70% of all birds on earth are farmed poultry

Melancholic is definitely how you will feel after reading the study «The biomass distributions on Earth» by Yinon M. Bar-On, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. But melancholic is NOT what we want you to be. Be determined, instead, and act by re-adjusting you diet according to your conscience. Why? Because numbers are not on our side and they are showing us that changes need to be done.

It all starts by the affirmation that in spite of the fact that humans make up only a tiny part of all life on the planet, their impact upon biodiversity and wildlife is enormous. According to the study we have just mentioned above, the 7.6 billion humans on earth (equated to just 0.01 percent of all the world’s inhabitants) have caused the loss of 83% of all wild animals and 50% of all plants, since civilization was established. A great part of this loss is due to livestock farmed for human consumption. In other words, we do not just kill the animals we use for food, but we are actually devouring the whole planet!

• 70% of all birds on earth are farmed poultry, whereas those that are living in the wild are just 30%.
• 60% of the mammals on earth are livestock (mainly cattle and pigs), 36% are humans, and 4% of the living mammals on the planet are wild animals.
• And what about marine life? Well… 300 years of whaling industry have led us to an 80% decline as far as life n the oceans is concerned.

«I would hope this gives people a perspective on the very dominant role that humanity now plays on Earth» Professor Ron Milo from the Israeli Weizmann Institute of Science, who led the work, told The Guardian, and he added «I have not become vegetarian, but I do take the environmental impact into my decision making, so it helps me think, do I want to choose beef or poultry or use tofu instead?» – and with that last question determination and nutrition re-adjustment come up again… It is all in our hands or -better said- on our plate.

Photo: Nighthawk Shoots via Unsplash