Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing

Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by ansible on Friday August 25, 2017 @04:23PM (#15101882)

My favorite bit about this is from a lecture by Daniel Dennett. 10K years ago, Humans and their associated animals (livestock, pets) accounted for less than 1% of the land animal biomass. Now, we account for 98% (mostly cattle).

This has had a drastic effect on the biosphere.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by mikeash on Friday August 25, 2017 @06:42PM (#15102848)

Should that be 98% of land mammals? Because I think the insects still outweigh us by quite a lot.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by Gustomaximus on Friday August 25, 2017 @08:47PM (#15103438)

I looked it up as the 98% felt quite wrong. Amazed to see the amount earthworms made up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by mikeash on Friday August 25, 2017 @11:28PM (#15103902)

I had no idea either. I guess earthworms are mostly beneath (heh) our notice.

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