[yeahbut]

It's not often I'm shocked by a statistic these days, I've read so many discussions on AGW and environmental degradation of many other kinds, oil depletion of course, population growth etc etc. However, I have to say I was stunned by this one while listening to a talk by Dan Dennet. In the late 90s, his colleague Paul MacCready (an aeronautical engineer with lifelong interest in transport efficiency and conservation issues in general), calculated that:

Around 10,000 ya at the dawn of agricultural civilisation, humans and their domesticated animals and pets accounted for 0.1% of total land-based vertebrate biomass. The figure for today? 97%!!
So animals outside of the human/human domesticates sphere, having once been 99.9% of total land-based vertebrate biomass, now are 3%.

That one actually really kicked me in the guts, and I have been searching for his original calculations, 'Paul MacCready debunked', etc with little success. Anyone familiar with this stat? Can it really be correct? What a devastating illustration our total engulfing of the biosphere.

[Keith_McClary]

Sorry, I'm too lazy to look this up, but I've read that bacteria and other microorganisms account for the vast majority of biomass.

[yeahbut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', 'S')orry, I'm too lazy to look this up, but I've read that bacteria and other microorganisms account for the vast majority of biomass.