Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Local, a Danish Newspaper, reports that the Danish Council on Ethics, a government funded think tank, has recommended that red meat be taxed to try to combat global warming.
Could Danes face a ‘red meat tax’ to help climate?
Saying that “climate change is an ethical problem”, the Danish Council on Ethics (Det Etiske Råd) has called for a climate tax on red meat.
The council said that Danes have an ethical obligation to minimize their climate impact and that a natural place to start would be lowering their red meat consumption.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization states that animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, more than the the total exhaust from all forms of transport worldwide.
Cattle alone is responsible for ten percent of all emissions and conservative estimates state that at least 43,000 litres of fresh water are needed to produce just one kilo of beef.
The Council on Ethics said that in order to live up to global environmental standards, Denmark should use a ‘climate tax’ to bring down the nation’s meat consumption. The Council said it debated the issue for six months, focusing on whether it should be left up to consumers to make more climate-friendly choices or if government should push them in the right direction by taxing the food products that have the greatest negative impact.
Read more: http://www.thelocal.dk/20160425/denmark-eyes-red-meat-tax-to-help-climate
The Danish Government is less than enthusiastic about the proposal.
A spokesman for governing party Venstre said the government is very unlikely to act on the council’s suggestion, calling it “a bureaucratic monster” that would have limited effect.
“Maybe it would get beef consumption to fall in Denmark, but it wouldn’t do much of anything for the world’s CO2 emissions,” Thomas Danielsen told broadcaster DR.
Read more: Same as above
Perhaps the Danish Council on Ethics should go on tour, try to sell their message of helping the environment with more taxes to impoverished working class regions suffering carbon policy inflated energy costs. After all, the Danish People already pay some of the highest tax rates in the world, so they surely won’t mind paying a little more.
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Dont they also have the most expensive electricity in europe, or near to?
They are already paying taxes out the rear, climate hidden energy cost taxes to pay for their ludicrous bird killing mass of wind farm junk.
I cant believe cow farts still have traction in this debate lol, nutcases
I think it is about the energy used to produce meat, not methane. I came to say that I haven’t given up my car and I sure as Hell won’t give up eating meat!
No, that’s up in Scandinavia.
They want to decide where and how you can live. If and how you can travel. And now what and how much you can eat. They are modern Marxists, some call them cultural Marxism. And this is cultural terror. This is plan society with only collective solutions.
or in short commune ism
Stop eating meat and this what you’ll turn into.
http://qaprogramme.dk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/danish-pastry-selection.jpg
Mass starvation is what they are aiming for. Like with Ukraine during the Lenin era, Stalin starvation, Mao starvation during the Great Leap Backward, Cambodia, etc. This is their goal.
This is nothing more than the latest excuse for Politically-Correct Eating. Only one problem with that; the human species evolved as carnivores during the glaciations, it’s why we have a bigger brain than the apes.
The fact is that one mundane-quality hamburger has more “antioxidants,” vital minerals and amino acids in it than a whole truckload of plant matter. Also, we did not evolve to eat grains AT ALL, as is being rapidly proven by the prevalence of diabetes and related diseases. Let the quinoa-and-kale crowd have their moral high ground until anemia, infertility and cancer catch up with them. You can’t change evolution!
“Stop eating meat and this what you’ll turn into”
https://health.spectator.co.uk/revisionists-are-trying-to-turn-denmarks-failed-fat-tax-into-a-great-success-dont-be-fooled/
They had to reverse a “fat tax”, economic pain….
“After being voted for by an overwhelming majority of MPs, the tax on saturated fat led to inflation, cross-border shopping, job losses and huge administrative costs.”
Sounds like a Sheldon counterfactual… in a world ruled by the Danish Council on Ethics, what food is no longer consumed?
Last I heard Danes were paying 40¢ per kwh the highest in Europe, possibly the highest of all OECD countries. It has driven thousands of Danes (total population about 5.5 million) into energy poverty, defined as spending 10% or more of net income on electricity.
U say: >bird killing mass of wind farm junk<, Get out of your cellar! in the real world more birds are killed by cars than by wind farms!
