Breaking Down: Collapse Daily Episode 140 - Anthropogenic Mass to Overtake Biomass
Mar 26, 2026
Discussion of humanity's material growth overtaking Earth's biomass. Exploration of how pharmaceutical waste reaches rivers and persists. Accounts of endocrine disruption in wildlife and species declines tied to drugs. Concerns about antibiotics in waterways promoting resistance and contaminated fish affecting food safety.
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Childhood Camping Trips Highlight Lost Wild Places
- Kory recalls multi-day scouting trips as a child where reaching relatively untouched nature required long drives and hikes.
- He contrasts that memory with today’s expanded human footprint that makes truly untouched places harder to find.
Human-Made Mass Is Now Comparable To Global Biomass
- Anthropogenic mass is growing exponentially and already exceeded dry biomass between about 2013 and 2020.
- The paper projects total human-made mass will outweigh all living (wet) biomass sometime between 2030 and 2037, doubling in ~17 years.
Teratons And Manhattan Islands Make The Scale Real
- The study uses teratons (one trillion metric tons) to convey scale, equating one teraton to ~8,000 Manhattan Islands.
- Between the dry- and wet-biomass crossover the anthropogenic mass roughly doubles, illustrating rapid material accumulation.