Lego figures might outlast humans unless we change how we live
The world is so stuffed with plastic that there are now more Lego figures than people on the planet, according to experts.
There could now be as many as 10 billion of the durable toys compared to the 8.1 billion humans on the planet — an indication of just how rapidly humanity is producing artificial, long-lasting materials.
But the shocking statistic is just one sign of a much bigger environmental problem that could leave Lego figures the ‘last man standing’ unless humanity acts.
Humans have produced so much plastic that, if it was all turned into clingfilm, it could wrap the entire planet, according to Oxford University academic Professor Paul Behrens.
And if all the concrete ever made were spread out, it would produce a 2mm-thick layer covering the world’s surface.
Professor Behrens, an environmental scientist who is the British Academy Global Professor at the Oxford Martin School, warns that humans are reshaping the Earth faster than nature itself.
Every year since 1950, humans have shifted more earth, rock and sand than all the world’s rivers, landslides, winds and tides put together.
As a result, the total weight of human-made material — from buildings and roads to plastics and metal — now outweighs all living things combined.
Humans have altered the face of the planet, with agriculture occupying half of habitable land– the vast majority of which to satisfy our hunger for animal products.
This vast scale of human activities, in particular those in producing energy and food, along with our continued overproduction and consumption of materials is unsustainable, contributing to climate change and disrupting the Earth’s ‘life-support systems’.
These natural processes— such as weather patterns, fertile soil and fresh water supplies — are vital for life to flourish.
Professor Behrens, who is also Associate Professor of Energy and Environmental Change at Leiden University in the Netherlands, says that the effects can already be seen in extreme heat and growing pressure on farming.
And when those ecosystems collapse, the human services built on top of them like agriculture, health care, and transport may begin to break down too.
If humans continue as they are then it could trigger a global social collapse within decades, he warns.
Speaking to Oxford University biologist Professor Tim Coulson and biochemist Professor Syma Khalid on the Science of the Times podcast, Professor Behrens, author of The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science, said: “We've historically used a huge amount of materials.
“Just in terms of plastics, there are probably more small Lego people on the planet than humans. They're definitely going to last longer than us.
“If you were to add up all the plastic that we produce and turn that into clingfilm, we could wrap the planet.
“The amount of concrete that we've used so far would be enough to cover the entire surface of the Earth with about two millimetres.
“So we use an awful lot. Humans right now move more material than all the natural processes. We are a planetary changing species.
“Ultimately, we don't really know what's going to happen to politics and democracies and these big questions about how we organise society.
“But you can say physically, this is what's going to happen on the ground due to climate change. Like we know, for example, that we will have sea level rise, we will have crop failures, we will have all these things from climate change.
“We might not know exactly how and when, but we know they're going to happen.
“What the climate change impacts do is they put another layer of stress on society and then you can easily tip society over.
“Collapse is a reduction in complexity in society. So it's a simplification of things, and if we look at the society right now, we're at a very, very high level of complexity.
“When previous civilizations have collapsed, they've had to deal with these environmental pressures. They've tried to transition to other technologies and that's often failed.
“If we start getting all these supply chain disruptions, these environmental interruptions, these climate change interruptions, how far back do we turn the dial?”
For the past 11,700 years — known as the Holocene epoch — the planet’s temperature, rainfall and weather patterns have remained unusually stable.
That stability is what has allowed farming, cities and modern society to emerge.
But human activity is now pushing the Earth’s systems beyond that range. According to climate data, 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded — with global temperatures temporarily passing 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Scientists warn that a 1.5°C temperature rise — a level widely seen as the threshold for dangerous climate change — could become the norm by the early 2030s.
When that happens, rising seas, crop failures and extreme weather events are expected to become far more frequent and severe.
These environmental disruptions could push society to its tipping point.
To prevent social collapse, immediate and unprecedented action has to be taken, says Professor Behrens.
This includes dramatically scaling back the production of fossil fuels, animal foods, and carbon-intensive materials such as plastic and concrete, which contribute significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, fuelling climate change and disrupting ecosystems.
The world also needs to shift from a ‘throwaway economy’ that produces billions of tonnes of waste each year to one where products last longer and there is more recycling.
He added: “It’s exciting that the energy transition could do exactly this. Our modelling shows that the amount of mining we need to do in the future plummets if we move to renewable energies and electrify transport and heat in our homes.
“If we can ensure that we can recycle these materials then we can keep all this energy infrastructure in our towns and countries rather than relying on continuous mining of fossil fuels, only to burn it all up into the atmosphere — which is causing all the problems in the first place.
“To do this at the speed necessary, we need to be doing things in the coming years which are completely unprecedented in society to avoid these futures.
“We're making our life harder for ourselves by saying we need loads of materials. Everything that we do matters. Every action matters.
“If we don't make these transitions, what this basically means is suffering for a lot of people around the world.”
Main image: Courtesy AndrzejRembowski/Pixabay
Additional image: Courtesy, Professor Paul Behrens
Story by Belters News/ Palamedes/ The Double Agents