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Comment by mrarjen | Hacker News Reader

Correct, I think it would be more effective having this change on a production level where farmers and scientists possibly work together to make meat production more sustainable by for example beter utilizing and extending grass lands in barren regions. Trick is to not make the meat more expensive...

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What's needed is a carbon tax. Yes this will make meat (among other things) more expensive, but it is generally offset by the tax savings.

Yea because taxing carbon will magically get rid of it! \o/

Strawman. No one is arguing that it would magically get rid of carbon. However, incentives and prices work. If we had a global tax on carbon that accurately reflected the externalities, carbon emissions would plummet.

Why not ?! It seems the most effective way to change peoples habits is still prices.

If it's more expensive the less eco friendly ways of making meat will be consumed instead.

Such as? You think if meat in the US doubled or tripled in price there’d be a black market that would overwhelm those gains? I really doubt that you have any evidence for that.

I mean the bio meat market for example. Here (netherlands) any bio product is more expensive on average, and the cheaper non bio products are cheaper, so guess what meats are consumed more?

I'm guessing that you mean "organic" here (since e.g., the French word for organic foods is "biologique").

You're talking past each other because he is imagining some kind of more sustainable meat coexisting with traditional production in the market and you're imagining only this new kind of meat being available for purchase.

If you fob off prices to consumers you do risk creating a two-tiered society where the one class consumes just as much meat as ever and the other no longer has it, which doesn't seem like an ideal/equitable solution.

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