The 2020 Census counts 331 million people living in the USA.

Worldwide there are now almost 8 billion. Which means the United States represents just 4 percent of the total global population.

China and India, with nearly 3 billion people combined, make up about a third of total population.

Researchers also recently calculated a global biomass census to compute the total weight of all things living on Earth.

Biomass is measured in metric tons of carbon because all living things are made of carbon compounds. One gigaton is a billion metric tons.

The weight of all organisms on Earth is estimated at nearly 550 gigatons of carbon.

Plants make up the majority of it at 450 gigatons. They’re more than 80 percent of Earth’s biomass.

Bacteria and fungi together are 80 gigatons, another 15 percent of total biomass.

Animals of all kinds account for just half a percent. Of those, insects and fish are about 1 gigaton each.

And the nearly 8 billion humans? We make up just 6 percent of that—one ten-thousandth of all biomass on Earth.

We’re just one species out of 8.7 million, but we have an outsized impact on nearly every other species, and environment, on Earth. And a responsibility to care for it.