When you weigh all life on Earth, say some scientists, billions of humans don’t amount to much. Perhaps this is a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. Those who study the creation may have forgotten the purposes of its Creator. They compare human biomass to that of trees, earthworms, even viruses—and conclude that the human race is inordinately throwing its insignificant weight around.
A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that plants are the real heavyweights on Earth. They outweigh people by about 7,500 to one, making up more than 80 percent of the world’s biomass—a sciency term for living matter. The report goes on to show that all of humanity living today adds up to about one ten-thousandth of the life (in weight) on the planet. The number was determined by estimating the dry weight of the carbon that makes up the structure of all living things.
Bacteria are nearly 13 percent of the world’s biomass. Fungi—yeast, mold, and mushrooms—combine for about two percent. These estimates aren’t exact, says study author Ron Milo of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. But he claims they give a sense of proportion. The study also says that humans have an outsized impact on their fellow creatures. Since civilization began, humans have contributed to cutting the total weight of plants by half and wild mammals by 85 percent. The scientists’ assumption is that humans have no right or reason to alter nature’s proportions.
Believers realize, however, that Creator God established everything in the Earth for His purposes. His primary purpose was to have a people for Himself. Genesis 1:28-30 tells how He gave the biomass He made to nourish humanity and other creatures. He delighted to give His world to humankind, to tend it and to create from it—not simply to leave it untouched.
The report suggests that human existence on Earth is at best insignificant and at worst harmful. The first is a deception, and the second, while true in cases of carelessness and greed, is not entirely outside God’s purposes of human stewardship.
Harvard evolutionary biology professor James Hanken says, “The fact that the biomass of fungi exceeds that of all animals sort of puts us in our place.” But does it? Is size or weight really the measure of human worth?
Not according to God. Consider John 3:16. God loved humanity as much as Himself. He assigned people the value of His own Son’s life. All the biomass on Earth can’t offset the value of Jesus the Redeemer, who took on mass (Philippians 2:7-8) to equate our worth with His own life.
