Environment

Mass of artificial objects on Earth may now outweigh living things

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Mass of artificial objects on Earth may now outweigh living things

Humanity is tipping the scales

Itai Raveh

There may now be more buildings than trees and more plastic than animals, in terms of mass, as humans are creating things faster than nature can produce .

Ron Milo and his colleagues at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have estimated the mass of all artificial and living things on the planet. They say that 2020 may be the year in which humanity’s creations outweigh the biosphere.

“We are really at the cusp of the transition where around us are more human-made things than living things,” says Milo.

The …