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, 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.