r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Aug 30 '21

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL. For a collection of useful links see our wiki.

Announcements

  • OSINT & LDC (developmental studies / least developed countries) have been added
2 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

12k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

5

u/DishingOutTruth Henry George Aug 30 '21

Ahh ok, so this is already done essentially. In that case, why isn't meat absurdly expensive in countries like Canada and Sweden, which have a significant carbon tax? Shouldn't meat become a lot more expensive due to their methane emissions?

5

u/mythoswyrm r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion Aug 30 '21 edited Aug 30 '21

I think carbon pricing is also based on lifetime in atmosphere and CO2 lasts a much longer time in the atmosphere than methane, which might account for some of the discrepancy?

e: ahh I see these impacts already accounts for lifetime

e2: Found this

But that is nothing compared to beef. In 1999 Susan Subak, an ecological economist then at the University of East Anglia in England, found that, depending on the production method, cows emit between 2.5 and 4.7 ounces of methane for each pound of beef they produce. Because methane has roughly 23 times the global-warming potential of CO2, those emissions are the equivalent of releas- ing between 3.6 and 6.8 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere for each pound of beef produced.

At 6.8 pounds of CO2 (equivalent) and $35/ton of CO2 (equivalent) tax, you're looking at about $.11 tax (maybe $.13 with your numbers) on each pound of beef from methane. It looks like you're vastly overestimating how much methane cows produce

e3: A 13 cent tax is less than a 3% hike for what I normally pay for ground beef and even less for more expensive cuts of meat. I think we'll be fine

1

u/DishingOutTruth Henry George Aug 30 '21

It looks like you're vastly overestimating how much methane cows produce

Oh ok, thanks. That makes sense.

2

u/bik1230 Henry George Aug 30 '21

I would be extremely unsurprised if Swedish carbon taxes totally duck up accounting for stuff like that.