While the exact beginning of this era is debatable, there is no denying that humans have become a dominant force on this planet, altering every other form of life through our actions. This revelation comes as no surprise to many who consider that humans have already ushered in a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene – the age of humans, a term popularised by Nobel Laureate and chemist Paul Crutzen. "Life on Earth is affected in a major quantitative manner by the actions of humans." "The finding that anthropogenic mass – human made stuff - now weighs as much as all living things, and the fact that it keeps accumulating rapidly, gives another clear perspective on how humanity is now a major player in shaping the face of the planet," says Professor Ron Milo, whose laboratory conducted this study. The Weizmann Institute study estimates that on average, each person on the globe now produces more anthropogenic mass than his or her bodyweight every week. They revealed that for the first time in human history the former has either surpassed the latter or is close to doing so in coming years. If left unchecked, is there a risk that human consumption may finally turn the Earth into an uninhabitable world? Do we have it in us to stop before it is too late?Ī team of researchers from Weizmann Institute of Sciences, Israel, recently published a study that compared human-made mass – aka anthropogenic mass – with all the living mass, or biomass, on the globe. For every bit of this material we use, there is a growing web of global actions that is slowly stripping human's emotional health, depleting Earth's resources and degrading our planet's habitats. Just look around – you are inseparably surrounded by material objects – whether they are needed in your life or not. And paradoxically it is a consequence of human life itself. It's driven by the immense human desire for material consumption.
Yet, unknown to many people, a new global threat capable of destroying life itself is brewing in the shadows of our everyday lives. And each of these have taken a devastating toll on our planet's life in the past. Asteroid impacts, supervolcano eruptions and climate change have all received the Hollywood treatment. Among the many global catastrophic risks known to humans, some are entertained in the media more than the others.
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