Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart; In the face of last month’s UN warning that 49 million people in 43 countries face severe risk of starvation, the New Zealand Government has chosen now to introduce a new climate change food tax.
Climate change: New Zealand’s plan to tax cow and sheep burps
By Peter Hoskins
BBC NewsNew Zealand has unveiled a plan to tax sheep and cattle burps in a bid to tackle one of the country’s biggest sources of greenhouse gases.
It would make it the first nation to charge farmers for the methane emissions from the animals they keep.
New Zealand is home to just over five million people, along with around 10 million cattle and 26 million sheep.
Almost half the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, mainly methane.
However, agricultural emissions have previously not been included in New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme, which has been criticised by those calling for the government to do more to stop global warming.
“There is no question that we need to cut the amount of methane we are putting into the atmosphere, and an effective emissions pricing system for agriculture will play a key part in how we achieve that,” New Zealand’s climate change minister James Shaw said.
Under the proposal farmers will have to pay for their gas emissions from 2025.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61741352
You might think that a tax on New Zealand lamb is a rich person’s problem, starving Africans or Afghans can’t afford New Zealand lamb. But that is not strictly the case – New Zealand exports significant quantities of unfashionable cuts of meat like mutton flaps to poor countries.
This trade is controversial – high fat New Zealand mutton flaps have been blamed for a rise of obesity and diabetes in Pacific Islanders. But worrying about long term excess fat intake, or climate change, is very much tomorrow’s problem, in a world where people face a real risk of running out of food today.
Why would New Zealand’s Prime Minister Ardern wilfully ignore a genuine global hunger crisis, and choose now to impose what is effectively a food tax?
We don’t have to look far back in history for comparable episodes of political blindness and indifference.
Great Irish Potato Famine of 1845-49 was primarily caused by potato blight reaching Europe, but it was also caused by neglect, by British landlords and politicians imposing impossible burdens on their Irish tenant farmers, by politicians ignoring the problems their unreasonable demands were causing.
When I first learned of the Great Irish Potato Famine, I read some of the horrible stories – of a priest who wrote about finding a little girl of his parish wandering the streets by herself. When he asked what she was doing, she complained her dad had gone all quiet and cold, and had stopped speaking. Her mum had died a few years ago, but her dad had struggled on, until he had starved himself to death, giving his last scraps of food to his child in an effort to save his little girl. I don’t know if the little girl survived, but with so many adults dying, it is likely she did not.
It didn’t have to be this way. In the mid 1800s the British Empire controlled half the world, they were near the historic pinnacle of their economic and military power. Likely all the politicians in charge of the Empire needed to do to alleviate the suffering in Ireland was reduce or defer the taxes and tithes they imposed on Irish farmers. But the British of the time chose selfishness over compassion.
I wondered when I read this how the authorities of the time could possibly have been so blind to all the misery and death, how they could have been so careless and unfeeling as to let a million people suffer and die, when a trivial effort on their part could have mitigated the situation.
I guess now we have our answer.
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When have high prices (whether via taxes or other means) ever discouraged people to use the product or service? Even with these high gasoline prices, people are still driving around. The same goes for alcohol and cigarettes in Europe.
Smoking is down, although tax revenue from it is up….for old fashioned tobacco that is…
No, driving is down in the US. There was a news article today that a police department (I forget where) was only going to respond to emergencies with a patrol car and try to handle other complaints by phone.
That was Isabella County Sheriff, Michigan.
Having heard that the police are driving around less, have burglars taken to driving around more ? Or has the increased cost of fuel caused them to increase or decrease their activities ? There’s a Grauniad headline in there somewhere.
Another example of the prevailing trend in climatism: take local action which, even if successful, and if the theory is correct, will have zero effect on the supposed problem which is cited to justify it.
NZ emits about 82 million tons of CO2 a year, and steady or falling. Global emissions are about 37 billion tons and rising, mainly due to China, India etc.
Reduce NZ emissions by half, eliminate them entirely, and the reduction will be made up in a few months by countries that show every sign of just not believing in any climate crisis or need to reduce.
Another typical aspect of this move: its not even clear that taxing the animals will in fact reduce the tiny NZ emissions. It may just raise the price of lamb and beef and dairy products.
This also is characteristic of this phase of climatism. For instance, its a matter of faith to the adherents that installing wind and solar power generation will reduce emissions on a scale large enough to make a difference to global emissions. But there is no documented case of this happening to show that the general adoption of wind and solar generation is possible, or that it would reduce emissions materially if tried. Its a matter of faith that moving to EVs will reduce emissions. But there is no case where its happened, and no proper studies showing it will.
