Of Materials and Men
On a planet with a diameter of 12,700 km, a mass of 5.9 trillion (1 followed by 21 zeros) tons, moving at a speed of 107,000 km/h around the sun, an average human weighing 62 kg can feel very small. Yet humanity affects the composition of Earth's atmosphere and climate and mobilizes huge amounts of matter every year. Indeed, if the total mass of humanity (500 million tons) is insignificant, the mass of its infrastructure is far from it.