How much more can it take? Is there a limit on the amount of weight we can add to this planet?
2006-10-24 14:39:58 · 9 answers · asked by SHACHA 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Apart from the fact that we are made of Earth materials, the Earth itself is 20 TRILLION times the mass of all the people put together.
I can show you the calculation if you like. Our effect on the earth would be about the same as a colony of fleas on Mt Everest.
Are you not aware that we live on a very thin skin of existence. The biosphere we live in is like the skin of an apple to the apple, and we only live in the very lower few hundred metres of the atmosphere.
The atmosphere weighs 5000 trillion tonnes, but is just 1 millionth the mass of the solid Earth.
You have to get things in proportion. Ants and termites weigh more than the human race.
The largest animal mass is oceanic planktonic life - the minute lifeforms that form the base of the food chain in the oceans. These combined are thousands of times heavier than the human race, otherwise how would all the creatures in the oceans survive.
2006-10-24 16:23:14 · answer #1 · answered by nick s 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most of the stuff we're made of was already here so we don't contribute any additional weight really. However, as to the motion of the Earth, if we all gathered at one particular spot on the planet then there should be some disturbance in the motion of the planet due to changes in the mass distribution which changes the moment of inertia.
2006-10-24 15:46:47 · answer #2 · answered by minuteblue 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The mass of the planet isn´t increasing in basic terms because the variety of persons is. the elements we are made from, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and so on, has been right here making up the burden of the international when you consider that if formed. The carbon dioxide we exhale is produced as we metabolize the nutrition we devour by technique of oxidizing it with the oxygen in the air. And that oxygen and the nutrition replaced into produced by technique of in most cases plant life that eat the very CO2 a human, or animal, exhaled. using the carbon in the CO2 they then produce organic and organic textile that we may be able to then devour. And as a byproduct they launch the oxygen we opt to stay. So there is no more advantageous carbon dioxide. It´s all part of a organic and organic gadget. Even the CO2 that we launch when we burn fossil fuels were part of the biosphere once in difficulty-free words 1000's of tens of millions of years in the past. That CO2 is a topic because its unexpected go back to the ambience will modify the elements. yet no longer the earths orbit. And it is amazingly not likely that, compared to the burden of the international itself, an choppy distribution persons human beings on one part of the international might want to have any result on the rotation on the international. in spite of each and every thing there have been large herds of enormous dinosaurs roaming the international that can make todays migration of wilder beasts seem as if a fly crawling on a window. And the international didn´t shift in its orbit.
2016-12-05 04:59:04 · answer #3 · answered by farha 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
OK, 6*10^9 people, each at 75 kilograms (an overestimate) gives a total of 4.5*10^11 kilograms for all of humanity. The earth has a mass of 6*10^24 kilograms. This means that peopleaccount for a fraction of 7.5*10^(-12) of the total mass of the earth. This is less than a billionth of one percent of the total.
2006-10-24 15:33:53 · answer #4 · answered by mathematician 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No limit. We can keep adding whatever we want. Besides, it's not like we're contributing more mass - we convert planets and animals to build our bodies as we grow, so we're using mass that is already here. We're not adding new mass by having more kids (but stuff falls on Earth from space, adding new mass, every day).
2006-10-24 14:44:09 · answer #5 · answered by eri 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Nope. Because we got all this weight by eating other stuff. So the earth as a whole isn't adding weight, its simply being transferred from our food to us.
2006-10-24 14:43:11 · answer #6 · answered by Westward 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Hi. Those 6 billion people are made of stuff that was already here.
2006-10-24 14:42:18 · answer #7 · answered by Cirric 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Since people are comprised of earth's matter, the amount of mass does not change no matter how many people are born.
2006-10-24 19:45:00 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
No, it would not make any difference. Check out this link for an expert opinion on this subject.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_155
2006-10-24 14:43:43 · answer #9 · answered by Sabina 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