The world population is currently working on 8.1 billion people. That link is constantly updating to keep us all up to date. I'm not sure how, but that's what it says it's doing.
That's a lot of people, especially considering that back in the time of Cleopatra, there were only about 5 million people. However, did you know that humans only make up approximately .01% of the living things on Earth? The other living things on Earth that are more plentiful than humans are plants (especially trees) at 82%, bacteria at 13% and everything else (including humans) at 5%. Even fungi make up 2% of the world's biomass, well ahead of humans. That means there are approximately 7,500 plants for every human.
About 86% of all living things are on land. Only 1% in the oceans and the last 13% is deep sub-surface bacteria.
As for mammals, 96% are livestock and humans, meaning only 4% of mammals are wildlife. Of the 96% (livestock & humans) 60% is livestock and 36% human.
While I'm at it, of all the birds on Earth, 70% are chickens and other poultry while only 30% of the birds are wild.
These are staggering numbers that I had no idea about.
Although humans make up such a small percentage, we are the most destructive. Humans have helped with cutting down plants' total biomass by half and wild mammals by 85%. Almost half of the animals on Earth have been lost in the last 50 years.
Because of the actions of humans, some scientists believe that the Earth is on the verge of a mass extinction. Of course, they don't all believe it, and some are even ignoring the signs.
Take what you want from all this, but, at least to me, humans, supposedly the most intelligent ones, are the ones that are causing the problems of the world. And it only seems to be getting worse.
Information from: Our World in Data, The Guardian, Nature World News, Science Alert, Tech Times and Earth.com
Photo from Pixabay - Artist: Stokpic
Howdy y’all. It’s me, ninong7 aka UJ aka John. Just a short intro about myself. I am a Texan that has retired in the Philippines. I moved to the Philippines with my wife back in May 2010. I am retired from the US Air Force. The music I like is mostly Classic Country and Classic Rock. I guess you could say that I am “Classic”. I play dominoes when I can find someone that will play, I play chess, cribbage, spades, hearts, Empire Builder, Rail Baron, Acquire and a few other games. I like to write poems and stories (although pretty novice) and I love learning about history, just about any history. I’m at home on my computer a lot but if I could afford to, I’d be traveling and documenting my travels to post in my blog. I hope to get to know a lot of you through PeakD and Discord.