems a simple comparison, and yet is fiendishly difficult in practice. But this team has practice in dealing with such impossible challenges. A couple of years ago they worked out the first part of the equation, the mass of all life on Earth – including that of all the fish in the sea, microbes in the soil, trees on land, birds in the air and much more besides. Earth’s biosphere now weighs a little less than 1.2 trillion tonnes (of dry mass, not counting water), trees on land making up most of it. It was something like double that before humans started clearing forests – and it is still diminishing.
Now, the team has delved into the statistics of industrial production and mass flows of all kinds, and reconstructed the growth, from the beginning of the 20th century, of what they call “anthropogenic mass”. This is all the things we build – houses, cars, roads, aeroplanes and myriad other things. The pattern they found was strikingly different. The stuff we build totted up to something like 35 billion tonnes in the year 1900, rising to be roughly double that by the middle of the 20th century. Then, that burst of prosperity after the second world war, termed the Great Acceleration, and our stuff increased several-fold to a little over half a trillion tonnes by the end of the century. In the past 20 years it has doubled again, to be equivalent to, this year, the mass of all living things. In coming years, the living world will be far outweighed – threefold by 2040, they say, if current trends hold.
What is this stuff that we make? It is now of extraordinary, and exploding, diversity. The number of “technospecies” now far exceeds the estimated 9 million biological species on Earth, and counting them exceeds even the formidable calculating powers of this team. But our stuff can be broken down into ingredients, of which concrete and aggregates take a gargantuan share – about four-fifths. Then come bricks, asphalt and metals. On this scale, plastics are a minor ingredient – and yet their mass is still greater, now, than that of all animals on Earth.
It’s a revealing, meticulous study, and nicely clear about what the measurements include and exclude. They do not include, for instance, the rock and earth bulldozed and landscaped as foundations for our constructions, nor all of the waste rock generated in mining the ingredients: currently, nearly a third of a trillion tonnes of such material is shifted each year. Add in the Earth material that we use and abuse in other ways, in ploughing farmland, and letting sediment pile up behind dams, and humans have cumulatively used and discarded some 30 trillion tonnes of Earth’s various resources.
Whichever way that you cut the cake, the team’s final point in its groundbreaking study hits home, and chimes with that of another recent analysis we both worked on. Since the mid-20th century, the Earth has been set on a new, human-driven trajectory – one that is leaving the stable conditions of the Holocene Epoch, and is entering the uncertain, and rapidly changing, new world of the Anthropocene. The weight of evidence, here, seems unarguable.
Jan Zalasiewicz, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Leicester and Mark Williams, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Leicester
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Human-made materials now weigh as much as all living biomass? Right on! Bragging rights!
I assume termite and beaver created materials greatly exceed the weight of termites and beavers and I assume it is no big deal. Humans have the ability to make much bigger things.
“The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything” – G.K. Chesterton
The big spend is yet to come. $600tr on wind turbines, solar panels and batteries will be a big hit and will need an annual spend of around $40tr to maintain the system of energy production from those low intensity sources.
All human endeavour directed at creating the energy to live and breed so the next generation can do the same thing – breed, learn and build the replacements for the ones that are worn out.
Consider the jellyfiah. Remove the water and they weigh almost nothing. Include the water and they may well be the most massive lifeform on earth.
It seems to be a nonsense to remove the water.
Reminds me of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
“The human enterprise is growing fast, too, while nature keeps shrinking. ” – We are also Nature.
I bet that if we ask how the hell they did that calculation, we will find out that it was “models all the way down”.
So what? What’s so evil about man compared to other animals that create structures, like termites, shell fish, coral etc.
Chalk comes from animal shells, a lot of limestone does too. Look at the total mass of that.
And if we didnt have houses what would our bat population be? There arent enough caves to support them, they would die out. And there are many examples of how man benefits nature. Look at the urban fox population, much more dense than his country cousin. There is alot more food available.
But no, man is evil. He ate the apple didn he, he got knowledge…
I cannot believe that professors think up this drivel and then think it is worth going in to print over. Haven’t they got anything better to do? The new absolutely useless metric – how many multiples of the biomass we are at? I was enjoying my evening until I read this $hit.
Inapposite metric.
IF you count skyscrapers, THEN you must count termite mounds. And coral reefs. And all the rest.
The whole point of this exercise in self-flagellation is Guilt. Indeed, the term “anthropocene” is a construct whose sole purpose is to foster guilt, but it is a guilt meant more for the western world, and rich countries. But there is also a primal guilt, an “original sin” if you will, of simply being human, of mere existence. “There are too many of us” is the idee fixe, and “we’re using too many resources” as well as “destroying the planet”. But Greenie-weenies are exempt apparently from this guilt, or at least partially absolved, allowing them free reign to plaster the planet with bird, bat and insect-destroying monstrosities in the form of wind and solar “farms”. I mean, who can be against farms, right? And of course, we have our nasty, planet-destroying “carbon emissions” front and center as a prime example of how evil we humans are. But that’s a different story.
