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free trade & free markets regulation tax policy

Destroying Dane Farming

Paul Jacob on Europe’s ongoing suicide over “greenhouse gases.”

In February, Denmark’s farmers were worried “that plans to levy a carbon emission tax on farming” in the name of global weather control “would force them to reduce production and close farms.”

In the same month, farmers across Europe protested against assaults on their livelihood.

Meanwhile, a report by a government commission concluded that the carbon tax could cause Denmark’s agricultural production to decline by as much as a fifth. The central planners made clear that this was a price they were willing to pay in order to indulge their ideological-​meteorological fantasy.

And also, not incidentally, in order to collect more tax dollars.

But the concern and the estimates of the severity of the blow on farmers — to be penalized for providing food, a requirement of survival — availed naught.

The carbon emissions tax is being enacted and will take effect in 2030. The levy will initially be something like $96 per cow, rising to $241 per cow in 2035.

Insane. But cows produce methane “through their burps and manure,” CNN reports. So what can tyrants do but tax farmers into oblivion?

The fantasists may claim success no matter what global climate turns out to be in years to come. Or they may claim that their measures haven’t yet fixed the global climate only because the rest of the world’s countries haven’t yet followed suit and appropriately penalized their farmers for farming.

Only when civilization is fully destroyed will we be able “save” it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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4 replies on “Destroying Dane Farming”

While I don’t savor costing anyone their livelihoods, the simple fact is that, climate arguments aside, cows are a hopelessly inefficient use of land for food production. With our rising ability to produce cultured meat, for those who want it, cows are on their on their way to oblivion anyway. No one will miss them.…

Are you prepared to give up all fresh food? A carbon tax is a tax on life itself. Agricultural production is about more than cows. Cow dung is a natural fertilizer. What about whole grains, fruits and vegetables? As for all that ‘cultured’ meat, how nutritious will it be? Will there be enough energy to produce it for an ever growing human population? That takes carbon too.

Have you actually looked at what is in that “cultured meat”?
If you did I don’t think you would be so enthusiastic.

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