The Case for a Carbon Tax on Beef | Hacker News Reader

The Case for a Carbon Tax on Beef

nytimes.com

52 pointscageface66 comments

I was thinking about a more interesting policy around this; let’s give everyone a meat quota (at some sustainable level) and allow them to trade their quota for cash or buy more. This would make meat very expensive but would also mean if you are going to bother it had better be good meat and additionally might be a way to supplement the income of poorer families and people... just a thought.

Ignoring transaction costs, that system is equivalent to a tax where the revenue is dispersed on a per capita basis.

All it does is increases transaction costs for no benefit (that I see). Also, it's pointless to care about the distribution effects of individual policies rather than overall government transfers.

There is a reflexive anti-tax “starve the beast” mentally among many. A common argument is “they claim the purpose of the tax is to [achieve goal X], but really they just want more revenue.”

Even if a cap and trade system is economically equivalent to a carbon tax, it might be more politically palatable because it doesn’t use the tax mechanism.

I mean, if you can trade your meat coupons for cash, why not just use cash in the first place?

Because it allows everybody access to the same quantity, while rewarding those who abstain.

That sounds like UBI.

You're just giving an equal handout (that's equivalent to cash) to everybody.

You're glossing over the additional nuance, I think, of the proposed solution giving everybody equal access to a limited meat ration.

Is meat so different than other carbon producers like air travel, electronics manufacturing, or others? I think what you are proposing boils down to basic income and carbon taxes if you take it far enough.

It's the difference between a carbon tax on meat and carbon permits (cap and trade) on meat.

Ahh, yeah it would be more comparable. Though I think a sin tax is more workable that getting a cap on meat legislated.

Meat is at least more complex/interesting in that it can also directly affect things like human health. I see where you're going with this and, yes, reductio ad absurdum it boils down to basic income and carbon taxes, but meat rationing would seem to have a behavior modification component as well that the other two producers you listed don't really have beyond a superficial level.

I have not yet formed an opinion for better or for worse, but thought it key to point out a potential argumentative difference.

I was reading an article earlier today about hunters in Australia and the fact that more and more women are taking up the practice. The interesting thing is that they are hunting deer which is considered a feral animal here.

So, as a benefit to removing the feral animal problem, should they not then get a tax reduction for eating meat as they are removing a feral animal from the environment?

> let’s give everyone a meat quota (at some sustainable level) and allow them to trade their quota for cash or buy more

That's not a very good policy. If the point is to reduce carbon emissions and not to get people to eat less meat, then why would you effectively ban technologies that make meat production more carbon efficient?

The point is to make poor people better off, both physically and financially. I’d say a bigger problem here would be the meat black market that would pop up run by criminals...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing

I'm increasingly convinced that carbon taxes, as well as cap-and-trade schemes, would end up being gamed like any other tax systems. They would create substantial complexity and harm the economy without reducing emissions by as much as expected.

There are some examples in this article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gaming-carbon-mus...

If the tax was placed as a fixed cost per pound of cattle product, regardless if its prime steak or pink goo, it would be a hard tax to game: In the end all meat products are packaged and a weight placed on it.

That might create odd effects. Consider. What if, right now, cows are raised using feed that's a inedible cast off of food grown for human consumption. If you tax all meat equally the incentive to do that would be reduced. You might as well raise cows on food that is fit for human consumption if it marginally improves the quality of the cow because you're paying the same tax either way.

Cap-and-trade worked well with acid rain. As with any policy if it is not written well, is poorly enforced, or poorly implemented it will likely fail. It can be implemented well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program

The article I cited has addressed this and dismissed it. Do you think the article was wrong?

The U.S. Acid Rain Program begun in 1995—the best example yet of how the cap-and-trade idea can work—saw allowance prices drop from more than $1,500 to less than $1 based on changes first proposed by the Bush administration. And acid rain may be less but it has not gone away.

The article indicates a reduction in acid rain. It furthermore indicates that much of problems with cap and trade stem from poor execution. Anything will fail if it is poorly executed, written to allow loopholes, or is poorly regulated. I think the problem is poor governance and a populace that allows such to happen. It can work.

But would they be better or worse than other ways to reduce carbon emissions?

Not only is is industrial agriculture a huge part of CO2 emissions, it's also one of the biggest consumers and polluters of water.

Don't forget deforestation, which severely amplifies the effects of climate change and the water table, for obvious reasons.