Man made materials just rearrange Earths materials. Biomass has and will always be a tiny fraction of all materials of Earth.
Feeling so, so guilty that you are all going to die because I built a pool in my backyard…. Probably 220,000lbs of concrete & brick (from mostly dirt sources) and using a di-hydrogen monoxide filler (mostly water)…
That equates to some 20 or so elephants, now somehow deprived of their rightful resources…
But I have to offer my opinion that articles and research such as this waste a far more valuable resource… Time that could have been spent in something actually productive. Both in its creation and reading.
What man made material. I know some who believe they are gods and can order the rest of us around, but to have actual creative power to bring substance into being from nothing? Haven’t seen it. Not likeley to see it. We haven’t even figured out transmutation…and a lot of smart folks tried.
PBH
I call BS. Most of the mass of a tree is dead. Only the leaves and a very thin layer under the batk is alive.
Most of the mass of a coral reef is dead. Only a very thin layer on the outside is alive.
The white cliffs of dover are dead,but were once alive.
To be fair, one needs to compare the works of humankind to those of other living organisms.
Human activity is dwarfed in comparison. This is easy to prove by comparing CO2 emission from humans to CO2 emossions from other living organisms. This tell you how much energy is being consumed to build things.
So far other life is using about 25 times as much energy as humans each year, which translates into 25 times more mass.
“Earth’s biosphere now weighs a little less than 1.2 trillion tonnes (of dry mass, not counting water)”
Here we go again, scientists telling us what their science says, if you just disregard the effects of water.
All of these comments leave out the obvious one: the mass of living things is increasing, not decreasing. Caused directly by increasing CO2. Estimates are that the total mass of all living things is 30% higher than before 1750 which is considered to be the start of the industrial age. Oh and for the record: Malthusians have been discredited for a century or more and are becoming more discredited every day. Ignore their blather. Or mock them. Its fun!
It’s what Machiventa Melchizedek has been telling a group of us for two decades. “Humans have caused our problems with pollution. CO2 is a minor issue. Our real problem is over-population! Our planet can sustain and support 3.5 billion people, maybe 3.5 billion max.” “This will change soon. The decimation of your world will occur between 2020-2030, and slow down after to 2050. Oceans will rise three feet by then. (Guessing volcanic activity under Greenland). Covid-19 is just the precursor to the next severe pandemic to occur soon after.” “With it comes major earthquake and volcanic activity unseen in human history. Your economies will crash, but markets will survive in much lessor form and profits. Only companies who have prepared for a major upheaval will survive. Up to 60% of the pop will die off. Almost all coastlines around the world will be decimated by earthquakes. People migrating inland will be a problem for others. Ash and flooding will shorten growing seasons, causing massive starvation. Be prepared and arm yourselves – people will do anything to survive, including taking everything you have, along with your lives. Your government will not be able to help! There will be no wars, because there will be no Armies to fight them. In the middle of the convergence of events, we will show up and guide all democratic nations. Those nations who are not democratic will be lost.” He’s taught us thousand’s of other things about our future and how to live a spirit-led life. “BigMacSpeaks.Life” Use “Machiventa,” as the teacher and “D Raphael” as the T/R. (all his messages are in it) We are about to destroy our civilization and Christ has called “Correcting Time.” Machiventa Melchizedek is leading “The Teaching Mission.” God has sent another staff from Paradise, which is located in the upper Midwest, US. Melchizedek is our Planetary Manager now. He’s the Melchizedek named in Genesis, The Priest of Salem. Many will laugh, but this is absolutely real! They have interviewed many of us who listen. I’ve received nine visitations from their Chief of Staff, Serena, the most beautiful celestial you can imagine! They have moved us to safer locations in the US. I was moved from a beautiful island NW of Seattle to So Missouri (ugh!, but I’ve made it my will to do God’s Will), August 6th, 2019. It’s the reason why I write this message, so please don’t get upset with me. We will be teachers (personal ministries), before, during and after the decimation, if we survive. Our text book (the book of facts and answers) is The Urantia Book. It’s NOT a religion! It’s free online. I was led to it in 1997 as a Commander in the Army. My Command Sergeant’s Major was with me. Two Rangers, after seeing a guy get killed, talking about what happened to his soul! We laughed, because we were so ignorant. The rest of the story took hours, but if you’d been there, you’d also believe! Because of that day, everyone in my battalion got the book! You’ll love it, especially the science and cosmology. They were restricted in giving out too much future information, but plenty of science is in it. Finished in 1934, it was held for publication until after the wars in 1955. “Read it 7 times,” was the instructions given us. Enjoy it!
