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this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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What is the ideal amount of biomass for humans? Same question for agricultural land. What’s the ideal amount? I’m torn between thinking this is just how things go or maybe I’m just terribly ignorant. At some point the majority of biomass was dinosaurs or something, so what? That’s the ebb and flow of life. It wasn’t the biomass of dinosaurs that caused their extinction. How do these biomass stats indicate overpopulation?
I can’t disagree with the industrial farming and overall ecosystem points you raise but the biomass bits seem awfully arbitrary.
I’d also say feeding 50% of the world’s population for 2% of the world’s energy seems pretty damn efficient.
The whole human biomass question is difficult to me. Half of humanity doesn't have access to proper toilets. I have cheap products produced by contemporary slaves in asia. Fewer people with better conditions sounds good to me.
There was an article released this year that found 2-2.5 billion humans to be the carrying capacity of the earth. I've only read the abstract though.
https://researchnow.flinders.edu.au/en/publications/global-human-population-has-surpassed-earths-sustainable-carrying/
Open access:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ae51aa
Berries in swedish forests go ungathered because the work pays so badly swedes refuse it and our new anti abuse laws stops the thai workers who did it for pennies earlier from coming here.
Good riddance, I say, people can gather their own blueberries and make their own jam - if the alternative is working conditions no one should have to suffer.
If the aim is to have no one live in squalor and have everyone live a luxurious, but preferably more eco friendly, western lifestyle then how many humans can the planet support without degrading over time?
How can we make 4-6 hours of daily paid work enough to live on, globally?
How can we change society to stop chasing growth and find a system that allows future generation a planet with wildlife, clean air and water and a temperature that humans can enjoy not just survive?
That was a weird ass study, they calculated the number based solely on historical population numbers and not any actual metrics regarding planetary capability. I have my doubts how useful a calculation that actually is.
They do use some more data than that, see my quote.
But that's still based on random points in history. Their argument is basically 'climate change started at this point, so that's where the max sustainable population is'. Which makes absolutely no sense. Technologies were different, cultural attitudes were different, yadda yadda. It's Malthusian arguments in a new (and less logical) wrapper.
If the benefits of a trade is on the back of the worker then it's not a trade. They should rise the price so they can pay enough.
Personally I'd say 10% each humans and livestock, or some similar ratio such that wildlife remain 80%.
Another option is to return as far as the proven stable number of 2 million humans total, though that would take many many many generations to do and isn't even guaranteed to be better for the environment since sometimes forest management and natural disaster response can actually be helpful.
Definitely lower than 2 billion. It's going to take a lot of figuring out since we clearly have no idea what number will bring global ecostability.
The 36℅ you cited is for Mammalians, that doesn't mean the rest of Biomass can be compared to it.
Animal Biomass is around 0.5℅, so that puts it into relation.
Also the earth consisist of 70% Water, this means Land mass is 30℅ and from that 30℅, around 46% is used by Humans.
Also Land use has been steadily falling with modern agriculture. There was a time when Europa barely had any forests left, because of the extensive agricultural need for Farmland.
I know "numbers scary", but I think a bit of contextualisation can't hurt.
NB: Ecofascism is still Fascism.
You're gonna sit there and tell me it's fine if only 5% of mammals are neither human nor livestock? That's a horrifying thought alone, it means we've consumed or destroyed all of nature that we had the capability of doing such to. We should not be the 95% under any circumstance. We should not be 50%. We need there to be nature, we need there to be a natural order.
For the record, the larger groups are fish and arthropods. That's it. Sauropsida or Reptiles and amphibians are such a small amount of biomass that they're completely negligible.
BTW, it's super cringe when you call the advocacy of women's rights and education as "Fascism". You know who else fights against the idea of allowing or promoting population decline? Christofascists and Technofascists like Elon Musk, they're pushing for population growth instead.
"(..) we need there to be natural order."
The natural order of things, does it involve a concept of degeneracy and normalcy?
Always funny how quick the mask slips.
Also humans are animals and therefore nature. There is no concept of nature versus humans, unless you enforce these boundaries to construct an ideology that needs it.
This idea of nature just means everything "that is good" is nature, which does not make sense. In that view a whale is nature, but the rabies virus is not.
Also to respond to your last sentence with an equal out of place diction.
Why can't you accept that Hubble's constant is universally equal. That is anti science.
It involves a natural slow decline in human population via methods like empowering women's rights and widely available education and upwards mobility in society. The solution that the UN came to in Cairo, Egypt, in 1995.
The fuck are you talking about with masks and normalcy?
You mean the "natural decline" that is already happening.
Also what "upwards mobility" - Capitalism is hell bent in killing us all - the upwards mobility is not the solution here.
Correct (except for the spelling), users such as you, OP, and Elon Musk are advocating against that. You're part of a movement called pronatalism.
I have used the word capitalism exactly 0 times in this discussion, so you have no reason to assume the methods of naturally reducing population has anything to do with it, stupid tankie.
I would be saddened if a serious leftist called me a tankie, because that would mean I didn't get my point across, but since you seem to be arguing from a right wing position I take it as a compliment.
0%
The equivalent of dinosaurs are mammals, not humans. But the biomass of humans isn't really the issue, resource consumption and pollution are. Even if we transition to 100% renewable energies, which we have to sooner or later, unless civilization collapses before fossile fuel runs out, we rely on countless finite resources. The more people the more of a problem that becomes.
Agriculture is part of this issue, a lot of it is currently running on depleting soil snd much of the yield multiplier is coming from oil (fertilizer and fuel). Just because in recent time agriculture performance could keep up with population explosion, doesn't mean this will be the case forever, especiall as car centric utban planning eats up fertile land at an excelerating rate and usable land for agriculture is already pretty much maxed out.
Providing everyone with a good live just gets harder with every billion more in the planet as resources are finite and exponential progress can'g go on forever.