In Australia this is a serious environmental issue and often the cattle industry is fighting to remove or stop land clearing laws being reinstated [1]. It's a disgusting industry on so many levels IMO.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/05/global-d...

There is a variety of seaweed (Asparagopsis taxiformi) that reduces the methane emissions from cows by 99%:

(warning: autoplay) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/t...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10811-014-0487-z

Would it not be easier for us to require that be included in their feed? Everyone gets the beef they want with a small increase in cost to cover seaweed supply chain costs. This does not solve the water pollution or the animal welfare issues of industrial farming (fingers crossed for "clean meat", or vat grown meat), but its a climate change shim.

Stop trying to manipulate people with morality based taxes. Actually try and solve the problem. These people don't care about the environment. Otherwise they would completely cut subsidization to wheat & corn. Then farmers would stop feeding their cows those things, thus reducing mono-culture pollution.

Make feeding them corn illegal. The cows would be healthier and they wouldn't need to subsidize pharmaceuticals for antibiotics to keep cows alive.

This isn't about morality or feeding wheat and corn to cows. It's about the greenhouse gas production inherent to raising beef. There's no way you're going to sustain the current volume of beef production on free range grazing alone. Industrial feeding techniques are required.

Yes you can. Stop farming corn. Start farming grass. If we committed to it, it'd be possible. But it isn't BECAUSE of the government. And no this isn't about greenhouse gas production. If they cared, they would stop fracking for gas, releasing enormous amounts of methane and pollution a 1000 times worse.

They just don't care about cows. Or health. Or the environment. Or even science. We've already figured out how to solve this issue. This isn't it. All they've figured out is how to get more taxes.

These are morality taxes based on nonsense that would solve nothing. It blinds us to how we're farming wrong.

Why don't we just put a carbon tax on...carbon?

Cows consume carbon (grass, organic matter), produce carbon (methane, other organic matter), and are composed of carbon (more organic matter). Isn't the article espousing placing a carbon tax on a form of carbon?

Ya, but why wouldn't you levy this tax equally on all carbon-generative activities? Why single out cows? I'm all in favor of taxing carbon, but we should do it in a holistic way. Not one thing at a time.

Because not all carbon-generative activities also produce methane, which is the real destructive part about beef. Also, some other carbon-generative activities (e.g. driving) are already taxed pretty heavily.

Different emissions have different levels of global warming potential. If carbon dioxide has a global warming potential of 1, then Methane has a Global Warming Potential of 28-36 over 100 years [0].

I wouldn't even single out carbon dioxide per se. If you're going to start an emissions tax and do it right, you might as well target all green house gas emissions and base the tax rate off their global warming potential which takes into account both the energy they absorb and their longevity in the atmosphere.

[0] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warmin...

The article explains the case for this. Meat from cattle is easily substituted, gas for heating your home less-so.

Why should ease of substitution be a factor? If the goal is to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, a tax on natural gas would give people an incentive to improve insulation or build smaller homes or just turn down the thermostat.

My thought is put a carbon sales tax on things that use carbon based fuels and use that to subsidize alternatives.

So, diesel and gasoline powered cars are taxed. Gas and oil burning furnaces are taxed. Raise the taxes high enough to make alternatives worth it on a capital basis.

Do you realize this would tax people for breathing?

Assuming a "Tax" is an extra percentage amount on money paid in exchange for goods/services: no this would not tax people for breathing, unless you know of someone who already pays for the privilege of breathing.

I have to pay the sewer department for crapping. I get fined for crapping where I’m not supposed to. You pay for externalities where it matters.

I'm fine with that. Breathing is a negative externality. If someone were to actually include breathing, it'd be an incredibly small amount relative to other human activities.

No, it wouldn’t as breathing is basically carbon neutral (on largely vegetarian diets).

There is such a big hoohaa over CO2 emission. We have much more pressing concerns and about things that we cannot control. Yet there are no mitigation efforts even being discussed.

The problem area is the changing magnetic fields of this planet. If any of the scenarios play, even the least problematic, then we are going to be in more trouble, more quickly than we will ever be with CO2 emissions.

The Van Allen belts are a highly protective shield for this planet from highly energetic radiation (solar and cosmic). If these belts ever get destabilised then we (most life will be affected) will being facing more serious health and well-being problems than what we would ever have from CO2 emissions.

All that the CO2 debate is about is distracting the general populous of this planet from more immediate problems. The beneficiaries of any carbon trading or taxation regime are not the general population.