Wow this story has got it all:
(1) Methane as a GH gas
(2) Eating fat makes you fat
(3) Increasing the price of an essential item will reduce demand
There is even a scary picture of a skeleton
Have mercy, I almost spat out all my drink over my new laptop… 🙂
Australia’s 25 million people are roughly equivalent to the population of metropolitan Shanghai in China. New Zealand’s five million are equivalent to China’s 20th largest city.
China’s southeastern province of Guangdong, at 126 million, is more than four times larger than the combined population of New Zealand and Australia. Moreover, Guangdong is the most industrialized and trade-oriented province in China.
China is going to continue to demand virtually all the raw materials and foodstuffs, or equivalents, that New Zealand and Australia can provide — regardless of carbon footprint, bovine flatulence, Western guilt trips, or any other factor. China is the big guy; the nearby Anglophone countries are little guys. Current trends suggest that Australia and New Zealand are destined to become resource colonies of China, whether they call it that or not.
In short, the English-speaking countries of Oceania are a drop in the bucket of global ecology. Nothing they do or not don’t do is visible on a pie chart. Harming their economies over CO2 obsessions is like the joke from “Crocodile Dundee” about two fleas arguing over which one owns the dog.
Is it a meat head tax also?
Rob Reiner will be pissed!
well, they moved on from co2 to methane so quickly that it spins your head around…they always need the “next” crisis.
I cannot believe these people are lunatics or thick as bricks but so totally controlled by their ideologies that they delude themselves about reality.
My concern is that they are ‘crazy’ like a fox. A fox without any ethics.
This isn’t about climate change, it’s an opportunistic way to increase gubment revenues while promoting a faux morality.
At least some of White Castle’s hamburger paddies come from New Zealand. The whole 53′ refer trailer I was pulling was loaded with frozen slider paddies at the docks in Philadelphia a few winters ago. Destination was a White Castle processing facility in Vandalia, OH out by the Dayton airport.
I am wondering if the AGW contribution from livestock methane has ever been compared to the emissions required to replace all of the byproducts realized from livestock husbandry…
Especially since solar panels and wind turbines are covering more and more of the available arable land.
Seems like meat production tax is a hot buzzer issue but few countries are actually imposing them that I can find. We already pay plenty of tax for the meat we purchase as all the inputs are taxed. It would take a very deep search to determine how much oil is used to make the fertilizer used to grow a 100 acres of soy bean. Seems like it is a big secret.
I’ve always known it’s true, but just now realised it’s climate change:
If you burp, fart and sneeze, all at the same time, you die!
The NZ tax will save lives.
Speaking of NZ, I just ran across some data about world suicide rates and was surprised that NZ has high rates — that was even before the lock-downs for COVID. We should watch this to see if this direct meddling with ruminant ranching results in extra stress that causes the suicide rate to increase.
Spencer’s Third Law: For every social action, there is an equal and opposite reaction — called Unintended Consequences.
Let’s just call them out. They want meat eating to be banned.
Live is getting depressed in NZ under that women’s leadership. Covid scare still doing the rounds.
Maybe the gods will intervene and shower us with meat:
https://historianandrew.medium.com/the-day-it-literally-rained-raw-meat-in-kentucky-96ef5229999f
heh.
Lunacy in NZ again? I wonder how far is the day when the locals will lose patience and invite these clowns to a big shark-feeding festival (“very traditional!”).
She’s so jealous and want’s New Zealand on that list. If it’s good enough for third world countries it’s good enough for hers.
James Bull
I wondered when I read this how the authorities of the time could possibly have been so blind to all the misery and death, how they could have been so careless and unfeeling as to let a million people suffer and die, when a trivial effort on their part could have mitigated the situation.
In a Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge says.
‘If they would rather die, they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population‘
Charles Dickens was probably picking up on the feeling of those in positions of power and influence who viewed the poor as a blight on society.
Much as those who recently had a jamboree in Switzerland feel about most of us.
Bit like Margaret Sanger in the US and Marie Stopes here in the UK are made out to be heroes for women’s reproductive rights but were nothing more than eugenicists like Hitler wanting racial purity over all else.
James Bull
Err cows and sheep eat grass, which take CO2 out of the air. The methane they produce degrades in a few years to become CO2 back in the air again. These politicians and activists are nuts.
Incidentally, the US cattle population is a bit bigger than the US great bison polulations of the 18th/19th century but not a lot bigger.
I’m waiting for them to ban the worst greenhouse gas of all — water vapor.