Resources
Planetary impact: the mass balance
A third of the 85 Gt extracted is added net to the technosphere; the rest dissipates as heat, CO₂ and waste. Human-made mass overtook all living biomass in 2020.
The mass pulled from the ground each year does not vanish. Some leaves the system as heat, CO₂, waste and food; the rest is added permanently to the technosphere as concrete, steel, brick and asphalt. But the “visible” mass is only half the story: the energy spent per tonne, the waste rock moved and the planetary threshold crossed are also on Layer 0's balance sheet.
The fate of what is extracted
A single year's total extraction, split by permanence: the stock-capable part (concrete, steel, brick) and the part that dissipates within the year.
What the technosphere is made of
The mass composition of the 1.100 Gt accumulated so far. Concrete and aggregate are the overwhelming majority.
The thermodynamic cost: energy and waste rock
The economy does not destroy the resource; it moves it from high concentration to irreversible disorder. That move has two measurable costs: a steadily falling energy return and a steadily rising volume of waste rock.
Energy return, EROI
How many units of energy are returned for one unit invested. As it falls, a larger share of the fuel goes into extracting the fuel itself.
World average copper ore grade
At 0.6% grade and 88% recovery, 190 tonnes of ore are milled per tonne of refined copper; the waste rock stripped to reach the ore is usually 2-5 times more.
Deep time: formation time ↔ consumption time
Humanity is liquidating geological depth layers in reverse chronological order. Near-surface strata renew on the solar cycle; the deeper you go, the further formation time passes beyond human perception, while consumption time is instantaneous.
Photosynthesis, soil, forest mass, surface aquifers. Synchronised with the solar cycle, renewable.
Coal (mostly Carboniferous, 300-360 Mya), crude oil and gas source rocks, limestone beds.
Banded iron formations (1.8-2.5 Bya), platinum-group layered intrusions, hydrothermal copper vents, deep rare-earth reserves.
A year of fossil-fuel use carries energy equal to about 400 years of net primary production of all current land vegetation. Formation is geological, consumption is instantaneous.
Technosphere ↔ biosphere balance
The dry weight of human-made objects has, for the first time in history, overtaken all living biomass on the planet.
crossed over ≈ 2020 (± 6 years); the technosphere roughly doubles every 20 years. Concrete and aggregate are about three quarters of the technosphere's mass; the rest is brick, asphalt, metal and plastic.
The total mass of plastic ever made (8 Gt) exceeds the combined mass of all land and marine animals on Earth.
Planetary boundaries
Nine processes that hold the Earth system in balance; how many have moved outside the “safe operating space”.
The physical base grows quietly: each year the technosphere gains new mass equal to 2,7% of everything accumulated before it. Formation is geological, consumption is instantaneous, and that mass cannot be put back.
Layer 0 methodology · §12 →