OK sure, do we also put carbon tax on wheat, and other vegetables? ~750 million tons of wheat is produced yearly, vs ~260 million tons of beef. Excepting the case of perennial plants, unused parts of vegetables (e.g. wheat straw) have a hefty carbon footprint. BTW, rice is a case in itself.

From my understanding (which could be complete and total junk science/quackery)... wheat and other vegetables are carbon neutral. CO2 is extracted from the atmosphere, and used to grow the plants. Even unused parts (wheat straw) are a type of carbon "sink" in that the atmospheric carbon is trapped in organic matter which can be "upcycled" into paper products, etc.

I believe this thought process is why corn-ethanol was so hyped, as it was sold as a 'net carbon zero' fuel.

Not looking for a flamewar here, and I would be grateful if you could correct any misunderstandings I may have. I've got an 8th grade science-fair level of education on this one, so I'm more than open to your thoughts!

Not to mention that you need to grow the grain to feed the beef if they aren't grass fed cattle.

Industrial farming is dependent on fertilizers derived from natural gas and diesel to run tractors. No industrially produced crops are carbon neutral.

Your argument needs some numbers on it for clarity.

Here is some info for you

http://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html

Thank you for this table. Yet, the footprint size you measure will depend on what you are counting. We eat meat mostly for protein; and for that beef is about 10x more efficient than wheat, and 3x more efficient than lentils by weight. Also important is when you stop measuring, ie scope: irrigation, forest clearing, fertilizers, are no small damage in terms of causing climate change, reducing carbon sequestering ability of nature. The point of taxing is to make long term invisible costs visible; if anything, industrial agriculture has been disastrous for environment; if the goal is to keep this damage in check, singling out beef as a target for taxing doesn’t make any sense.

Beef has a vastly larger carbon footprint per KG than any grain. It's the least environmentally efficient protein source there is. And that's not even factoring in wasteful and excessive use of antibiotics, pollution of water sources etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-u...

If carbon is harmful, I don't see why we should play favorites. The environment doesn't care where the carbon comes from. Put a tax on everything in proportion to its carbon production. Meat, vegetables, electricity bill, airplane tickets, etc. And this includes the disposal as well as production.

Sure why not. C0₂ emissions per grain calorie are a lot smaller than per meat calorie, so it won't have as much impact on behavior.

You could. That would tax meat production even more. In order to raise cattle, you first need to grow the alfalfa to feed them.

It's worth noticing that animal farming is heavily subsidized in some western country, much more than agriculture.

A carbon tax on beef would have exactly zero impact on my consumption. It would sure reduce it at the low-end of the economic spectrum, but beyond a certain point it won’t make a difference.

I’m against taxing things because they’re bad for us.

It'd be a belligerent, regressive tax on the bottom 2/3.

There are other prime carbon tax choices that place the tax burden higher up the income scale. We should be starting there.

Many people suggest returning the carbon tax to the people in the form of basic income to prevent it from being regressive.

If anything, wealthier people tend to eat more steak.

Eating beef, particularly industrial beef, also disproportionally damages the health of the bottom 2/3. Taxing it addresses several issues at once and hastens the day people eat less of it in favor of healthier and more environmentally friendly alternatives. It also raises awareness of just how much industrial farming contributes to greenhouse gases. Most people don't know.

I'd suggest trying pork. I've eaten a lot of pork over the past year. It's a tasty and versatile cut & apparently very good for the environment!

It is good for the environment if it reduces the amount of beef eaten, but, on its own, it is not good for the environment. It is easier on the environment than beef. Chicken and turkey are easier on it than pork. Fish is easier on it than chicken.

I didn't know cows could type

Clearly you haven't read the kids book "Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type". Rather good, in my opinion, and actually touches on organized labor of all things.

It's not a huge stretch since they can write. Have you seen the Eat Mor Chikin signs?

I'm nowhere near becoming vegetarian or biking everywhere, but I have all but given up beef for this reason. Eating a quarter-pounder is similar to burning a gallon of gas, which is shockingly worse than most other meats. Ars Technica had a good writeup awhile back:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/10/emissions-eschmissio...

We are surely fortunate that the U.S. and Canadian settlers decimated the estimated 60 million head of buffalo ranging North America until the late 1800s. Global warming could have been exacerbated greatly by their continued existence.

Considering there are almost 100million cattle alive in just the USA right now, I'd say that 60million 200+ years ago are pretty negligible ;)

http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/Catt/Catt-01-31...

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