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If an effective carbon tax is introduced (see #1) then the price of meat will rise astronomically, which will make reduced consumption inevitable. In many plac

by __d 7y ago

If an effective carbon tax is introduced (see #1) then the price of meat will rise astronomically, which will make reduced consumption inevitable. In many places, climate change will make existing agriculture unsustainable, so there'll be massive upheaval in the industry at the same time. If that's combined with a cultural movement similar to flugskam, I think drastically reduced meat consumption is possible. Of course, there'll be counter forces -- likely primarily cultural. "Only libtards don't eat meat" etc. So it goes.

pharke 7y ago
There would likely be unintended consequences to raising the price of meat through a carbon tax. It creates a market for cheaper meat that there will be no shortage of producers or consumers for. How that meat is made cheaper is an open question. It could be through carbon offsets but it could just as well be through worse conditions for the animals or importing the meat from countries where production is cheaper.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago
  The same argument is made against raising the taxes on tobacco products, that "people will smuggle in cigarettes from countries without the tax", but it never seems to actually happen to any significant degree. People are lazy, and if the only source of cheap meat is the black market of illegally-imported products, only a very small segment of people will bother.
  - pharke 7y ago
    I live somewhere with high taxes on tobacco products and illegal cigarettes are a big problem. It's not a small segment of the smoking population either but it is disproportionately those who are more economically disadvantaged. People are lazy but they are also motivated by economic pressures. It's easy for something like that to become an 'invisible' problem to people who aren't in those economic or social groups while still having severe negative effects on a large number of people.
torstenvl 7y ago
I buy carbon offsets based on a questionnaire about lifestyle. It works out to about $180-220 USD per year, depending on whether I take a vacation by flying to Europe. If that were factored into prices as a tax I don't think it would count as an astronomical increase. But perhaps the questionnaire and algorithm from terrapass is deficient in some way. What are you basing your calculations off of?
- __d 7y ago
  A quick look at Terrapass, and their individual calculator, doesn't seem include any information about diet? Perhaps I was looking at the wrong one?
  - torstenvl 7y ago
    You're right. Looking at it again, it doesn't. However, this site says that a vegetarian diet saves about one ton of CO2 per year over an average American diet: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet That still isn't very expensive in terms of offsets - about $10/year (Terrapass sells the offsets for $4.99 per 1,000 lbs). Why do you think that's astronomical?
    - __d 7y ago
      I was coming from the other end. I've repeated seen claims that livestock contributes a significant fraction of global greenhouse emissions. eg. most recently, a claim of 17% in this article https://a16z.com/2019/12/30/life-in-2030/ https://a16z.com/2019/12/30/life-in-2030/ from HN yesterday. I assumed that eg. 17% of the global total meant the individual allocation would be large, and thus very expensive to offset. Note that there's a CH4 vs. CO2 conflation in the mix here, which probably doesn't help. But it still doesn't seem to add up: if I can eat a "meat lovers" diet and that's only $10/year to offset, and it's roughly 15% of global emissions, that'd suggest that around $70/year could offset 100% of global emissions.
      - 7y ago

by __d 7y ago

pharke 7y ago

There would likely be unintended consequences to raising the price of meat through a carbon tax. It creates a market for cheaper meat that there will be no shortage of producers or consumers for. How that meat is made cheaper is an open question. It could be through carbon offsets but it could just as well be through worse conditions for the animals or importing the meat from countries where production is cheaper.

KozmoNau7 7y ago
The same argument is made against raising the taxes on tobacco products, that "people will smuggle in cigarettes from countries without the tax", but it never seems to actually happen to any significant degree. People are lazy, and if the only source of cheap meat is the black market of illegally-imported products, only a very small segment of people will bother.
- pharke 7y ago
  I live somewhere with high taxes on tobacco products and illegal cigarettes are a big problem. It's not a small segment of the smoking population either but it is disproportionately those who are more economically disadvantaged. People are lazy but they are also motivated by economic pressures. It's easy for something like that to become an 'invisible' problem to people who aren't in those economic or social groups while still having severe negative effects on a large number of people.

torstenvl 7y ago

I buy carbon offsets based on a questionnaire about lifestyle. It works out to about $180-220 USD per year, depending on whether I take a vacation by flying to Europe. If that were factored into prices as a tax I don't think it would count as an astronomical increase. But perhaps the questionnaire and algorithm from terrapass is deficient in some way. What are you basing your calculations off of?

__d 7y ago
A quick look at Terrapass, and their individual calculator, doesn't seem include any information about diet? Perhaps I was looking at the wrong one?
- torstenvl 7y ago
  You're right. Looking at it again, it doesn't. However, this site says that a vegetarian diet saves about one ton of CO2 per year over an average American diet: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet That still isn't very expensive in terms of offsets - about $10/year (Terrapass sells the offsets for $4.99 per 1,000 lbs). Why do you think that's astronomical?
  - __d 7y ago
    I was coming from the other end. I've repeated seen claims that livestock contributes a significant fraction of global greenhouse emissions. eg. most recently, a claim of 17% in this article https://a16z.com/2019/12/30/life-in-2030/ https://a16z.com/2019/12/30/life-in-2030/ from HN yesterday. I assumed that eg. 17% of the global total meant the individual allocation would be large, and thus very expensive to offset. Note that there's a CH4 vs. CO2 conflation in the mix here, which probably doesn't help. But it still doesn't seem to add up: if I can eat a "meat lovers" diet and that's only $10/year to offset, and it's roughly 15% of global emissions, that'd suggest that around $70/year could offset 100% of global emissions.
    - 7y ago