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posted by janrinok on Monday December 11 2017, @10:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the my-cold,-dead-animal dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday December 11 2017, @10:30PM (2 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday December 11 2017, @10:30PM (#608488)

    Oh, yes, I still have 4 canines and a whole set of tastebuds.
    Meat is already expensive, but there's a nice piece of steak waiting at home. I've got low electric and gas bills, I drive a very sober car, I earn the right to my dead cows!

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 11 2017, @11:29PM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday December 11 2017, @11:29PM (#608532)

    A (potentially) interesting thought experiment I did the other day: calculate how much citrus acreage my family personally consumes. We buy and drink a lot of orange juice, maybe 2 gallons a week on average. So, ~100 gallons a year, and how many oranges does it take to make ~100 gallons of juice? It works out to something between 1 and 2 acres of orange grove (of course distributed around the globe) that my family "leases" from the juice production industry at a price of about $600 per year. Pretty damn good deal including harvesting, juicing, distribution and warehousing, especially considering that county taxes on the acreage we own in "juice country" run about $300 per acre for empty land, though the grove owners pay less than $30 per acre due to "Ag exemptions."

    So, run that same thought experiment on beef, and the average red-blooded, burger eatin', middle class family probably consumes about one good sized cow a year, and that cow needs forage that runs somewhere in the same region of 1 to 2 acres, but I think the retail price runs more like $2400 for 800 lbs of burger meat... but somehow the ranching families in juice country manage to cry poor to the counties, they don't even break even on their cow-calf operations, they just do it as a hobby.

    --
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    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @01:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @01:45AM (#608577)

      Check your math at auction prices. Those little cow-calf operations are being quite deliberately driven out of business. Don't forget the costs of animal handling systems, fuel related to haying and various veterinary costs and specialty supplements and all the costs attendant slaughter (if you can even get a slaughter house to acknowledge you exist for under 100 head) ... the whole thing is a much bigger mess than you seem to think.