Fact File 006 - Our Ever Expansion

There is only one animal in this world which has managed to successfully shape the entire world to suit its personal needs. I am of course talking about humans, and you only need to look around exactly where you are sitting to see to just what extend we have as a species managed to change this entire planet.

Today’s fact file will be focusing on construction! Stretching from the first permanent structures built to the modern day super skyscrapers humans have always been adapting and creating their own personal habitat.

• Humans are always attempting to build higher, this is for a couple of reasons, the first of which is to create more space in areas where there are limitations, more recently however it has become a show of wealth, power and technological advancement. The tallest man made structure for 3800 years was the Great Pyramid of Giza which was only over taken in 1300 by the completion of the Lincoln Cathedral. Each new tallest building after that was only marginally higher than the last and it wasn’t till modern times that records began to be broken by significant amounts. The reason for this is due to restrictions of the materials available, cost and the effort required to create such structures. Solutions to these problems were found with steel and super strong glasses which was a lot lighter, power tools and other mechanical inventions and finally growing economies. These advancements have allowed for the Burj Khalifa (current world’s tallest building) to be built at a height of 830m.

• As a species humans do not only build up we also build out, in fact an estimates 200 billion square meters of land is covered in concrete. This make up about 0.18% of the earth’s total surface area, which might not actually sound all that much but it’s more than double the amount of land which is covered by fresh water. You also have to take into consideration that 71% of the earth’s total surface is covered in water and so unavailable to truly build on.

• To finish of the three axis humans are also expanding down, basements, mines and shelters are all becoming bigger and bigger. Recently (1^st June 2016) the world’s longest and deepest traffic tunnel was opened in Switzerland which runs for 57.09km (for the traffic) and has a total of over 151.84km of tunnels ranging up to 2,300m below the surface of the Alps.

• Putting an environmental cost on all is activity is extremely hard. Currently forgetting about all the destructive effects of construction (due to the fact that it is almost impossible to quantify the exact amount of damage) and focusing on the emissions it is still nearly impossible to put numbers to it all. This is because of all the different emission contributions, so to bring it all the way down to the primary product of concrete. 1000kg of concrete will on average produce 927kg of CO₂ which is a staggering amount. Can you find any other figures to help quantify it?

So although the modern day era of construction with concrete and steel is a marvel of human adventure and technology, it is clearly having a huge impact on the natural world. Sadly there isn’t much to be done about this as with growing populations there will always be a need for more structures. You can personally attempt to reduce your impact however by using environmentally friendly products in your personal DIY products and reducing the amount of concrete you use for instance when creating  new drive way etc.

Thanks for reading!

Check out this video from Red Bull