[ad_1]
The giant human footprint stamped around the world in 2020 is greater than the impact on the planet of all other living things, research suggests.
The amount of plastic alone is greater by mass than all land animals and sea creatures combined, the study estimates.
While humans might believe in “the vastness of the globe and the seeming infinity of the natural world,” the researchers say they wanted to provide an objective and rigorous measure of the reality of the balance between man and nature.
His research shows that human activity, including the production of concrete, metal, plastic, bricks, and asphalt, has brought the world to a crossover point where man-made mass, driven primarily by increased consumption and urban development , exceeds the general living biomass on Earth.
On average, every person in the world is responsible for the creation of human matter equal to more than their body weight each week, says the article published in Nature.
The research found that the seal of humanity has grown rapidly in size since the early 20th century, doubling every 20 years.
Researchers support a proposal to name the current epoch Anthropocene, reflecting the abrupt and considerable impact of human activity.
Ron Milo of the Weizmann Institute of Sciences in Rehovot, Israel, and his colleagues examined changes in global biomass and human mass from 1900 to the present. They calculated dry weight estimates, excluding water. Anthropogenic mass is defined as mass embedded in inanimate solid objects made by humans and does not include waste.
The dominant categories in the analysis were man-made mass in the form of buildings and infrastructure, composed of concrete, aggregates, bricks, and asphalt. Regarding global biomass, most of it corresponds to plants and shrubs.
They found that in the early 20th century, the mass of human-produced objects was equal to about 3% of the world’s total biomass. But in 2020, the man-made mass reached around 1.1 teratonins, exceeding the total global biomass.
As man-made mass has increased, so has the impact on plant biomass. “Since the first agricultural revolution, mankind has reduced the mass of plants by about half,” the authors write. “While modern agriculture uses an increasing area for growing crops, the total mass of domesticated crops is vastly outpaced by the loss of plant mass resulting from deforestation, forest management, and other changes in the use of land. Earth. These trends in global biomass have affected the carbon cycle and human health ”.
Over the decades, there have been rises and falls in human impact, including sharp increases after the switch in the 1950s from bricks to concrete and the use of asphalt for paving in the 1960s.
“Changes in the total anthropogenic mass are linked to global events such as world wars and major economic crises,” the document says. Most notably, there are continuous increases in human mass of more than 5% per year since the immediate aftermath of World War II, which became known as the “great acceleration” and was characterized by increased consumption and urban development.
On the contrary, in times of recession, the weight of the human footprint decreases. Key declines are seen during the Great Depression and the 1979 oil crisis.
“The face of the Earth in the 21st century is affected in an unprecedented way by the activities of humanity and the production and accumulation of human-made objects,” say the researchers.
Since 1900, the total biomass has decreased slightly, while the artificial mass has increased rapidly at a production rate of more than 30 gigatons (30,000,000,000 tons) per year. If human production continues at this rate, the weight of our impact will exceed 3 teratonins by 2040.
“This study adds to recent efforts to quantify and evaluate the scale and impact of human activities on our planet,” the document says. “The impacts of these activities have been so abrupt and considerable that it has been proposed that the current geological epoch be renamed the Anthropocene. Our study rigorously and quantitatively supports this proposal “.
