Katherine Martinko on Treehugger reports on a trend just starting to pop up:
An investor network managing $4 trillion in assets has warned investors that they should prepare for the inevitable — a climate-driven “sin” tax on meat.
Taxing items that are seen as unhealthy or damaging to the environment is a common way for governments to raise money. Over 180 jurisdictions tax tobacco, more than 60 tax carbon emissions, and 25 tax sugar. Now, it looks as though meat might be the next target for governments wanting to get serious about climate change.
A new policy White Paper from the Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (FAIRR) Initiative suggests that meat is following the same path as tobacco, carbon, and sugar, and that the industry should expect to see a behavioral tax levied by many governments by 2050. The paper, titled “The Livestock Levy,” is a warning to investors, and considering that FAIRR is an investor network that manages more than $4 trillion in assets, it will likely be taken seriously.
My goodness – I can imagine the bulging eyeballs and incoherent shouts of rage from here. I can almost share in them – I’m a meat-eater myself. Mostly chicken, but the occasional chunk of red meat is a lovely accent on life. Fish, not so much. Pork, once in a while.
But I don’t think it’s possible to institute this tax in the United States until more folks have accepted that climate change is occurring, is anthropomorphic, and is generally deleterious to our collective health. I suspect this’ll require an entire city to be taken down by a hurricane, and even then it’s just a guess. Rationality and scientific curiosity seems to be ebbing these days.
Katherine may be optimistic.
