I think the human impacts on wild animals are primarily through agricultural land use, fishing and climate change, and most of these are largely affected by human diets (although climate change possibly dominated by fossil fuel use). Maybe also environmental pollutants/contaminants/toxins and forestry (I haven’t really looked into these). I’d guess the effects from the land humans take up in cities, towns, villages, etc., is not significant compared to these, based on Our World in Data.
For moral weights across animals (including humans):
I don’t know if the above covers all the strongest arguments for humans mattering substantially more than nonhuman animals, and I’d guess it doesn’t cover many such arguments in much detail. I don’t know off the top of my head what to recommend.
On animal effects, I would recommend:
For farmed animal and wild animal effects and population sizes, with some emphasis on those related to human diets:
Many essays in https://reducing-suffering.org/#animals (although note that these are primarily from a suffering-focused and basically negative utilitarian perspective)
Maybe especially https://reducing-suffering.org/#humanitys_impact , https://reducing-suffering.org/vegetarianism-and-wild-animals/, https://reducing-suffering.org/trophic-cascades-caused-fishing/ (and others in https://reducing-suffering.org/#fishing ) and https://reducing-suffering.org/how-many-wild-animals-are-there/
http://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2013/07/vegan-advocacy-and-pessimism-about-wild.html
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wMIa6bAn4rfCAzBAsKlHBH9X3gmo8pjn/edit from https://www.invinciblewellbeing.com/research
Various posts at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/meat-eater-problem
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SvbZtETGenTkZni8C/where-does-most-of-the-suffering-from-eating-meat-come-from
I think the human impacts on wild animals are primarily through agricultural land use, fishing and climate change, and most of these are largely affected by human diets (although climate change possibly dominated by fossil fuel use). Maybe also environmental pollutants/contaminants/toxins and forestry (I haven’t really looked into these). I’d guess the effects from the land humans take up in cities, towns, villages, etc., is not significant compared to these, based on Our World in Data.
For moral weights across animals (including humans):
https://reducing-suffering.org/two-envelopes-problem-for-brain-size-and-moral-uncertainty/
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/848SgRAKpjbuBWkW7/why-might-one-value-animals-far-less-than-humans
RP’s moral weight sequence (disclaimer: I work at RP, but am not speaking for them here), some posts are still coming out.
https://reducing-suffering.org/is-brain-size-morally-relevant/
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2jTQTxYNwo6zb3Kyp/preliminary-thoughts-on-moral-weight
I don’t know if the above covers all the strongest arguments for humans mattering substantially more than nonhuman animals, and I’d guess it doesn’t cover many such arguments in much detail. I don’t know off the top of my head what to recommend.