Posted on 08/14/2019 1:42:34 PM PDT by Red Badger
Because the agricultural industry is considered both cruel to animals and a menace to the climate, some European nations — most notably Germany — are considering levying a so-called “sin tax,” similar to taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, on red meat. Proponents believe the tax will encourage more people to switch to poultry and plant-based proteins.
Environmentalists, animal-rights activists and climate hysterics have been pushing the idea for a few years, but now, at least in Western Europe, some governments are seriously considering taxing consumers for the privilege of purchasing red meat. A report by Fitch Solutions Macro Research, a European market research company, outlines the trend, which they say echoes another irrational taxation trend — taxes on sugar and soft drinks.
“The global rise of sugar taxes makes it easy to envisage a similar wave of regulatory measures targeting the meat industry,” Fitch Solutions said, adding, “It is highly unlikely that a tax would be implemented anytime soon in the United States or Brazil.”
Advocates of such taxes say they will promote more healthy lifestyles, since some studies have linked eating too much red, particularly processed meat, to an increase in health problems such as heart disease and cancer. In addition, proponents hope to improve living conditions for livestock and cut down on CO2 emissions, which some believe is causing global warming.
German politicians from the Social Democrat (SPD) and Green parties are on record as being for a large increase in the Value Added Tax (VAT) on meat. Currently, meat and all foodstuffs in Germany are taxed at seven percent. Proponents of a new VAT are looking to nearly triple the tax on red meat.
“I am in favor of abolishing the VAT reduction for meat and earmarking it for more animal welfare,” said Friedrich Ostendorf, an agricultural policy spokesperson for the Greens.
SPD spokesman Rainer Speiging stated, “A meat tax, such as increasing the VAT to 19%, could be a way forward.”
A Funke Media Group poll suggests the German citizens back the measure, with 56.4% of those polled in favor. More than a third of those polled had a “very positive” opinion of the proposed tax increase. Eighty-two percent of Green Party members supported the measure.
The already-struggling German meat industry would be severely affected by the new tax. Production in the industry has already dropped by 5.2 percent in the past five years, with pork production dropping by 6.4 percent.
Despite the measure’s supposed popularity, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the current ruling coalition are adamantly opposed to any new taxes at this time. Opponents argue that consumers would be footing the bill, rather than the producers.
And that’s exactly what the climate hysterics and animal-rights activists want. They want the price to be so high for meat that consumers will seek out other protein options. They want to social-engineer eating meat out of existence.
Meanwhile, across the English Channel, one university in Great Britain has decided to not sell any red meat on campus. Goldsmiths, University of London made the announcement on Monday. The no-meat policy is part of Goldsmiths’ push to be “carbon neutral” by 2025.
All of this nonsense comes in the wake of a new United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released last week. The report calls for humanity to vastly decrease the amount of meat we eat in order to help forestall the ginned-up menace of anthropogenic climate change.
In mentioning that the people of the world should eat less meat, one of that study’s lead authors, Hans-Otto Pörtner of the Alfred Wegener Center for Polar and Marine Research and the co-chair of IPCC Working Group 2, even suggested that the governments of the world should “create appropriate incentives to that effect.”
But Pörtner wasn’t talking about the governments of the world giving out gold stars should you eat less meat. He was talking about exactly what is being considered in Germany — onerous taxation on a food staple. That’s not an incentive. It’s a punishment.
A vegan diet caused a lady friend of mine to become a type 1 diabetic when she was not prior to that diet.
She now has to wear an insulin pump and has had to for years since that happened.
She has also always been slender and petite, never fat in her life. She’s about 74 now, so she’s done okay with it, but wow!
Check my book “Seven Events that Made America America.” This all started in the 1950s when Ansel Keyes used the opportunity of Ike’s heart attack to begin pushing his war on cholesterol, then against fat, and ultimately against meat.
25 grams of carbs per day. And fat is okay too.
Yep. Brain needs fat, body needs salt.
People who live around the world in the far - frozen north and use the weather, land and heavens for survival on just about everything...Geophysicist Kenntth Hudnut of the U.S. Geological Survey said the March 11, 2011 quake moved part of Japan's land mass nearly 2.5 meters..."
(How Powerful Was the Earthquake in Japan?)
"Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters)."
Weather is always changing however this time the earth's axis has shifted. So killing the meat industry, killing thousand of jobs and helping the Fake Meat Market along is NOT the answer. Global climate change has been and always will be with us......it is insane to think man could change the weather regardless of how politicians etc. want people to believe......
Which explains how cannibalism originates
"You shall be punished!"
.....sounds like the never Trump'ers, the deplorable's and smelly shoppers...follow the money and stock on Fake Meat.....
And on this episode of BBQ PITMASTERS the contestants square off to see who can turn in the tastiest Georgia style Long Pork.
It’s like I said, I’m going to eat meat.
The rest is up to them.
There have been many times in history when people assert authority that they do not possess, and it ends badly for them.
Let’s hope vegans are familiar with such history.
Muslims (pork), Hindus (Beef) and some Buddhists (all meat) are for this... and are changing the population of Europe.
Sounds like Singapore where its nearly impossible to buy pork (halal everywhere) as Muslim Malays complained, the Indian population complained about beef, and some Chinese Buddhists complained about all meat...
Sitzpinklern.
Give me the red “soylent green” or death.
Aren’t Coffee and Chocolate (the lefties mental lifeblood these days) even WORSE offenders in the carbonfootprint whatitz these leftist pawns are pushing (now new against red meat -— ‘cuz its bad’)
And Pot growing eats huge amounts of materials (all with a huge carbon footprint which might be better handed out to some foreigners). Sickening abuse of mother gaia.
Leftist hotair has more effect to bring the horribly changing weather too, so maybe time to ban them as well.
Grain grown for the giant muffins likewise evil, but they never think of all that roughage plugged up toilets these derpists cause ??? Terrible terrible the sins of the derpists. Such hypocrites.
Here’s a question the liberal AGW crowd can never answer:
Tell me, just when in the last billion years or so, has the climate NOT been changing?........................
Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.......Robert Heinlein......
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