We are eating up the planet at the expense of other species

The increasing appropriation of nature’s resources by humanity is eating up natural habitat and therefore happening at the cost of other species.

To put the numbers in perspective, all life on Earth weighs about 550 gigatons (carbon content). Animals weigh about 2 gigatons of which humans take up just 0.06 gigatons. In other words:

Humans make up about 0.01 % of life on Earth but could end up using 44 % of nature’s energy flow by 2050. No wonder, other species are disappearing at a rate 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.

The majority of life on Earth is plants that weigh in at around 450 gigatons of carbon content.

What is the primary production of nature?

Primary production is defined as the formation of chemical energy in organic compounds by living biological organisms. An example is the process of photosynthesis whereby energy sourced from sunlight is used to transform inorganic compounds into simple organic molecules. The photosynthesis captures an estimated 3,000 exajoules per year in biomass.

What is Human Appropriation of Net Primary Productivity?

We are dependent on nature’s production of energy for food, timber, fuel and so on. Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP) is a measure of the percentage of nature’s global net primary production that humans use for food, timber, fuel etc. It also includes the loss of potential primary production as a result of land use by humans.

The flow of energy from nature is limited. Once appropriated it cannot be used again. So it matters a great deal how much of nature’s production humans use.

Our use of nature doubled in the 20th century

From 1910 to 2005 HANPP doubled from 13 % to 25 %. By 2050, human appropriation of nature could almost double again and reach 44 %. It could also remain relatively stable and reach 28 % but this requires that the use of biofuels does not increase significantly. This does not seem likely since the use of solid biofuels (that includes wood) has grown 84 % between 2010 and 2020.  

Impact per capita is going down

Although human appropriation of nature is increasing, there is also good news. HANPP has been growing at a far slower rate than population and the economy. When HANPP doubled between 1910 and 2005, the world population grew by 274% and the world economy by a whopping 1,655%. 

The average HANPP per capita has declined from roughly 3.9 tons of carbon per person per year to 2.3 tons of carbon. HANPP per dollar of GDP (1990 USD) declined almost 90 % from 2.5 kilogram of carbon per USD to 0.3 kg.