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Scientific illustrator Mark Balen of @artscistudios has a wonderful new infographic out: The Global Biomass of Mammalian Life

And Earth is full of cows. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/biomass-of-mammals/ #SharedPlanet

Visualizing the Biomass of All the World's Mammals

When the world's biomass—the stuff we're made of—is tallied up, humans and cattle outweigh wild mammals by a massive margin.
Visual Capitalist
#sharedplanet @mark belan | sci illustrator
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Sunflower Björnskalle 🌻
Sunflower Björnskalle 🌻
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I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if we died out but they didn't... That could be something fun to explore in fiction.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Brian Hawthorne
Brian Hawthorne
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Of course, mammals represent a very small portion of total global biomass. The attached graphic is from Bar-On et Al. 2019 (https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1711842115). It shows all animals representing just 2 Gt C out over 545 Gt C total biomass, and mammals represent just 0.167 Gt C out that 2 Gt. In other words, human, wild mammal, and livestock biomass combined are literally outweighed thousands of times by the rest of life.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Brian Hawthorne
Brian Hawthorne
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Thanks for finding this!

The power of good visualizations like this is that they make it easier to see shortcomings in the original data. Looking at this illustration, I immediately noticed the absence of Reptiles and Amphibians. I thought Mark had left something out, but on looking at the original paper, I found they were also missing from the figures there, with the note: “We estimate that the contribution of reptiles and amphibians to the total animal biomass is negligible, as we discuss in the SI Appendix.” (https://www.pnas.org/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1073%2Fpnas.1711842115&file=1711842115.sapp.pdf)

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Eduardo
Eduardo
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I’m surprised that goats are above dogs. And that horses are so close to dogs.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Cykonot
Cykonot
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I still haven't fully relearned baking, but being vegan is far less sacrifice these days

If animal subsidies weren't there, it would be unequivocally cheaper. Growing food to feed your food is inefficient

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Nicole Parsons
Nicole Parsons
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The Saudis have enough money to build desalination plants & grow their own alfalfa.

Yet, instead they went cheap & grow it in Arizona for export to Saudi Arabia.

Why?

Unless this has little to do with cattle & more to do with the real estate money laundering so common between OPEC & Republican billionaire donors?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/24/jared-kushner-new-york-russia-money-laundering

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/us/politics/trump-organization-oman-saudi.html

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-company-fondomonte-arizona-ground-water-crop-alfalfa/


Saudi company draws unlimited Arizona ground water to grow alfalfa amid drought

Foreign-owned farms are shipping the crop to Saudi Arabia, where it's illegal to grow because it takes too much water.
Ben Tracy (CBS News)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Geeden_Of_Arden
Geeden_Of_Arden
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Without the humans, there would be no for all that cattle.
I just saw this week that fossil fuels account for 40% of global freight.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Jesse
Jesse
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"Humans share the world with ~6495 other mammals..."

Surely they mean ~6495 _types or species_ of other mammals? 😅

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