Humans Use 83 Percent of Earth's Surface

belloc writes "CNN is reporting on a Wildlife Conservation Society report that states that humans take up 83 percent of the Earth's land surface to live on, farm, mine or fish. The article rerers to a WCS human footprint map, but the WCS site seems to have been CNN'd. Funny: I just got back from a little road trip across the southwest, and from all the nothing you see out there, you would think that 83% is a bit high. I guess Arizona farmlands must look a lot like wild, untouched desert."

Hmmm

[gowen]

They use the Earth's surface to fish? Now that is a technological breakthrough worth discussing...

Statistics

[Doomrat]

95% of statistics are wildly inaccurate or out of context.

only 83%?

[User 956]

We've only got 83% of the globe? God must be disappointed. [inhymn.com]

83%!?

[teamhasnoi]

Sally Struthers is responsible just for that!

The truman show

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me of the movie, "The Truman Show" where Truman wants to be an explorer and his teacher pulls down a map and says, "Awww, you're too late, everything's been explored already."

--
Lookerup.com - your technology resource.

Fishing on Land?

[aikido_kit]

Fishing for LANDSHARK!!!

Homerism

[quitcherbitchen]

Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14 percent of all people know that.

Re:Statistics

[CaffeineAddict2001]

No, no your data is all wrong.

Recent scientific studies conclude that only 99.723% Of statistics are made up.

Re:Hmmm

[unicron]

Yeah, but the article says "land area". Whenever I attempt to fish on land I don't get shit. Except land sharks, but that's a whole other story.

Re:Hmmm

[Frothy Walrus]

yeah man, didn't you hear about that invasive species of Japanese that can flop on land for fifteen miles and fashion crude tools out of stones, twigs, and beer empties? they practically own the eastern seaboard at this point. i hear the govmint is giving subsidies to fishermen and poachers too...

In other news ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

... bacteria use 99% of the Earth's surface for, er, bacterial purposes ...

Re:The other 17%

[Tablizer]

1. Find the other 17%
2. Exploit it
3. PROFIT!

Surface of Earth

[weird mehgny]

It's actually infinite (coastline paradox).

83% doesn't compute.

Re:In other news ...

[daeley]

This reminds me of a great sig:

9 out of 10 doctors say the 10th should just mellow out.

Re:Hmmm

[nautical9]

What... you mean you don't feed your family with Squirrel Fishing [harvard.edu]?

Re:Crap

[jamirocake]

"First of all, drive through Nevada"

Ah! yeah I forgot about the naturally grown highways!

Re:Hmmm

[Dr Caleb]

Fish farms come to my mind...

How deep do you have to plant them?

What A Coincidence!

[istartedi]

According to this guy [google.com], 83% of all statistics are made up on the spot. However, a broader Google search revealed that this figure is in much dispute.

You're using the wrong bait...

[raretek]

Squirrels tend to go for neutral colored lures, while birds like brightly colored lures, worms, and salmon eggs. Dogs will bite on just about any type of meat/meat byproduct, and humans, well, you just put a dollar on the hook and you see if you don't nab yourself a couple...

Re:what a skewed article

[archeopterix]

But those areas are not very productive ecologically/economically- not much potential for farms at the south pole.

You have your data wrong. Penguin farming has a scientifically proven 57.13% return on investment within the first year and is generally regarded (87% professional business consultants attest to that) 'the next big thing' in world economy.

Re:Incorrect summary

[YrWrstNtmr]

the more shocking claim is that humans appropriate directly or indirectly 40% of the NPP of world as a whole. That's a hell of a lot of caloric consumption by any standard.

Well..there ARE a hell of a lot of fat people around.

Way to ruin EVERYTHING.

[de_boer_man]

Great. Now they've published a MAP showing exactly where there is NO human footprint. All the filthy rich have to do now is look at the map, point at a green spot and say, "Build my new mansion right... THERE."

Don't they know that they'll do better if they keep it a great big secret. Then the dumb rich people will keep building and developing right by all of the other dumb rich people. But NOOOOOOOO. They have to go and make it easier for people to find and destroy pristine areas.

Dumb Filthy Rich Person: WHAT??? Nobody has developed Alaska yet??? Build me an oil derrick right... THERE. And... THERE. And... THERE. (etc.)

WCS: NO!

EPA: NO!

Sierra Club: NO!

Dumb Filthy Rich Person (to large lawfirm): Take this immense pile of money and make it happen.

WCS: Um...

EPA: Hey, give US some of that money!

Sierra Club: Crap! Stupid WCS idiots.

Re:83%

[Gamasta]

For sure: bacterial life dominates 100% of earth's surface. Why should we pride about 83%?

It's like, bacterial life is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It's kinda like CowboyNeal...

---
Don't mind if I quote The Matrix. Wait until Matrix Reloaded comes out, then I'll change my quotes.

Arizona, Untouched?

