Humanity and hegemony

I’ve always been shocked by humanity’s outsized impact on the earth. After all, we’re recent arrivals on the scene and there are far fewer of us than most animals and insects. We shouldn’t have affected big things like ecosystems yet, right?

Yet a new study found that [humans have destroyed 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study) since civilization began. And today, 70% of all birds are farmed poultry, and 60% of mammals are livestock. As the article says, we are “simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth”.

One of the study’s authors [wrote](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study):

> When I do a puzzle with my daughters, there is usually an elephant next to a giraffe next to a rhino. But if I was trying to give them a more realistic sense of the world, it would be a cow next to a cow next to a cow and then a chicken. – Professor Ron Milo

[Another way to look at it](http://pbfcomics.com/comics/amends/):