Striking Graphs That Show Humanity’s Domination of the Earth

Humans are killing this planet. Carbon levels are going up. The number of chickens doesn't count when it comes to the amount of biodiversity.

To comprehend and tackle those problems, scientists and policymakers need data that shows how Homo sapiens has changed the entire Earth. The Human Impacts Database is a collection of critical figures from sea level rise to the number of calories we get from animal products.

Rachel Banks is a biophysicist at Caltech and one of the lead authors of a paper describing Hu. We want to keep these numbers up to date and grow the database, but we also want to understand the Earth systems better.

Go to the database and look around. Banks and her colleagues combed through a lot of information sources to find figures that ranged from measuring atmospheric processes to energy usage to mining. You will find patterns if you spend a lot of time with HuID. Earth's systems are closely linked. RobPhillips, a physicist with Caltech and the Chan-Zuckerberg BioHub, says that a couple of key narratives emerged. One of them is what we eat. Where do we find our water? The final one is about power. It is a big part of the story if you follow the three threads.

I was lost in HuID for a long time. The graphs from the report that show their growth over time help illuminate those three threads.

First and foremost, global warming.

Since 1850, global surface temperatures have been rising due to humans loading the atmosphere with carbon. They are 1.1 degrees warmer than they were before the Industrial Revolution. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep that temperature below 1.5 degrees C. It is important to note that some places are warming faster than others. Warming 4.5 times faster than the global average is due to the darker underlying waters absorbing more of the sun's energy.

The sea levels are rising.

In terms of millimeters above average sea level since 1900, glacier melt drives up sea levels.