4 ms·

Delusions of grandeur notwithstanding, not much it seems.

eggsmediumrare 6y ago
Other than made it warmer and more acidic, added a bunch of plastic garbage and removed a significant percentage of its inhabitants, yeah I guess not much.
- frutiger 6y ago
  > removed a significant percentage of its inhabitants I was actually curious if anyone could help answer the following: (a) how one would define inhabitant (including bacteria?) (b) what the net %age change actually would be given a suitable choice of (a)
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Most studies tend to look at biomass, either on a single-species or multi-species basis. Humans have displaced over 90% of all terrestrial vertebrate biomass (land animals with a backbone). http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Terrestrial-Vertebrate-Biomass.jpg http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Terrestr... Most of the human + livestock biomass is utterly dependent on Haber-Bosch process derived nitrogen fertiliser, produced via nonrenewable natural gas (methane, a fossil fuel).
    - frutiger 6y ago
      What does displaced mean? Why are terrestrial vertebrates preferred in this analysis? Why is the horizontal scale in that chart nonlinear? What is peakoilbarrel.com? The goalposts seem to have shifted from the person I replied to.
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        Returning to your original question, I answered that biomass is a more useful metric than strict census, as biomass gives an indication of net metabolism, energy throughput, carbon fixation capacity (for plants / primary producers), and tissue synthesis and maintenance (for animals / secondary+ consumers). It's denoted by population * mean bodyweight, and normalises measures across species with wildly differing bodyweight. It avoids the trap of focusing exclusively on "telegenic megafauna" (lions, tigers, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, pandas, etc.). Vertebrates and land-based, probably because they're easier to assess. (Estimates of marine consumer biomass trends are similar though more vague and harder to pin down.) If you look at the linked chart, humans have increased net terrestrial biomass, yes, but virtually all of it now exists as just eight species: cattle, pigs, chickens, sheep, horses, goats, cas, and dogs. Variants of the original chart highlight this. https://www.survival.org.au/images/world-terrestrial-vertebrate-biomass.jpg https://www.survival.org.au/images/world-terrestrial-vertebr... That is: - Naturally-occurring vertebrate bodymass surviving on sustainable current-process nitrogen fixation has fallen precipitously, by ~99%. - Net genetic diversity within and among those populations has similarly fallen, possibly below sustainable values for many species. Numerous species have gone extinct, many previously small, some prolific (passenger pigeon). - A terrestrial vertebrate population of thousands of mammals and tens of thousands of overall species ... is now utterly dominated by about nine species. (The eight livestock/pet classes above, and humans.) A few other human symbiotes (rats, mice, deer) have also likely increased. All are dependent on nonsustainable nitrogen fixation among other nonrenewable or nonsustainable practices and inputs. - Dense and interlinked populations are breeding grounds for novel trans-species disease, among other hygenic consequences. These affect both humans and livestock. The principle can be extended to plant onocrops as well, from tobacco to trees (in the non /r/trees sense, generally).
        frutiger 6y ago
        Aha, so humans have reduced the diversity of species on the planet. That seems plausible to me (and even compatible with the original "reduced inhabitants" phrase that was used by the other poster earlier). Thanks for the all the information. I wonder if we will be remembered by future biologists as cyanobacteria are remembered by our biologists today.
staticassertion 6y ago
There are plastic bags at the bottom of the mariana trench, arguably the most remote places on the planet with regards to human exploration. It's hard to imagine a piece of the world that we haven't had an impact on.

Other than made it warmer and more acidic, added a bunch of plastic garbage and removed a significant percentage of its inhabitants, yeah I guess not much.

frutiger 6y ago
> removed a significant percentage of its inhabitants I was actually curious if anyone could help answer the following: (a) how one would define inhabitant (including bacteria?) (b) what the net %age change actually would be given a suitable choice of (a)
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Most studies tend to look at biomass, either on a single-species or multi-species basis. Humans have displaced over 90% of all terrestrial vertebrate biomass (land animals with a backbone). http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Terrestrial-Vertebrate-Biomass.jpg http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Terrestr... Most of the human + livestock biomass is utterly dependent on Haber-Bosch process derived nitrogen fertiliser, produced via nonrenewable natural gas (methane, a fossil fuel).
  - frutiger 6y ago
    What does displaced mean? Why are terrestrial vertebrates preferred in this analysis? Why is the horizontal scale in that chart nonlinear? What is peakoilbarrel.com? The goalposts seem to have shifted from the person I replied to.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Returning to your original question, I answered that biomass is a more useful metric than strict census, as biomass gives an indication of net metabolism, energy throughput, carbon fixation capacity (for plants / primary producers), and tissue synthesis and maintenance (for animals / secondary+ consumers). It's denoted by population * mean bodyweight, and normalises measures across species with wildly differing bodyweight. It avoids the trap of focusing exclusively on "telegenic megafauna" (lions, tigers, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, pandas, etc.). Vertebrates and land-based, probably because they're easier to assess. (Estimates of marine consumer biomass trends are similar though more vague and harder to pin down.) If you look at the linked chart, humans have increased net terrestrial biomass, yes, but virtually all of it now exists as just eight species: cattle, pigs, chickens, sheep, horses, goats, cas, and dogs. Variants of the original chart highlight this. https://www.survival.org.au/images/world-terrestrial-vertebrate-biomass.jpg https://www.survival.org.au/images/world-terrestrial-vertebr... That is: - Naturally-occurring vertebrate bodymass surviving on sustainable current-process nitrogen fixation has fallen precipitously, by ~99%. - Net genetic diversity within and among those populations has similarly fallen, possibly below sustainable values for many species. Numerous species have gone extinct, many previously small, some prolific (passenger pigeon). - A terrestrial vertebrate population of thousands of mammals and tens of thousands of overall species ... is now utterly dominated by about nine species. (The eight livestock/pet classes above, and humans.) A few other human symbiotes (rats, mice, deer) have also likely increased. All are dependent on nonsustainable nitrogen fixation among other nonrenewable or nonsustainable practices and inputs. - Dense and interlinked populations are breeding grounds for novel trans-species disease, among other hygenic consequences. These affect both humans and livestock. The principle can be extended to plant onocrops as well, from tobacco to trees (in the non /r/trees sense, generally).
      - frutiger 6y ago
        Aha, so humans have reduced the diversity of species on the planet. That seems plausible to me (and even compatible with the original "reduced inhabitants" phrase that was used by the other poster earlier). Thanks for the all the information. I wonder if we will be remembered by future biologists as cyanobacteria are remembered by our biologists today.

staticassertion 6y ago

There are plastic bags at the bottom of the mariana trench, arguably the most remote places on the planet with regards to human exploration. It's hard to imagine a piece of the world that we haven't had an impact on.