But no doubt they will be happy to continue exporting Danish bacon to the rest of the world…
The swine!
Not to mention the porkies methane contribution to the CAGW.
Danish pork taste bitter, due to stress hormones …
Pork is the “other white meat.” It doesn’t count…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsI6oQN8fdE Eat Fat
Finding and sharing the truth would seem to me to be a more important mission for an ethics committee.
Given how much of the Danish economy is based on raising animals for the meat market and the battery farming of chicken and egg production this hardly seems likely to be a popular policy.
It’s not just for consumption, the population of Denmark is about 6.5M, but there are 20M pigs, which are not bred just for their meat. Denmark is probably the largest priducer of insulin, for which they need the pancreas of the pigs. In economic terms the meat is arguably a by-product.
Whoops – producer!
I dunno, Old Timer,
The vast majority of insulin currently used worldwide is now biosynthetic recombinant “human” insulin or its analogues.[70]
Recombinant insulin is produced either in yeast (usually Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or E. coli.[71]
Yeah, I know, ya can’t trust wikipedia.
Juan, you are absolutely right. Sorry folks!
Old’un;
Most of the pig meat is simply for export, insulin production shifted some time ago towards genetically modified bacteria and yeast and recently even plants, luckily for us diabetics, as that is human insulin and derivatives, while pig and cow insulin resistance can build up over time…
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin
Juan Slayton,
Sorry, did see your comment after sending my comment…
This doesn’t pass the “smell” test.
Upland farmers may not have the option to grow crops due to terrain, soil type and climatic conditions. They would be most displeased. Potentially a lot of land would be removed from food production.
Where I live the land is only suitable for the rearing of grazing animals. All farmers would go out of business and within a couple of years the land would revert to scrub.
There isn’t really any upland area in Denmark, but the general point is a good one.
Exactly! Such open range farming is generally good for the land, and good for food security, with consumption of all but breeding stock in emergency situations of crop failure. (I very rarely eat red meat, but, being an American, do not interfere with the rights of others)
Just as there is no idea so absurd that no intellectual will embrace it, there is no action so obscene that no ethicist will insist on it.
Sane people in Denmark must be praying that the latest recommendation from the insane “Council on Ethics” is rightly ignored by the Danish Government to the applause of the red meat eating descendants of the Vikings.
You think it can’t get any more bizarre — then it does.
Money left in the taxpayer’s pocket will be money well spent.
Eugene WR Gallun
“Money left in the taxpayer’s pocket will be money well spent.”
I like that.
+
This comes from from a Leftest Think tank which is an oxymoron. — Eugene WR Gallun
@ur momisugly eugene 1:59 am, + many, but Eugene at least they are contained in a tank ( and I hope they can’t find their way out).
The picture of the viking reenactors is ironic. I’m pretty sure I know how a viking would react to being told not to eat red meat … or being told anything else for that matter.
But once the Vikings were tamed by the nobility, they ceased eating much meat at all. Note that the Church had many ‘meatless’ days, too. The nobility hunted as well as devouring meat every day and this made them taller and stronger so they could rule the peasants easier.
I have increased fiber in my diet and decreased meat in recent years. The effect is to dramatically increase methane production, which has to be released, much to my wife’s disgust.
eat half of a box of bran and you can make the bed duvet simulate a hovercraft .
+3.02 x10**24
@ur momisugly mark, 3:51 am, I need a new keyboard.
The Vikings invaded “England” because they were, pretty much, starving and fighting among themselves and discovered “wealth” (Land to grow stuff like, errrm, food etc) there. And now they want to apply their values on the rest of us? Foxtrot Oscar Denmark! Don’t export your “culture” this time. I am happy to remain a Saxon!
You said it. What did those wonderfully peaceful Scandinavians do the one time they had a bit of power? They brought destruction, extortion, and tyranny to anyplace their long arm could reach. That’s what they did with their chance. Now that they are a historical backwater they presume to lecture us about peace and morality.
Steady on with the stereotypes there mate lol
The Vikings formed one of the largest trading empires between the fall of the Roman empire and the modern world.
Well great story! Completely untrue, of course.
Anyway the Vikings, became Normans and DID invade successfully. Last time anyone did.
