Seven billion, six hundred million. That’s roughly the number of human beings currently living on Earth. At the moment, that number appears to be growing at about 85 million a year. On the other hand, humans represent just 0.01 percent of the planet’s biomass. One set of numbers might seem very large. The other may seem small—though 0.01 percent of all life on earth converted into one type of complex animal is itself an astounding number. But according to an article from the Guardian, an article in the Guardian there maybe another number that better reflects the role humans have played when it comes to life on Earth.
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.
If the number of people on the planet seems immense, the numbers of the things we raise to eat are also mind boggling. In fact, some of the numbers aren’t just astounding, they’re absolutely terrifying.
The new work reveals that farmed poultry today makes up 70% of all birds on the planet, with just 30% being wild. The picture is even more stark for mammals – 60% of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals.
Think about that. Every goose and duck, parrot and pidgeon, hawk, eagle, and crow, every starling in flocks that span the sky … is outnumbered more than two to one by overstuffed, engineered birds who live their lives crammed into cages with the goal of landing on a plate.
And on the mammal side. Four percent. Four.
Even that biomass number is deceptive. Almost all of that is plants and bacteria. Every complex creature that lives in the ocean, from snails to whales, is one percent of that total. With that in mind, the percentage of mass that makes up humans seems very, very large.
In science fiction, there’s a recurring meme — in many shows or books they’re called replicators. In Iain Banks’ Culture novels they get the slightly more interesting name of Aggressive Hegemonizing Swarms. Either way, they’re the same thing: Assimilators; creatures that mindlessly convert everything they can find into copies of themselves.
It’s easy to see why the idea is so common. We can find them in the mirror.