The Mass of Buildings, Machines, and Roads will exceed that of Trees in 2020

The year 2020 will mark a before and after in many aspects.  One of them will be the moment in which the mass created by the human being exceeds the total biomass.  According to a new study, the volume of buildings, roads, and machines has been doubling every 20 years in the last 100 years, while the plant mass has been reduced by half.

According to scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Sciences in Israel, materials of anthropogenic origin have doubled every 20 years during the last century.  The trend will continue, and they foresee that this artificial mass will reach two teratons, that is, two trillion tons, by the year 2040. “In the study, we show that the anthropogenic mass now exceeds the living biomass.  To illustrate this, we show that the mass of buildings and infrastructure in general, is now greater than the mass of all trees and shrubs together,” says Emily Elhacham, first author of the research and scientist in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. 

The study, which reflects a snapshot of the current panorama of our planet by calculating the dry and wet weight (excluding water), suggests that the mass created by humans will double within 20 years to the living mass, now situated at slightly more than a teraton, which is trillion tons. At the beginning of the 20th century, this mass-produced by society was equivalent to only 3% of the total biomass.  How did you go from that smaller percentage to an equivalent mass in just over a century?  Not only has the number multiplied during these years, but the objects that have been produced far exceeded the population growth. 

Anthropogenic mass increases, plant mass decreases

Thus, scientists reveal that for each person living in the world, an amount of anthropogenic mass greater than their own body weight is produced, on average each week.  This increase has been notable especially since the 1950s, after World War II, when building materials such as concrete and aggregates became more and more accessible. 

“This is a massive and symbolic quantitative characterization of the Anthropocene.  Given the empirical evidence on the accumulated mass of human products, we can no longer deny our central role in the natural world.  We are an important player and that comes with a shared responsibility, ” says Elhacham.

The productive acceleration of the middle of the 20th century continued its course over the next six decades.  The materials used for the construction of houses and single-family flats, roads, and office buildings are now the main source of this artificial mass. The imbalance between natural and anthropogenic mass has also been produced not only by the exponential increase of the artificial mass, which currently occurs at a rate of 30 gigatons per year but also because human beings have reduced plant biomass by half since the beginning of agriculture, through changes in land use such as deforestation.

“This shows the extent to which our global footprint has extended beyond our individual ‘shoe size’.  Once we all have these shocking numbers before our eyes, I hope that we can, as a species, take responsibility,” concludes Ron Milo, lead author of the work and researcher at the Israeli Institute.

What does this word mean?

Anthropogenic – Also known as “man-made”. Activities or changes that result from human actions. For example, Deforestation is a common environmental issue that is caused by human activity. 

Anthropocene – Similar to the word Anthropogenic. But it’s a geological age where human activity is a great impact/influence on climate change and(or) environmental changes.

Teraton – A measurement that measures the strength of a certain explosion based on the number of how many trillion tons of TNT would be needed to make the energy equivalent to the explosion.