I've been seeing these numbers for at least five years, but I still can't get my head around them. Too many people think of humans as living in these little isolated cities here and there with expanses of untouched nature between us. Nah, that's cap. We've damn near overwhelmed the whole thing.
Take the entire mammal biomass of the entire fukking planet. Every deer, antelope, buffalo, dophin, whale, rodent, bat, rabbit, squirrel, monkey, bear, coyote, elephant, hippo, seal, and kangaroo.....EVERY fukking wild mammal on Earth. Us and our domestic animals outnumber them 24 to 1.
96% of the existing mammal biomass on Earth is just us and our domestic animals. We've directly taken over more than half of the Earth's land area for our own cities, farms, and other operations so that only we can live on it, and wiped out most of the mammals on the remaining land and water too. Everything left on Earth is just a tiny fraction of what once was.
I mean, look at the pigs alone. Just our fukking pigs outweigh all wild mammals on the planet by 3 to 1!!! And cows triple the pigs. And humans are just as numerous as cows (well, really 8x as numerous, cause we weigh 8x less).
I think if some people really understood this graph, it would reframe how they picture environmental issues. We've already pushed up much closer to the breaking point than they realize.
Take the entire mammal biomass of the entire fukking planet. Every deer, antelope, buffalo, dophin, whale, rodent, bat, rabbit, squirrel, monkey, bear, coyote, elephant, hippo, seal, and kangaroo.....EVERY fukking wild mammal on Earth. Us and our domestic animals outnumber them 24 to 1.
96% of the existing mammal biomass on Earth is just us and our domestic animals. We've directly taken over more than half of the Earth's land area for our own cities, farms, and other operations so that only we can live on it, and wiped out most of the mammals on the remaining land and water too. Everything left on Earth is just a tiny fraction of what once was.
I mean, look at the pigs alone. Just our fukking pigs outweigh all wild mammals on the planet by 3 to 1!!! And cows triple the pigs. And humans are just as numerous as cows (well, really 8x as numerous, cause we weigh 8x less).
I think if some people really understood this graph, it would reframe how they picture environmental issues. We've already pushed up much closer to the breaking point than they realize.