COTW: Changing the Face of the Earth

This graphic shows how man has radically impacted the Earth.  US Person notes how little of the surface remains in a natural state (16%).  Industrial agriculture consume most of the planet's surface, producing large amounts of heat trapping gases.  Rice production, on which most of the world's population depends, produces a third of carbon dioxide emissions.  Worse still is the West's dependence on meat production that produces large amount of methane that traps ten times more heat the carbon dioxide.  Obviously not a sustainable business model.

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The charts come from a massive report by the Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel.  The Panel's report makes it perfectly clear that the way in which in man uses the Earth's surface has to change drastically.  Sustainable agriculture must replace industrialized production units, and more land (~33%) has to be set aside untouched if the worse effects of climate change are to be avoided.  Since the 1960's there is nearly an eight-fold increase in the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers, and an unprecedented loss of biodiversity. The artificial Anthropocene Era may prove to be as disastrous for the human species as the Cretaceous asteroid impact was for the dinosaurs.