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SorellaLaBefana

(509 posts)
Wed Oct 29, 2025, 12:32 PM Oct 2025

World's Biomass Human vs ...

Study: The global biomass of mammals since 1850
Abstract:
Mammals are of central interest in ecology and conservation science. Here, we estimate the trajectory of mammal biomass globally over time — including humans, domesticated and wild mammals. According to our estimates, in the 1850s, the combined biomass of wild mammals was ≈200 Mt (million tonnes), roughly equal to that of humanity and its domesticated mammals at that time. Since then, human and domesticated mammal populations have grown rapidly, reaching their current combined biomass of ≈1100 Mt. During the same period, the total biomass of wild mammals decreased by more than 2-fold. We estimate that, despite a moderate increase in the recent decades, the global biomass of wild marine mammals has declined by ≈70% since the 1850s. This provides a broader perspective to observed species extinctions, with ≈2% of marine mammal species recorded as extinct during the same period. While historical wild mammal biomass estimates rely on limited data and have various uncertainties, they provide a complementary perspective to species extinctions and other metrics in tracking the status of wildlife. This work additionally provides a quantitative view on the rapid human-induced shift in the composition of mammalian biomass over the past two centuries...

Free Open Access Nature Article at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63888-z

The infographic at the top says all that needs really be said.

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jfz9580m

(17,261 posts)
2. It's obscene-one species crassly treating a whole
Wed Oct 29, 2025, 01:49 PM
Oct 2025

Planet as solely a backdrop for humsn activity and prioritizing our most frivolous demands over even minimally decent treatment of the planet or its non-human animals:
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-humanity-wildlife-recedes-extent-human.html

I was grossed out by this 5 years ago:
https://fisherp.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/s41586-020-3010-5.pdf

Global human-made mass exceeds all living
biomass


https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5
Published online: 9 December 2020

Humanity has become a dominant force in shaping the face of Earth1–9. An emerging
question is how the overall material output of human activities compares to the
overall natural biomass. Here we quantify the human-made mass, referred to as
‘anthropogenic mass’, and compare it to the overall living biomass on Earth, which
currently equals approximately 1.1 teratonnes10,11. We find that Earth is exactly at the
crossover point; in the year 2020 (± 6), the anthropogenic mass, which has recently
doubled roughly every 20 years, will surpass all global living biomass. On average,
for each person on the globe, anthropogenic mass equal to more than his or her
bodyweight is produced every week. This quantification of the human enterprise
gives a mass-based quantitative and symbolic characterization of the human-induced
epoch of the Anthropocene.

SorellaLaBefana

(509 posts)
3. Thank you for the links you posted
Wed Oct 29, 2025, 03:00 PM
Oct 2025

I (blush) was unaware of the actual extent of human and domestic animal mass compared with the rest of the species until coming across the OP study. I simply had the vague idea that it was a lot. I'm glad that others are not so oblivious.

However, it is, to True Adherents of the various Abrahamic Religions, that this is simply the fulfillment of God’s Plan:

Genesis.1 [26-31]
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Of course, as we know from the Revealed Word, a mere 10 generations (Genesis.5) after The Creation and when a guy named Noah was just five hundred years old, God decided he had made a mistake ...

To many of us who sit in darkness, it almost seems as though—perhaps—He got it wrong second time around as well. Certainly does seem to have made an error in giving humans neither sufficient foresight to prevent destruction of the biosphere nor Planet-B for a backup.

Crunchy Frog

(28,280 posts)
4. We're choking out the planet. I can't believe that there are people who are worried that population growth is slowing.
Wed Oct 29, 2025, 04:28 PM
Oct 2025

SorellaLaBefana

(509 posts)
5. Our economic system is based upon ever expanding demand for goods and services-most easily acheived by population growth
Wed Oct 29, 2025, 05:14 PM
Oct 2025

If we continue this course, Rev. Malthus will, in spite of now over two centuries of denial, eventually be proven correct: That population will grow until reaching limits of sustainability since improvements to general living conditions have historically simply encouraged more population growth.

If one is unfamiliar with his work, this wiki article is as good a place to start as any for discussion of his 1798 book An Essay on the Principle of Population and of its evolution through his last contribution in 1826.

We chose to not add to population growth. Most of our siblings made another choice.






Response to Crunchy Frog (Reply #4)

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