Unexpectedly large impact of forest management and grazing on global vegetation biomass–Karl-Heinz Urb, Nature
This letter to Nature, submitted November 2016 and published January 2018, reviews a meta-analysis of existing and potential (without Man) stocks of carbon on the Earth and indicates that we have lost half of global biomass since humans began to change the environment by deforestation and cultivating crops. This suggests that, in order to prevent further deterioration of carbon dioxide atmospheric levels, we must apply reforestation on a giant scale. The apparent loss of global biomass indicates that we have lost respiring, carbon dioxide-fixing organisms, which leads to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
This surprising finding suggests that we are in a deeper hole than we currently believe. There is more evidence here than meets the eye, and it is bad news.
Conrad Theodore Seitz 