4 ms·

If you priced the externalities, plant-based food is an order of magnitude cheaper, at the very least.

Nbox9 6y ago
My grocery bill decreased when I started eating exclusively plant based foods. In most meals the most expensive item on the plate is the meat.
- mike_d 6y ago
  Plant based food are cheap because the overwhelming majority of government subsidies go to farmers and not ranchers. (there are some misleading charts on the internet that try to bundle school lunch programs providing milk as a meat subsidy)
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > Plant based food are cheap because the overwhelming majority of government subsidies go to farmers and not ranchers And then the ranchers buy the subsidized feed... 74 cents on every dollar a dairy farmer earns is from subsidy.
  - ornornor 6y ago
    > misleading charts on the internet that try to bundle school lunch programs providing milk as a meat subsidy It’s not misleading. You don’t get milk without killing calves soon after they’re born and their mothers after a few years.
dragonwriter 6y ago
If you priced the externalities in fossil fuels would be cost prohibitive, but a sizable political faction, particularly in the US, views Pigovian taxes as equivalent to totalitarian Communism, and an influential if anti-scientific set of economic viewpoints views externalities as either unreal or not practically subject to internalization. So, I wouldn't hold your breath.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  > an influential if anti-scientific set of economic viewpoints views externalities as either unreal or not practically subject to internalization That’s interesting, if not too surprising, unfortunately. Is there somewhere I can read more?
belorn 6y ago
I would very much approve a food tax on the externalizes, determined by a review process per product if the seller request it. It would however not be as simple that plant-based food would just be cheaper. Every kind of food type has a spectrum of climate impact, depending on multiple factors like farming method, transport, and local factors. A hunter shooting down an overpopulated flock of wild boars is going to have a distinct different climate impact than a pig farmer in a industry farm. Same for crop rotating farm that don't use fertilizers or pesticides vs one that massively contribute to eutrophication, burn down forests to make room, and leaves a desert behind. A tax would at first fix the competition between similar products that only differ in the climate impact. Secondarily it would encourage locally over imported. And third it would make most plant-based food cheaper vs most meat. It would also add a huge tax on factory farmed meat and encourage farmers to use slower and much less harmful practices when raising animals.

My grocery bill decreased when I started eating exclusively plant based foods. In most meals the most expensive item on the plate is the meat.

mike_d 6y ago
Plant based food are cheap because the overwhelming majority of government subsidies go to farmers and not ranchers. (there are some misleading charts on the internet that try to bundle school lunch programs providing milk as a meat subsidy)
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > Plant based food are cheap because the overwhelming majority of government subsidies go to farmers and not ranchers And then the ranchers buy the subsidized feed... 74 cents on every dollar a dairy farmer earns is from subsidy.
- ornornor 6y ago
  > misleading charts on the internet that try to bundle school lunch programs providing milk as a meat subsidy It’s not misleading. You don’t get milk without killing calves soon after they’re born and their mothers after a few years.

dragonwriter 6y ago

If you priced the externalities in fossil fuels would be cost prohibitive, but a sizable political faction, particularly in the US, views Pigovian taxes as equivalent to totalitarian Communism, and an influential if anti-scientific set of economic viewpoints views externalities as either unreal or not practically subject to internalization. So, I wouldn't hold your breath.

dwaltrip 6y ago
> an influential if anti-scientific set of economic viewpoints views externalities as either unreal or not practically subject to internalization That’s interesting, if not too surprising, unfortunately. Is there somewhere I can read more?

belorn 6y ago

I would very much approve a food tax on the externalizes, determined by a review process per product if the seller request it. It would however not be as simple that plant-based food would just be cheaper. Every kind of food type has a spectrum of climate impact, depending on multiple factors like farming method, transport, and local factors. A hunter shooting down an overpopulated flock of wild boars is going to have a distinct different climate impact than a pig farmer in a industry farm. Same for crop rotating farm that don't use fertilizers or pesticides vs one that massively contribute to eutrophication, burn down forests to make room, and leaves a desert behind. A tax would at first fix the competition between similar products that only differ in the climate impact. Secondarily it would encourage locally over imported. And third it would make most plant-based food cheaper vs most meat. It would also add a huge tax on factory farmed meat and encourage farmers to use slower and much less harmful practices when raising animals.