Claiming that livestock farming is responsible for up to 13 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions, a European economic group focusing on so-called sustainable use of natural resources is calling for a tax of up to 56 percent on the purchase of meat goods.
As if runaway inflation wasn’t currently making food expensive enough already, researchers at the Technical University of Berlin’s Chair of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources are calling for governments to make meat even more expensive, owing to what they believe is the industry’s out-sized role in so-called man-made global warming.
The group’s leader, economist Linus Mattauch, believes that only a large decrease in global meat consumption will allow the world to “attain greenhouse gas neutrality.”
“Livestock farming is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, soil and water pollution, and precious forests are being cleared for pastures and food crops,” Mattauch claimed. “Evidence suggests the environmental impacts are so large that the world can’t meet climate goals and keep vital ecosystems intact without reducing the consumption of meat — at least in Western high-income countries.”
The solution — at least in the eyes of Mattauch — is to make meat so expensive that average consumers will be forced to purchase far less of it. He would like for governments to consider “taxing meat to reduce its consumption,” believing that this is the “most efficient path to preventing further strain on our planet.”
“The external costs from climate change and nitrate pollution amount to a global average of 5.76 to 9.21 USD per kilogram for beef — depending on whether dairy products are also produced at the same time,” Mattauch said. “In industrialized countries, this would mean that a kilogram of beef would on average be 35 to 56 percent more expensive, lamb and pork 19 percent, and poultry 25 percent.
And according to the economist, that’s only a start, since those numbers don’t include the cost of a perceived loss of biodiversity as a result of the livestock industry.
“Scientists do not yet fully understand how much a schnitzel eaten in Germany contributes to the loss of rainforest via global land use effects,” Mauch said.
Of course, such a tax will fall heavily on low-income consumers, who are already being hurt by higher food prices. Mattauch failed to offer a solution as to how all the poor folk who are suddenly priced out of the meat market will achieve their daily recommended amount of protein.
Of course, Klaus Schwab and the folks at the World Economic Forum already have a solution for that dilemma: Let them eat bugs!
The reason we don’t already eat bugs is because we’ve been manipulated by society to find them unappealing, according to this 2013 article.
“Edible insects are shunned in most developed Western nations because they are regarded as being a nuisance to people (think mosquitoes and house flies) or pests that interfere with the production of crops and animals used as human food,” the article reports.
“But this is only one side of the story — insects are a potential source of food at low cost (in terms of money and impact on the environment), they assist with food production (through pollination of important food plants, for instance), and play vital environmental roles.”
The European Union has already begun to give its blessing to the eating of insects. The bloc of nations officially sanctioned the sale of the larvae of beetles, also known as dried mealworms, when the EU’s food-safety agency classified them as safe for humans to eat. Later, in December of 2021, the EU added grasshoppers, crickets, and certain other bugs to their approved list of insects that may be sold for human consumption.
Now, Vanderbilt professor Amanda Little is arguing for the United States to quickly join the bug banquet. “Humans have been consuming edible insects — from crickets and grasshoppers to fire ants and termites — since before the dawn of civilization, and 80% of the world’s population throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, continues to eat bugs today,” Little opines.
“But U.S. consumers have been slow on the uptake, even as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved insects for human consumption years ago.”
People such as Professor Mattauch and the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab envision a world where the average consumer doesn’t purchase meat, except perhaps on very special occasions. They would prefer that you see a pound of hamburger or some chicken wings as a luxury item, not a dietary staple.
