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Human Race Just 0.01% of All Life But Has Destroyed 83% of Wild Mammals, Study Finds (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the our-footprint dept.

An assessment of all life on Earth has revealed humanity's surprisingly tiny part in it as well as our disproportionate impact. From a report: The world's 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds. The new work is the first comprehensive estimate of the weight of every class of living creature and overturns some long-held assumptions. Bacteria are indeed a major life form -- 13% of everything -- but plants overshadow everything, representing 82% of all living matter. All other creatures, from insects to fungi, to fish and animals, make up just 5% of the world's biomass.

Another surprise is that the teeming life revealed in the oceans by the recent BBC television series Blue Planet II turns out to represent just 1% of all biomass. The vast majority of life is land-based and a large chunk -- an eighth -- is bacteria buried deep below the surface. "I was shocked to find there wasn't already a comprehensive, holistic estimate of all the different components of biomass," said Prof Ron Milo, at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, who led the work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

4 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Thanos had a point by imperious_rex · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He may be a nihilistic Malthusian, but Thanos had a valid point. If one could eliminate 50% of sentient life from a world, the long term benefits would outweigh the immediate negatives. This is already based on historical precedence. After the Black Plague wiped out over 1/3 of Europe's population, the continent experienced a rebirth that became the Renaissance, the church lost much of its power, the continent's economic power strength improved, and the age of the Enlightenment came about which brought new artistic, scientific, and political thinking. One has to wonder what the long term impact would be from reducing the Earth's current human population from 7.6 billion to 3.8 billion (approximately 1970's world population).

    1. Re:Thanos had a point by PPH · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We don't have to kill randomly. In fact, we can leave it up to each group to select those that shall die.

      We, in the West, will not kill so many. We will invite them across our borders because the economy in their country is somewhat worse off than ours. Meanwhile, when ocean levels rise and farmers in Bangladesh are forced inland 20 miles to escape flooding, their neighbors will slaughter them. Problem solved.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  2. An unpopular opinion by Presence+Eternal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am opposed to wildlife conservation. I arrived at this opinion for three reasons.

    First was I watched a pro-conservation video on TED called "Life lessons from big cats" which had some of the most miserably fucked up wildlife footage I had ever seen. I realized how sanitized all the nature videos I'd watched growing up were, and that the horror I was seeing probably happened all the time in nature.

    Second, I used to be very opposed to hunting, but in a forum thread a hunter basically asked me "Do you think there's such a thing as a good death in nature?" In other words, wildlife can expect to die by being torn apart by predators, starving to death over weeks, or from disease. How is a shotgun worse than that? I agreed, and extended this thinking to all wildlife. Animals don't exactly go to "sleep" one day surrounded by loved ones. Wild animals are terrified of every little noise because every little noise really can be their oncoming death. If one cares about animals, is preserving a species to experience ten million years more of fear and horrible death really a compassionate outcome? Humans at least have hope from the advancement of medicine and technology.

    Third, yes biodiversity is shrinking, but all that stuff I got taught about the "web of life" is pretty apparently not coming true. So long as we have photosynthesis going on, it looks to me like it makes no difference how many species of shrew or stick bug there are.

    Main thing that makes me sad is my opinion puts me in direct opposition to almost everyone I admire. Most people who agree with me on this are the same kind of people who should go drink bleach.

  3. Re:omnivore by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If we put our mind (and stomach) to it, we can eat anything into extinction.

    Actually it's the other way around. We have found that the most effective way to save a declining species is to start eating it:
    https://www.dartagnan.com/buy/...