{"id":5856,"date":"2018-06-15T04:50:14","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T04:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/?p=5856"},"modified":"2023-04-24T23:06:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T23:06:00","slug":"humanity-and-hegemony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/humanity-and-hegemony\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanity and hegemony"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve always been shocked by humanity&#8217;s outsized impact on the earth. After all, we&#8217;re recent arrivals on the scene and there are far fewer of us than most animals and insects. We shouldn&#8217;t have affected big things like ecosystems yet, right?<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8220;simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>One of the study&#8217;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):<\/p>\n<p>> 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. &#8211; Professor Ron Milo<\/p>\n<p>[Another way to look at it](http:\/\/pbfcomics.com\/comics\/amends\/):<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/pbfcomics.com\/comics\/amends\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/BpxkSZ67PyC69dDSYv76dCaqcinQs8H3jqpfQ6-UvWa9oq9OgZVw9LM4fiXDaowU__qUuBIL5i3XBP8mXKgY7ZjvmJMdRRinQKWxpm0shbylM_8Z7neZjuYBVtIkvhI5Qop20p3CAoPsO3LUsA1fFP5Cw4Hjhg_9WitrhzYmLCnH2Q3NKQF-jlKq_-_vCly0_GP1Zeam4qJGA25K-h_vPVm_Z5IB4h29nXSJqo2DqIwwjArGrb6DrpeKM3LofurkouXZv9_aa_33becSuuA0zQEUmCvX6HlacnVT2pHhCFf_efEH0t9wc2k1oRpTb1drQh929Mz7-Pq6oFojWEYJfcDtmuLvbtGQQ9ayF2wAAt7p6-W716CSIu3EETxPy58ky8mMT2nU0h1Vg_lUFRiZyATmYs1HS7cA0ilCwtiFnyJ1xhyxzzJX3QQo_nmQ14K_vxXvMOlZweF9Ii8fGSP3mxFROnYcQq8ijugp-nw04GUDI2JmzD-KuJekqTfsNAIMGBU09u6u2FmqoEn9JcNu3kKHyOMDvv4zOeI17s_5lw2_QhKfmamtSHfhowOxx1zdqOMBOA-V4yXbf68D0YibMURVpiFTEYXQqG8HwRCN=w814-h1560-no\" alt=\"\" style=\"height:800px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve always been shocked by humanity&#8217;s outsized impact on the earth. After all, we&#8217;re recent arrivals on the scene and there are far fewer of us than most animals and insects. We shouldn&#8217;t have affected big things like ecosystems yet, right? Yet a new study found that [humans have destroyed 83% of all wild mammals&#8230;<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/humanity-and-hegemony\/\">more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[365,376,381],"tags":[358],"class_list":["post-5856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology","category-nature-2","category-sustainability","tag-tagged"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wjHJ-1ws","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5856"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5859,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5856\/revisions\/5859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}