we generate enormous amounts of excess capacity and waste very rapidly and then simply displace it onto distant habitats in order to keep it out of sight and mind.
In fairness, the other apes also tend to walk a little bit away from their nesting sites before they poop. The reason there aren’t great big mounds of orangutan poop visible from space is probably more due to the fact that there aren’t 8 billion orangutans all pooping at the same time than anything else.
The reason there aren’t great big mounds of orangutan poop visible from space is probably more due to the fact that there aren’t 8 billion orangutans all pooping at the same time than anything else.
The vast majority of human waste is generated by a fraction of that 8 billion. The Sentinelese Islands aren’t causing climate change.
That’s not even to say that primitive man wasn’t an ecological force. A great part of the Holocene Extinction came about during the Hunter-Gatherer phase of human existence. But mass migrations and displacements of native species aren’t unheard of in prior epochs. The bigger problem came with post-industrial development, wherein our share of “poop” ballooned from 320 pounds of fecal matter to 2000 pounds of excess plastic waste per capita. Its this 7x increase in volume of junk that’s causing us problems, not the short term jump in the number of subsistence farmers in central Asia.
In fairness, the other apes also tend to walk a little bit away from their nesting sites before they poop. The reason there aren’t great big mounds of orangutan poop visible from space is probably more due to the fact that there aren’t 8 billion orangutans all pooping at the same time than anything else.
And now I’m picturing 8 billion orangutans all pooping at the same time. Thank you.
George Orangutanwell - Nineteen Eighty Fur
The vast majority of human waste is generated by a fraction of that 8 billion. The Sentinelese Islands aren’t causing climate change.
That’s not even to say that primitive man wasn’t an ecological force. A great part of the Holocene Extinction came about during the Hunter-Gatherer phase of human existence. But mass migrations and displacements of native species aren’t unheard of in prior epochs. The bigger problem came with post-industrial development, wherein our share of “poop” ballooned from 320 pounds of fecal matter to 2000 pounds of excess plastic waste per capita. Its this 7x increase in volume of junk that’s causing us problems, not the short term jump in the number of subsistence farmers in central Asia.
to what end do they generate all of this waste?
National recreational travel and industrial-scale armed conflict.