4 ms·

We've already caused it. The overwhelming majority of land mammal mass is either humans, or farm animals raised for humans to eat. Almost half of the world's la

by vkou 4y ago

We've already caused it. The overwhelming majority of land mammal mass is either humans, or farm animals raised for humans to eat. Almost half of the world's land surface is now farmland.

ThrowawayIP 4y ago
And the vast vast majority of this farmland that could be used to raise human-edible crops is used to feed domesticated animals. While humans die of starvation.
colechristensen 4y ago
> Almost half of the world's land surface is now farmland This is a BS statistic meant to shock and inappropriately counts the entire area of wilderness that might be used for grazing which is just wilderness that would have supported similar animals anyway.
- vkou 4y ago
  Managed crop monoculture, which ~half of farmland is - is not 'something similar' to natural forests, plains, grasslands, scrubland, etc. Even grazing land rarely looks anything like it does before we've shaped it for our use. And even when it does, at first glance, it gets a monoculture of animals, instead. Farmers are not keen on seeing their herds deal with competition or predation from the wild.
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    On the other hand, we have local biodiversity regulations which require certain land to be grazed and/or cut (as for hay), since the 'meadow' biomes and the associated birds and insects have adapted to the many centuries of land being farmed and can't survive if the plains aren't grazed and are left to just grow.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    > Managed crop monoculture, which ~half of farmland is That doesn't seem right. According to the FAO (United Nations), only 1.3 billion hectares of land are arable while nearly 5 billion hectares are used for agriculture. That's more like ~25%. And the latter figure only accounts for 38% of the world's land area, so the earlier half figure claim doesn't seem right either. I suppose if the margin of error on those approximations is exceptionally large...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
divbzero 4y ago
That fits the estimates from one research article: [1] 0.06 Gt C human biomass 0.1 Gt C livestock biomass 0.007 Gt C wild mammal biomass 0.002 Gt C wild bird biomass The article also estimated that “wild land mammal biomass decreased ≈7.6-fold” when comparing the world today to prehuman times [2]. [1]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1711842115 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1711842115 [2]: https://github.com/milo-lab/biomass_distribution/blob/master/animals/chordates/wild_mammals/wild_mammal.ipynb https://github.com/milo-lab/biomass_distribution/blob/master...

by vkou 4y ago

We've already caused it. The overwhelming majority of land mammal mass is either humans, or farm animals raised for humans to eat. Almost half of the world's land surface is now farmland.

ThrowawayIP 4y ago

And the vast vast majority of this farmland that could be used to raise human-edible crops is used to feed domesticated animals. While humans die of starvation.

colechristensen 4y ago

> Almost half of the world's land surface is now farmland This is a BS statistic meant to shock and inappropriately counts the entire area of wilderness that might be used for grazing which is just wilderness that would have supported similar animals anyway.

vkou 4y ago
Managed crop monoculture, which ~half of farmland is - is not 'something similar' to natural forests, plains, grasslands, scrubland, etc. Even grazing land rarely looks anything like it does before we've shaped it for our use. And even when it does, at first glance, it gets a monoculture of animals, instead. Farmers are not keen on seeing their herds deal with competition or predation from the wild.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  On the other hand, we have local biodiversity regulations which require certain land to be grazed and/or cut (as for hay), since the 'meadow' biomes and the associated birds and insects have adapted to the many centuries of land being farmed and can't survive if the plains aren't grazed and are left to just grow.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > Managed crop monoculture, which ~half of farmland is That doesn't seem right. According to the FAO (United Nations), only 1.3 billion hectares of land are arable while nearly 5 billion hectares are used for agriculture. That's more like ~25%. And the latter figure only accounts for 38% of the world's land area, so the earlier half figure claim doesn't seem right either. I suppose if the margin of error on those approximations is exceptionally large...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

divbzero 4y ago

That fits the estimates from one research article: [1] 0.06 Gt C human biomass 0.1 Gt C livestock biomass 0.007 Gt C wild mammal biomass 0.002 Gt C wild bird biomass The article also estimated that “wild land mammal biomass decreased ≈7.6-fold” when comparing the world today to prehuman times [2]. [1]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1711842115 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1711842115 [2]: https://github.com/milo-lab/biomass_distribution/blob/master/animals/chordates/wild_mammals/wild_mammal.ipynb https://github.com/milo-lab/biomass_distribution/blob/master...