Do humans make the world heavier?

Question

I just dont understand how more humans being born can equate to the planet being exactly the same weight.

Please can somebody explain this as simply as possible or am i missing something obvious here.

Answer 1

People are made out of what is on the earth already so all they are doing is redistributing the existing mass, Most of it to America admittedly......

Answer 2

Yes you are missing something obvious. In order to grow, any organism has to consume other organisms as food. So each human is in essence made up of the things he or she ate. It's more complex than that, but that's it in a nutshell.

Answer 3

The new humans don't come from outer space, they are made of the materials the Earth is made of. Plants take their water and nutrients from the ground, animals (inc. humans) take theirs from plants and other animals and use them to build their bodies.

All materials people are made of come from the Earth, so in sum it all evens out.

Answer 4

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I'm sure you've heard this expression before ;-)

Humans "appear" out of the earth's elements, thus substracting from them, and when they die they return those elements back. Nothing is given or taken away in the long run.

Answer 5

Because every one who is born is made from food.

And the weight that a child gains by growing is by eating more food

So overall the weight of the planet stays the same.

Answer 6

People are made out of material already present on the earth so an increase in the human population doesn't result in an increase in planetary mass, just a redistribution of where that mass is.

Answer 7

No only asteroids and comments do. Our mass which makes up our body has always been here