As the biomass decreases, the man-made stuff is only increasing.

For the first time this year, there may be more man-made stuff on Earth than living plants and animals. Researchers have come to this conclusion in a new study published in the journal Nature. This is not only because we manufacture more and more stuff, but also because the biomass as a result of human activities continues to decline, according to Israeli scientists.

Doubled
The fact that we are making more and more stuff is no big surprise in itself. But the speed with which that happens is. The researchers calculated that the volume of all things produced by humans has doubled every 20 years in the past 100 years. This finding underscores the increasing impact humans have on the globe.

Biomass
At the same time, the biomass is constantly decreasing. Since the Neolithic Revolution (the period in which the first agricultural revolution took place), man has even halved biomass through agriculture and deforestation. It decreased from about 2 teratons (2,000,000,000,000 tons) to the present value of about 1 teraton.

Bandage
In the study, the researchers linked these two factors. They did this by estimating the changes in global biomass and human-produced stuff from 1900 to now. What seems? At the beginning of the twentieth century, the volume of all the stuff produced by humans was equal to about three percent of the total biomass. Today it is different. According to the researchers, we are now exactly on the dividing line. The year 2020, they say, could mark the point where the mass of all things produced by humans begins to surpass the mass of all plants and animals on Earth.

Weight
The researchers come to some fairly alarming discoveries. For example, it appears that during the period studied, the total biomass decreased slightly, while the anthropogenic mass increased rapidly. At the moment, stuff is even being produced at a rate of more than 30 gigatons (30,000,000,000 tons) per year. For your imaging: that means that the total weight of every person on earth is now added weekly in the form of things.

Stuff
The team found that buildings and roads make up most of the mass produced by humans. Other examples are plastics and machines. In addition, we have also seen changes over the past 50 years that contribute to the observed increase in human-produced mass. Consider, for example, the shift in the mid-1950s from brick houses to houses made of concrete. And in the 1960s, more and more roads were built of asphalt. In addition, the shifts in the total anthropogenic mass have been linked to major events, such as the continued increase in construction after the Second World War.

Although it looks like we have now crossed the line and so for the first time there are more man-made things on Earth than living plants and animals, the researchers are still cautious. There may be some variability in the estimates, they note. But it is a fact that the growth of man-made goods continues to increase. If current trends continue on the same footing, the researchers expect that the mass generated by humans will even exceed 3 teratons by 2040.

Did you know…

… We currently live on a very big footing? For example, Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 22 this year, which means that in just eight months, we used up the raw materials the Earth can produce in a year. In 2019 it fell even earlier; on July 29. In a sense, we live on credit for the rest of the year. As a result, we exhaust our natural reserves and, moreover, we live on raw materials from future generations. In other words; we use more ecological resources than nature can regenerate through deforestation, soil erosion and loss of biodiversity. In addition, more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere than forests can extract. The latter leads to climate change and more frequent extreme weather events. However, if we were to cut back our fossil fuel emissions, Earth Overshoot Day would be much later in the year.–
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