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Comment by imoverclocked | Hacker News Reader

You might underestimate the ability to market lower-carbon beef though. Where you see a disincentive, others may see the next "organic."

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I certainly don't speak for everyone but I don't see that catching on at the individual level. People eat the organic because its objectively healthier. I don't think most people that eat beef would care if its low carbon. I eat a good deal of beef, probably 3 steaks a week personally and another 3 in total for my wife and kids. I'm not going to pay x% more for low carbon. With that said I could absolutely see Europe mandating this and forcing everyone to just pay more for beef. So you're right, if they can target this at governments then they could force it to catch on.

> People eat the organic because its objectively healthier

What makes you say it is objectively healthier?

Its a fair question, not sure why you are being downvoted. I don't buy organic. The primary reason for me to consider it healthier is just that the animals are fed (supposedly) on pesticide free feed. My opinion rests on that. If you are speaking from a pure nutrition perspective I would say nothing.

There are others that I am sure would argue for other reasons such as the reduction of drug resistant bacteria for the good of all but I'm not sure that really plays out. It only works if the amount of organic sold far outstrips non organic. It also means intentionally paying more for the good of the commons while the majority don't.

> The primary reason for me to consider it healthier is just that the animals are fed (supposedly) on pesticide free feed.

Pesticides are permissible to use in organic agriculture, though there are restrictions. See: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-I/su...

FWIW, “organic” is commonly used to do price segmentation in the retail food market. They often don’t produce different types of food, it may all be technically organic but they can selectively target people willing to pay a premium for that label. It nets out positive in terms of profit/revenue over the entire lot versus selling it all at the same price.

Many examples of food products being artificially binned to create “premium” products that are identical to nominally lower tier products. Once you’ve seen it from the inside you can’t unsee it. It is so pervasive that I default to the cheapest product unless I have specific contrary knowledge regarding quality.

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