Anthroponumbers.org: A Quantitative Database Of Human Impacts on Planet Earth

Abstract

Over the last 10,000 years, human activities have transformed the Earth through farming, forestry, mining and industry. The complex results of these activities are now observed and quantified as "human impacts" on Earth's atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and geochemistry. While myriad studies have explored facets of human impacts on the planet, they are necessarily technical and often tightly-focused. Thus, finding reliable quantitative information requires a significant investment of time to assess each quantity, its methods of determination, and associated uncertainty. We present the Human Impacts Database (www.anthroponumbers.org), which houses a diverse array of such quantities. We review a subset of these values and how they help build intuition for understanding the Earth-human system. While collation alone does not tell us how to best ameliorate human impacts, we contend that any future plans should be made in light of a quantitative understanding of the interconnected ways in which humans impact the planet.