Tax Meat To Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Say Scientists

[Purveyor]

Meat should be taxed to encourage people to eat less of it, so reducing the production of global warming gases from sheep, cattle and goats, according to a group of scientists.

Several high-profile figures, from the chief of the UN’s climate science panel to the economist Lord Stern, have previously advocated eating less meat to tackle global warming.

The scientists’ analysis, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, takes the contentious step of suggesting methane emissions be cut by pushing up the price of meat through a tax or emissions trading scheme.

“Influencing human behaviour is one of the most challenging aspects of any large-scale policy, and it is unlikely that a large-scale dietary change will happen voluntarily without incentives,” they say. “Implementing a tax or emission trading scheme on livestock’s greenhouse gas emissions could be an economically sound policy that would modify consumer prices and affect consumption patterns.”

There are now 3.6 billion ruminants on the planet – mostly sheep, cattle and goats and, in much smaller numbers, buffalo – 50% more than half a century ago. Methane from their digestive systems is the single biggest human-related source of the greenhouse gas, which is more short-lived but around 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet.

MORE...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/20/tax-meat-to-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-say-scientists/

[MH1]

1. I'd be fine with that.

And I do eat meat.

[painesghost]

2. I would too and I don't ;)

So it would be no big burden on me.

[Ken Burch]

3. Actually, you'd want to tax the people who BUY meat.

Meat can't PAY taxes itself.

[The Straight Story]

4. Guessing the money would be used to fund more wars and weapons

And the poor will pay more for meat. The rich will benefit from the tax increase as they usually do.

[Aerows]

5. Tax wealthy by removing Social Security cap

so that it affects Congressional members, too. Said no person in Congress, ever.

[LeftyMom]

6. We could start by not subsiding it,

either directly or indirectly by subsidies for crops that go almost entirely to animal feed, or by socializing the cleanup costs of industrial production.

[flvegan]

7. We'll teach them what to eat instead, right?

Part of that "tax" could go to teaching nutrition in schools, subsidizing proper food (especially in school lunches) and educating the masses that got nutritionally left behind how to eat.

Sure, folks could get taxed out of a commodity at a price point, but then what are they going to do? When ground beef (to make burgers for 3 hungry kids) goes to $6/lb that McMysterymeat at the local fast food trough is a pretty good deal.

I'm all for not eating as much meat as we do. Hell, I'm all for everyone becoming a happy vegetarian (not gonna happen, so...). But as a realist, I know full well that if the switch was made to tax meat at the enduser purchase point, our collection of shitwit congresscritters will just shift that money back to the producer. That tax on beef just became a wash because it's *that* much cheaper pre-tax because of what our bought-and-paid-for dumbfuck lawmakers will subsidize or otherwise finance on the front end.

Welcome to America.