Skip to main content


Earth has more livestock than humans, wild mammals & birds combined.

Visualizing the Biomass of Life by scientific illustrator Mark Belan ⬇️ #science #art

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

@mspro Two instant impressions: Viruses have most effective mass-impact ratio (from their point of view). And too few birds left!
This entry was edited (9 months ago)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

This entry was edited (9 months ago)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

that's pretty obvious you would need more food than people otherwise people starbe
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

is there a similar graphic that shows the portion of plant biomass that is made up of domesticated plants, especially crops?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Ok, that's interesting, but what's up with all those freaking nematodes?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

@lisamelton and here we are, a few billion oafs, ruining everything for everybody and everything.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I'm genuinely surprised to see that plants have double the biomass of bacteria, since the latter would have been my bet for the top spot. I also would have guessed more terrestrial arthropods, but I guess we should be lucky that Earth no longer has high enough oxygen concentrations for those eagle-sized dragonflies and lizard-sized centipedes.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

The US has 2.5 billion pounds of red and poultry meat in pre-sale price maintanance storage. This article images the size of the storage.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/24/17606958/meat-cheese-surplus-visualized

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I wonder where pets are in this graph. Are they part of the livestock category?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Here it is in multiple bar chart format, by me, quite a few years ago now. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-05/chart-of-the-day-plants-rule-carbon-weight-of-life-on-earth/10069684
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

that is not a picture of sustainability.

to the small proportion of humans who will ever see the image, consider the implications of your own behaviours pictured. consuming animal products is the single perpetuator of the problem. which means for an individual there is one choice: fund this problem or defund this problem.

unsustainable means it has an imminent end. we will either end it by wilfully changing our behaviours, or it will end by collapsing our food systems.

Lo, thar be cookies on this site to keep track of your login. By clicking 'okay', you are CONSENTING to this.