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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: 2) by number11 on Tuesday December 12 2017, @01:38AM (2 children)

    by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 12 2017, @01:38AM (#608571)

    If the people of the world want to pack themselves into high-rise cities, fine, let they eat paste.

    One of the benefits of owning and caring for your own land is the harvesting the "fruits of the land." Now, if I want to commercially exploit my land and sell beef into the cities, then, sure, tax the hell out of that.

    If, however, I just want to live on my land and take my own animals for food... I don't think that's leading to any environmental crises, in-fact quite the opposite. If the people in the cities each owned enough productive land to support their own personal beef habits, the effect would be the same - at some point, the city either stops eating meat, or stops growing.

    Reasonable. Of course, there are also costs associated with living in the boondocks with a ton of space. So perhaps we should let those people pay the full cost of the roads, power grid, internet, transportation for food and goods they don't grow, etc., instead of subsidizing them up the wazoo. At some point, an equilibrium will be achieved between the rural people who can have cheap meat and lodging, and the city people who can have cheap everything else.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @01:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @01:41AM (#608573)

    Yup. A good start would be getting rid of all the rules and regulations telling them they can't do that.

    Lord knows we wouldn't want them durn rednecks gettin' all uppity and independent...

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 12 2017, @05:10PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday December 12 2017, @05:10PM (#608794)

    Agreed that rural (especially US) area are subsidized on the infrastructure front - roads being the big one, but everything else is also more expensive when you're spread apart, too. However, the stress reduction that comes from not dealing with idiot neighbors close on all sides would be well worth the cost, IMO.

    The point about the rural lifestyle is that they aren't grinding the ecosystem into grist for the mill, at least not as thoroughly as capitalist cities. Any city radically deforms the ecosystem of its urban area, even if they do provide green spaces and bird feeders. The reason I call out capitalist cities is that they drive the production of goods for the cities to the lowest possible cost, which results in maximal hiding of costs in ecological exploitation of the areas that supply the cities with food, concrete, steel, asphalt, energy, etc. These costs are hidden in pollution, destruction of habitat, depletion of resources like fresh water, etc.

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