Take this news from the timesonline.com "What do cars and cows have in common? No, not horns"
Excerpts from the article with all bold highlights mine...
``Proposals to tax the flatulence of cows and other livestock have been denounced by farming groups in the Irish Republic and Denmark.
``A cow tax of €13 per animal has been mooted in Ireland, while Denmark is discussing a levy as high as €80 per cow to offset the potential penalties each country faces from European Union legislation aimed at combating global warming."
``The proposed levies are opposed vigorously by farming groups. The Irish Farmers' Association said that the cattle industry would move to South America to avoid EU taxes.
``Livestock contribute 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The Danish Tax Commission estimates that a cow will emit four tonnes of methane a year in burps and flatulence, compared with 2.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide for an average car.
``Agriculture, transport and housing are not included in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which enables industrial companies to buy and sell permits to emit carbon dioxide. Instead, EU member states are obliged to cut the emissions from non-ETS sectors by 10 per cent overall by 2020.
``While Romania and Bulgaria will be allowed to increase emissions, Ireland and Denmark are each faced with cuts of 20 per cent in farming sector emissions.
``The cow tax proposals would raise funds to buy allowances from other member states or to invest in technology that might reduce emissions. Denmark is believed to be further advanced with housing for pigs that captures and stores methane emitted from the animals. The gas can be used as a fuel for power generation."
My comment:
What the article didn't say?
If you want more of a 'thing' you reduce its costs, if you want less of the same 'thing' you raise its cost.
Alternatively, by taxing livestock farming which means raising the cost of meat production, governments in essence wants people to reduce meat intake...unless of course you are willing to pay for it with higher prices.
On the other hand, a shift in production and consumption patterns due to such taxes, essentially leads to higher prices across the board for food items, i.e. production of livestock will be reduced or moved overseas (causing shortages of supplies), while demand will likely shift to non-meat products (raising the cost of seafoods,vegetables and etc.).
The other unseen cost is that the demand substitution as a consequence to such obtuseness will equally strain environments, i.e. overfishing, overcropping etc... will translate to other unintended consequences (drought, desertification, fish depletion, pollution, etc.).
In a choice between human and environment, these taxes are skewed towards preserving environment than people. How sensible can this be?
In short, governments have implicitly been promoting HUNGER out of the ridiculous notion that cow farts have been causing greenhouse gases.
What's next, tax human fart?
