Weighty Matters

Scientists at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science have been weighing things up! The balance has clearly tilted too far away from the natural world (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/18/a-wake-up-call-total-weight-of-wild-mammals-less-than-10-of-humanitys). These scientists have estimated to total weight of the planet's wild land mammals is around 22m tonnes. This figure is less than 10% of the combined weight of humanity, coming in at around 390m tonnes. The total weight of current human-domesticated animals (like sheep, cattle etc) plus 'our' urban rodents (e.g. rats and mice), is some 630m tonnes. Indeed, the biomass of the planet's pigs is nearly double that of all wild land mammals! These figures emphasise that this really must be the Anthropocene era (the geological time, when humans are, by far, the most powerful influence on the planet's flora and fauna). Humans currently have greater impact than a colliding asteroid. Humans have effectively transformed most of the planet's natural habitats and wild spaces, into a vast global plantation. This situation is clearly unsustainable. Biogeochemical cycles need to remain intact, inorder to maintain environments. For that to occur, the Earth needs animal, bacterial, fungal and plant diversity!