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Human Race Just 0.01% of All Life But Has Destroyed 83% of Wild Mammals, Study Finds (theguardian.com)
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.
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.
Humans are cause of most extinctions of the modern times. I get that. But comparing our biomass as a percentage to the percent of Mammals and Plants (with a much bigger percentage number) isn't really telling us anything, because the units are off. But the problem when we exaggerate our problems, it doesn't make people who are not likely to do anything change their minds. They will disbelieve it, because they are (intentionally) being confused by the numbers so they just won't trust the source. Or just express the fact that we have gone too far anyways and give up.
We don't like being told that we are bad people. Because in our mind, we are not. We may not like the things we do, but it out of necessity not because we are trying to be evil.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
are we just quantifying random stuff and telling the world about it?
0.01% of life by weight is currently humans, but we've killed 83% of mammal species... by species count? individuals?
what percentage of mammal species does humanity account for? by weight or by head count?
what about other groups? insects? viruses? reptiles? haven't we hunted any fish into the same category as the dodo?
how many species did t-rex hunt to extinction? what counts as a species?
seriously. get your s*** together, researchers. get it all together in one place.
How much of that Moose do you use to feed your family. What do you do with the rest? I think the biggest problem isn't that we hunt and eat animals, but the fact we let so much food go to waste. Often just because of cultural norms.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There are no innocents without a concept of morality. They can resume eating each other alive without any concept of innocence or guilt without disturbance by man at some point, until that time we are the apex predator.
We generally treat our cattle nicer than do the lesser predators.
If it's like with deer around here, almost all of it. Steaks, burger and sausage. Bones and offal for the dogs. Hide sold for leather and antlers have various uses. Not much left.
Don't project your cultural norms onto others.
Lies, damnable lies, and Statistics...
Most of this stuff global destruction environmental science PR is pretty contrived anyway. They have a tendency to over do the emotionally fabrication and wording when trying to make their point. It generally ends up with "we are all going to die!" or there abouts...
Problem though is when you do this, eventually you run out of space for the hype or dire consequences and your support wanes. It's sort of like taking drugs, where once a little was enough to get high, it starts taking more and more. Eventually you cannot take more because it will kill you or there simply isn't any more to take. Same with environmental emergency madness. Once you get to "we are all going to die!" there simply isn't much more you can use that's worse....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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).
If you don't clean the guts out of a kill, pretty much immediately, much of the meat will be ruined and go to waste. Dropped in the woods the guts are scavenger food, not wasted.
You don't hunt, do you?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Most of this stuff global destruction environmental science PR is pretty contrived anyway... Once you get to "we are all going to die!" there simply isn't much more you can use that's worse...
Yeah, there's some truth to this, but I don't think you can lay it all at any one group's feet. Some scientist does a study on earthquakes, and finds that the worst case scenario of one model is that the world will have a short period of high seismic activity sometime in the next 100 years. When he publishes his study, he makes a special note of that result just to make it a little more sensationalistic. Then some reporter becomes aware of the study, and writes a news story about how the world is definitely going to be overrun with earthquakes for the next 100 years. That story gets onto news aggregation sites (like this one), and people don't even read the article, and then you have a bunch of people arguing about the ironclad proof that the world will explode within the next 10 years.
The science of the original study may have been solid. It may even be that the conclusions and predictions of the study were pretty good. Or not. We'll probably never find out, since the world won't explode in 10 years, and then everyone will say that the study was bunk.
0.01% of life by weight is currently humans, but we've killed 83% of mammal species... by species count? individuals?
Individuals. RTFA.
what percentage of mammal species does humanity account for? by weight or by head count?
36%, by head count. RTFA.
what about other groups? insects? viruses? reptiles?
They 'measured' marine mammals (80%), plants (50%), fish (15%). RTFA.
Get your shit together, AC. Get it all together and put it in a backpack.
Earth's Land Mammals by Weight: https://xkcd.com/1338/
Explained: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wi...
It references a 2002 book: "The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change".
So, while this topic is very important, I'm not sure what in the study is actually "news"? Maybe the low percentage of ocean biomass (which I feel is hard to believe)?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If we put our mind (and stomach) to it, we can eat anything into extinction.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
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.
If you found out that HUMAN blood was being used in fertilizer...let me guess, you'd have a problem with that, right?
And why not, exactly? Medical blood has a limited lifetime and then has to be thrown out.
I am surprised majority of biomass isn't in the ocean, but only 1%? That number has to be wrong. All the bacteria in the abyssal sludge alone is more than 1% of the worldwide total I'd bet. How did they get such a low number for the ocean?
0.01% of life by weight is currently humans, but we've killed 83% of mammal species... by species count? individuals?
Individuals. RTFA.
Says a guy who didn't read the actual paper and is guessing?
That percentage was calculated from this line in the actual (not made-up) report:
The Report:
"Human activity contributed to the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction between 50,000 and 3,000 y ago, which claimed around half of the large (>40 kg) land mammal species (30). The biomass of wild land mammals before this period of extinction was estimated by Barnosky (30) at 0.02 Gt C. The present-day biomass of wild land mammals is approximately sevenfold lower, at 0.003 Gt C."
100*(1 - 0.003/0.02) = 85%, not exactly the 83% quoted but within the accuracy of the estimate.
what percentage of mammal species does humanity account for? by weight or by head count?
36%, by head count. RTFA.
The paper is entirely done with biomass estimates. Why are you BSing everyone?
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