[MrNybbles]

Funny: I just got back from a little road trip across the southwest, and from all the nothing you see out there, you would think that 83% is a bit high. I guess Arizona farmlands must look a lot like wild, untouched desert."

Arizona is not that void of human contact. With over *5,130,632 people living here, cattle ranches (Yes, cows somehow live out here), ATV trails, and people walking through the national parks around here, it's a wonder that not everything has been touched yet.

Here are some reasons to come over and put your human footprint on Arizona.
1) The Grand Canyon (A big hole in the ground.)
2) The Mine Tours of actual old mines. (A trip through a big hole in the ground.)
3) Kartchner Caverns (A walk through a big hole in the ground.)
4) Old Tucson Studios (A themepark-like place based on when people came to Arizona to dig holes in the ground.)
5) Sedona, Arizona (A beautiful city where you can take jeep tours to help disturb nature.)
6) Tombstone, Arizona and other ghost towns. (Where people use to live when they dug a bunch of holes in Arizona.)
7) Biosphere 2 (A big artificial hole above ground)

http://www.pr.state.az.us/parkhtml/kartchner.html
http://www.oldtucson.com/
http://www.sedona.net/
* http://www.census.gov/census2000/states/az.html
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?ds_na me=DEC_2000_SF1_U&geo_id=04000US04&qr_name=DEC_200 0_SF1_U_DP1

I think Carlin has it right.

[tarawa]

I agree that articles like this are silly and most likely unprovable. But I think George Carlin has it right about most hardcore enviromentalists.

"We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet? I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me. " -- George Carlin

Re:what a skewed article

[leroybrown]

6,500,000,000 people
give each person 4 square feet of space
1 square mile = 27,878,400 square feet
6,500,000,000 / 27,878,400 = 233.1 square miles

therefore, you can fit the entire population of the world in 234 square miles. i did a little calculating one day at work about how many chickens humanity could eat in one year: http://www.leroybrown.com/chickens.html

The problem with environmentalists...

[xyzzy-ladder]

I am so sick of hearing these environmental groups with their warning about pollution. 86% of environmentalists admit they make up statistics. As Reagan said, most pollution is caused by trees, but these liberals want to stop trees from getting cut down! It's a known fact that the few environmental problems we have were caused by Bill Clinton.

Instead of listening to these eco-terrorists, let's look at statistics put out by industrial lobbying groups. Unlike the near-communist environmentalists, corporate lobbyists are truthful 99.999% of the time. Most corporate lobbyists say that the threats of pollution and diminishing wilderness are pure fantasy, I'll trust the CEO of GE over some tree-hugger any day!

Remember when the liberals created that big scare about smoking causes cancer? The tobacco companies lost millions due to these lies, even though the tobacco companies had scientific research showing that smoking actually IMPROVES your chance of getting certain diseases after age 80.

Every time a tract of virgin land is conserved, one more child must do without adequate marketing opportunities. Don't let the liberals steal our children's future!

Talk radio, here I come!

Bandwidth

[Jonny Balls]

As long as the people of earth are not hogging up 83% of my bandwidth... i am happy!

Let's get out there!

[Cade144]

You heard the study, folks! Only 83% of the earth's land surface is being used!

Shake a leg, get the lead out, you lazy maggots!

Let's get those figures up, Up, UP!

If we all work at it, we can get those inhospitiable arctic and antarctic zones as well. If we just melted off that antarctic ice cap, we could get our hands on some prime, untouched realestate.

Get motivated, people!

Yeah... like Tux Racer

[DaedalusLogic]

Fish naturally spin about a foot off the surface of the earth naturally... They're worth about 100 points and when you catch one it makes an amusing noise.

On another note that first map looks extremely bogus. Download and look at it... PDF file. I think it gets the general trends right but I'd like to know EXACTLY where all this data is coming from. The chart lists quantities which I assume to be people per square mile or kilometer... Also the accuracy of data that you collect in third world nations is suspect because they have more things to worry about than counting people accurately...
Also city regions like Miami and LA are made to look sparse compared to Cuba... The ENTIRETY of Cuba is ~11,200,000... Just looks odd...

Figure too low

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi!

My group of sophisticated scientists and researchers have discovered that the WWFs statistics are entirely too low.

Of the entire surface currently inhabited by man, 99.99% has been used by man! These are INCREDIBLY HIGH and ACCURATE numbers!

I do also admit that there is a 0.01% margin of error.

The WWF is flawed and I have proven this. I recommend reading news supplied by the WWE over the WWF. They have much more valuable and influential things to say.

Arizona

[rppp01]

Let me tell you about arizona farms.

They are mostly used to raise dirt and rocks. Sometimes scrubs, as they are worth a lot in the black market. But, we arizona farmers are after the ripe harvest of dirt. Good, clean dirt, too. None of this wet 'mud' stuff everyone else seems to prize. Sure, it doesn't grow much, but that's exactly what we want. We can then harvest it, and then lay it down in front of our houses for a wonderously rocky/sandy type of look. Oh, and don't forget, it brightens things up a bit, too.