Thanks Vasco for writing this post and being open minded to evolve viewpoints—much appreciated.
Do you have thoughts on whether long term it would be preferable for net suffering to have more cropland with higher amount of nematodes per sq/m etc supporting a given population size with current per capita animal consumption levels, vs relatively more consumption of land efficient alternatives to animal products, enabling higher human population and greater amount of urban/suburban land ie—with less nematodes per sq/m.
I am confident increasing the consumption of at least beef increases agricultural land, thus decreasing the animal-years of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails, despite decreasing the human population due to being less healthy. Eating 85 g of red meat is associated with losing 1 microlife, 30 min. I speculate the causal effect is 1⁄3 as large, which implies eating 100 g of beef shortens one’s life by 11.8 min (= 30*1/3*100/85), 2.24*10^-5 year (= 11.8/60/24/365.25). For the global agricultural land per capita in 2022 of 0.60 ha, that implies a decrease in agricultural land of 0.134 m2-year (= 2.24*10^-5*0.60*10^4), or 1.34 m2-year/beef-kg (= 0.134*1/0.1). The urban land per capita in 2015 was 257 m2-year (= 1.91*10^12/(7.44*10^9)), so the decrease in urban land would be 0.00576 m2-year (= 2.24*10^-5*257), or 0.0576 m2-year/beef-kg (= 0.00576*1/0.1), only 4.30 % (= 0.0576/1.34) of the decrease in agricultural land, and therefore negligible. The decrease in agricultural land due to decreasing the human population is only 0.411 % (= 1.34/326) of the increase in it needed to consume the beef. So increasing the consumption of beef increases agricultural land.
Thanks Vasco for writing this post and being open minded to evolve viewpoints—much appreciated.
Do you have thoughts on whether long term it would be preferable for net suffering to have more cropland with higher amount of nematodes per sq/m etc supporting a given population size with current per capita animal consumption levels, vs relatively more consumption of land efficient alternatives to animal products, enabling higher human population and greater amount of urban/suburban land ie—with less nematodes per sq/m.
Thanks, Simon!
I am confident increasing the consumption of at least beef increases agricultural land, thus decreasing the animal-years of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails, despite decreasing the human population due to being less healthy. Eating 85 g of red meat is associated with losing 1 microlife, 30 min. I speculate the causal effect is 1⁄3 as large, which implies eating 100 g of beef shortens one’s life by 11.8 min (= 30*1/3*100/85), 2.24*10^-5 year (= 11.8/60/24/365.25). For the global agricultural land per capita in 2022 of 0.60 ha, that implies a decrease in agricultural land of 0.134 m2-year (= 2.24*10^-5*0.60*10^4), or 1.34 m2-year/beef-kg (= 0.134*1/0.1). The urban land per capita in 2015 was 257 m2-year (= 1.91*10^12/(7.44*10^9)), so the decrease in urban land would be 0.00576 m2-year (= 2.24*10^-5*257), or 0.0576 m2-year/beef-kg (= 0.00576*1/0.1), only 4.30 % (= 0.0576/1.34) of the decrease in agricultural land, and therefore negligible. The decrease in agricultural land due to decreasing the human population is only 0.411 % (= 1.34/326) of the increase in it needed to consume the beef. So increasing the consumption of beef increases agricultural land.