Wednesday Addams reads the headline and asks … “Are they made from ‘real’ men?”
This is such a stupid concept… calling bridges and other ENVIRONMENT we live “technospecies” and comparing it to animals and plants. A 7-story appartment is not a “technospiecie” but in fact a fancy cave. This is not some mumbo-jumbo, but mostly rocks arranged neatly so they won’t fall apart. “Scientists” my ass. deliberately conflating different concepts to push their propaganda, sorry, “science”.
Also, what about beaver dams and bird nests, mr “scientist”? Do animals create “technospieces” too? This “research” is crazier than the old theologists’ theses about how many angels can coinhabit the point of the needle. This is junk science.
If they were to include all the anthropomorphic BS as part of the biomass, this couldn’t possibly be true.
Note to Charles Rotter. The Empire State Building is every bit as natural as a bird nest. The net extra weight to the planet is zero.
Keep in mind that this is happening, while the planet massively greens up, almost entirely from the benefits of increasing CO2 and also the benefits of the best climate and weather for life on this planet in over 1,000 years.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
So what does this tell us?
How can the planet be greening up if we are killing it?
80% of the biomass on the planet is from plants. If the planet is greening up, then clearly the biomass is increasing. The increase in CO2 and benefits from climate change are increasing the biomass of the planet. This is a GOOD thing.
The truth is actually we are doing damage to the planet but none of it is from climate change. In fact, increasing CO2 and climate change was the best gift we ever gave to the planet. We rescued life from near CO2 starvation. CO2 is a beneficial gas, the building block of all life. This is the indisputable authentic science and why the planet is clearly responding by greening up……………telling us that it wants MORE CO2 not less. The optimal level of CO2 for most life is double the current level of 413 ppm. The old climate had less than 300 parts per million. Life would love to have something around 900 ppm. Not my opinion, this is what thousands of growing experiments have shown. All animals eat plants or something that ate plants.
The optimal global temperature is probably a couple of degrees C warmer than this. What happens every Winter/for 6 months in the high/mid latitudes? Plants die or go dormant. Animals migrate/hibernate or stay and face extreme adversity until blessed warmth and food return in the Spring. Cold is still the biggest killer of life on earth.
At the same time, all the other stuff we are doing to the planet is wrecking it.
How ironic. The one good thing that we are doing to help the planet……..giving it more of the CO2 it needs to flourish and is causing a booming biosphere………….is what we are being told is destroying the planet. And the things that we are actually doing to destroy the planet…………get a free pass, so that all the money and resources and attention/headlines and governmental actions and taxes can totally focus on the non problem……….CO2 from burning fossil fuels.
How can this possibly make any sense? We are being told that up is down and down is up. Why would people trying to save the planet do this to us?
Because they know there is no climate crisis and that’s not what they are trying to save the planet from. Besides a redistribution of wealth and global socialism, one of their objectives is for sustainable development………..and to reduce the over consumption of natural resources(by the rich countries)……but they can’t come out and be honest about it because people in country’s like the US will not cut back on excessive consumption because we are using up too many natural resources………..that would never sell. However, if they are told they are killing the planet from a fake climate crisis……….and changing is needed to save the planet from the climate emergency……..that marketing scheme/ruse will trick them into supporting their (political) agenda.
I explain it more here:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/62460/
Here is more on some of the REAL problems that humans are causing:
The real environmental crisis’s/insects dying-dead zones-aquifers drying up-plastics in the ocean: April 2019
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/27498/
“Anthropocene: human-made materials now weigh as much as all living biomass, say scientists”
Isn’t that comparing apples to oranges?
Why not compare the mass of inanimate objects that man has formed (from natural resources) to the mass of inanimate objects “Ma’ Gaia” has formed?
And just how is the mass of what Man has made different that the collective mass of, say, all the beaver dams in the world? All the bird nests in the world? All the termite mounds? All the ant hills? All the etc. etc.
“Human-made materials now weigh as much as all living biomass.”
Even if that is true (which I doubt) – **so what?**
Concrete is nothing more than a human-made *rock*. Think of concrete office-blocks as the human equivalent of anthills. It’s cement, gravel and water – all of which are “natural”.
Think of concrete as having been “metamorphosed” from cement, gravel and water. It ISN’T “added to the environment” – it is merely *transformed* from the things that make it up.
Roads are made of bitumen – that too is natural and can be seen seeping out of the ground in some places.
Panic over.