“Anyway the Vikings, became Normans…”
I believe they became Normans by overwhelming the local Franks and claiming their lands!
I believe, also, that there was an invasion in 1940.
I guess it’s fair to say that exchanging stolen silver for slaves is “trade”.
Untrue? Actual artifacts discovered suggest otherwise, but hey!
I cooked up a beef roast today, i took “just out of the oven” slices, put mayonnaise on some buns, added tomatoes and lettuce — delicious. Ate that with an ice cream soda. — Eugene WR Gallun
The only safe way to eat grains is to cycle them through a cow first.
GPS, this time it means Grains, potatoes, sugar. Eliminate from your diet.
What about fermented grains?
I would have thought fermenting the grain would make it safer, by reducing the level of carbohydrates…
🙂
And “clean” fluids. Don’t drink water back then.
In wine there is truth
In beer there is strength
In water there is bacteria
I have no idea but let us say that each Bullock produces 100kg of beef. At 43,000 liters of water per kilo, that is 430,0000 liters per beast over probably a four year lifespan at best. Can someone help out here, would that be correct?.
Most beef is good slaughtered around 2 years of age and yields more than 200 kg of meat, after the bone is removed. So 200kg would fit a claim of 8,600,000 liters over the 728 days. So the poor beast must utilize an average of over 10,000 liters a day. Didn’t know they could drink that much!.
Of course these absurd, inflated claims count all the rain that fell on the pasture, and crop land; as well as to drive the waterwheel that powers the abattoir, and charges the electric truck for transport to market.
This is a bogus estimate which seems to have been arrived at by counting the head of cattle on a given field and then working out how much rain falls on that it and doing the following simplistic calc
Water per kg = Amount of rain that fell on field/Total Mass of meat of cattle grazing on field.
If you do the calculation for a farm in the Lake district where they get twice the rainfall that a farm in East Anglia gets you would deduce that cows in in the West need twice as much water as cows in the East. This is complete nonsense. Its like claiming that if you buy a house for $1000,000 that has one potato in it that would prove potatoes cost a million dollars each
Once they kill off the farms and it all goes back to scrub land, the water per kg of meat will approach infinity.
Bogus math is fun!
Hold on…my guess is that the calculation includes the water needed to grow all the grain eaten by the cow. I have no specific figures, but I am guessing that would become a serious number. But that water is not lost, so I am not sure what the point is.
That said, I am not sure why we worry about water usage…it quite literally falls from the sky.
Yes, I’ve often wondered how – on a planet that is mostly covered in water – that anyone can claim there’s a water shortage problem. There’s more than enough water. What we may have is a water distribution problem. But that can be solved. The Romans did it over a thousand years ago.
If you are trying to determine how much water cattle drink don’t forget a lot of it is surface water or well water and not necessarily potable water. Same for the land. Cattle are generally grazed on land not suitable for cash crops.
As I recall, a cow needs about 30 gallons of water/day.
University of Nebraska
‘Q. How much water do cows drink per day? (July 18, 2012)
“Daily water intake may vary from 3 to 30 gallons per day depending on age, body size (weight), stage of production and the environment (mainly air temperature).”
beef.unl.edu/amountwatercowsdrink
I was under the impression that Danish men thought they were REAL men.
Seems not !!
Were the Vikings really that PATHETIC?
In historical terms, very pathetic, indeed. (In the reprehensible sense.) Killer Smurfs.
As one wit put it, “Yes, the Vikings Really Were That Bad.”
In that picture in the post, imagine each of those men as a 60kg weakling
SCARY….. not !
OMG; am I embarrassed being a dane 🙁
Dont be, Denmark is hijacked by idiots just like everywhere else, shouty minorities rule all that corporations dont care about these days
Is it true you all have a birth tattoo on your head that says ‘Government warning: fragile, handle with care, this way up?’
Next in development – New Danish breathing monitor. Taxes Danes for every breath they exhale. It is free to inhale but exhaling is killing the panel. It comes with an optional methane monitor that meters exhalations from the other end, for those who are very eco (stupid) -minded, and taxes at twenty time the rate because we all know methane is a more powerful nonexistent-greenhouse gas.
