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Like tobacco, carbon emissions and sugar, we can expect the harm to human health and the environment caused by the production and consumption of meat to be mitigated by 'sin taxes'in the next five to ten years.
"Sin taxes" on meat to reduce its huge impact on climate change and human health look inevitable, according to analysts for investors managing more than $4tn of assets.
The global livestock industry causes 15% of all global greenhouse gas emissions and meat consumption is rising around the world, but dangerous climate change cannot be avoided unless this is radically curbed. Furthermore, many people already eat far too much meat, seriously damaging their health and incurring huge costs. Livestock also drive other problems, such as water pollution and antibiotic resistance.
A new analysis from the investor network Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (Fairr) Initiative argues that meat is therefore now following the same path as tobacco, carbon emissions and sugar towards a sin tax, a levy on harmful products to cut consumption. Meat taxes have already been discussed in parliaments in Germany, Denmark and Sweden, the analysis points out, and China's government has cut its recommended maximum meat consumption by 45% in 2016.
Would you pay a "meat tax" or would you change your eating habits?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 12 2017, @08:24PM (1 child)
So the takeaway should be that Malthus's model doesn't work in our current world. It's broken. Globally from the developed world on down to the poorest African country, we see huge drops in human fertility and birth rate to the extent that population growth has been almost linear (which indicates declining exponential rate over that length of time) for seven decades. While it's tenuous, we're seeing predictions of global negative population growth globally in every continent and country by 2100 (perhaps several decades earlier, with Africa being the last holdout) without any sort of disaster, disease, or other calamity needed to drive the population reduction.
At this point, we should be thinking about how to expedite the process rather than sin taxes on irrelevant behavior some people don't like.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 12 2017, @08:36PM
Thank you for also taking the time to restate your opinions, khallow.
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