You are absolutely right! My country is swamped with eco- and environmental nutcases including the government – left or right – it does not matter. Science is dead – it is all about moral and feelings.
According to MAGICC, Denmark would accomplish a temperature reduction of 0,0000048 degrees celsius if we cut our meat production by 50%……..and for this we would have to pay billions. No sense!
The judicial system is also doing great! A couple of weeks ago Lars Hedegaard editor of Jyllands Posten (Mohammad drawings) was fined 1500 dollars for disclosing the identity of the man (Basil Hassan) who tried to shoot him in the head disguised as a mailman. The guy has been let out of prison in fascist Turkey and has now joined ISIS in Syria. He is wanted internationally by interpol.
The female judge ruled that his rights had been violated because he hadn’t been found guilty yet…… .
You couldn’t make it up!
A suggestion allow only pork, no fish/chicken/beef/ and so on to be sold anywhere, might solve a few other problems.
So really balanced diets don’t figure anymore. Thats a cold country and is dependant quite a lot on meat exports. However, its a green dominated Govt so simply pay up and shut up!
“animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, more than the the total exhaust from all forms of transport worldwide.”
AGW theory has to do with fossil fuels. The argument is that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, trapped deep under the ground and sequestered from the surface-atmosphere carbon cycle for millions of years, are “extraneous” carbon and that their sudden injection into the atmosphere may upset the surface-atmosphere carbon cycle and climate system.
“Greenhouse gas” emissions from farming and even Indonesian forest fires, are part of the surface system. The rationale for switching from fossil fuels to wood pellets, ethanol, and other “renewable fuels” is that their carbon dioxide emissions are part of the surface system and not extraneous carbon from deep under the ground that had been removed from the surface system millions of years ago.
it seems that AGW zealots, in their zeal, have forgotten their own theory and now hate all carbon, perhaps even carbon life forms like us.
Two comments.
First, humans have primarily been meat-eaters throughout our evolution, throughout the time we have been around on Earth. We lived through a time which was primarily ice ages. Times when CO2 and rainfall was so low that there was little to no trees, berries, roots or vegetables. What there was a lot of was grass herbivores – big cows and mammoth and whatever.
This was our diet. We became persistence and kill-trap hunters. There were no vegetables around for 80% of the time that our species line has been around. We evolved for that and only started growing grains and vegetables in the last 10,000 years. Yes that a good development but there is nothing wrong with meat. It was our species evolved and lived on and what we are physically adapted for.
Second, the pasture that cattle live on is one of the most efficient Carbon sinks there is. At least one quarter of human Carbon emissions are being sequestered away by grassland. This more than makes up for the tiny methane emissions.
It is time for all the green myths to end.
Man has always been an opportunistic eater. We evolved to eat roots, berries and fruits when available. We also evolved in the last million years or so to eat meat.
The idea that there were no vegetables of any kind until the last 10K years is so ridiculous that only an academic could have come up with it.
The only place C3 vegetable plants were growing 18,000 years ago was in the green areas on this map.
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/lastgla.gif
1) I challenge the accuracy of your map.
2) I challenge the relevance of you map even if it is accurate.
Finally, tell me how root vegetables, berries and fruits managed to get into all of those areas since 18K years ago?
Apparently, our cousins the great apes, who kept eating a plant based diet, died out between 10K and 18K years ago. But nobody noticed.
Global Warming, er now “climate change” has become the Universal Solvent of socialist utopians everywhere. While the models are all different, the conclusions all converge on the same socialstic dreams: less liberty, less prosperity, more government. But happily, the longer this scam is conducted, the more the models diverge from reality and the more spin and smoke the advocates must generate in order to keep it running. Indeed, at this point advocates are starting to expend so much energy to sustain the unsustainable, I wonder how big their carbon footprint is getting to be? Happily, the public is starting to see that “climate change” is old and busted as something to worry about.
My thought is that millitant vegans are part of the green blob along with arcadian socialists, Malthusians and Luddites, so the grand coalition tends to make useless gestures to appease them. Killer cow farts are no more implausible than renewable energy.