environment, ramblings

Taxing Meat

Could a tax on meat help us save the planet?
That’s the interesting question posed by Simon Fairlie in a Guardian article a few days ago.
It is, I think, now becoming widely accepted that fattening livestock for human consumption is a very inefficient use of feed and water – and thus environmentally unsound. One way to reduce consumption of meat would be to tax it, perhaps treating it as a luxury item.
As usual here’s the tl;dr summary of quotes from the article.

Feeding cereals and beans to animals is an inefficient and extravagant way to produce human food … there is a limited amount of grazing land … the world will be hard-pressed to supply a predicted population of 9 billion people with a diet as rich in meat as the industrialised world currently enjoys, and … it’s not a very healthy diet anyway. [Additionally] … livestock [generate] 14.5% of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions.
… … …
Meat taxes have been proposed … the ideal solution might be not to tax meat itself, but to tax fossil fuels … meat production would decline as a consequence – partly because nitrogen fertilisers … for growing animal feed would become more expensive, and partly because there would be increased competition for grazing land.
… … …
Most proposals [for meat taxes] foresee different rates of tax applied to different animals … a pig fed on food waste and crop residues has a tiny fraction of the environmental impact of a pig fed on soya and grains.

If we were to have a meat tax, it would … be simpler to have a flat rate for all meat; and in the UK and the rest of the EU there is an oven-ready way of doing that … VAT … It is hard to think of a more seamless way of introducing consumers to the concept that meat … is a luxury item they will have to pay more for.
… … …
[Another] aspect of applying VAT to meat [is that] small livestock farms with an annual turnover of less than the £85,000 threshold could be exempt. They would benefit from an advantage of up to 20% over supermarkets for any meat they sell direct to consumers … [this] might help reverse the drastic decline in the number of small family farms, and give a boost to new entrants into farming. It would also provide a fillip to local economies, with farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture schemes, urban food co-ops, small farms in the green belt, conservation graziers … likely to benefit.

It’s an intriguing idea, but one which I don’t see happening. The consumer in the developed world is far too wedded to meat as a staple food to accept what will be seen as an arbitrary price hike for no gain. But then again why not scrap income tax and charge VAT (or equivalent) on everything?

amusements, history, people, personal, ramblings

The Ancestors' Commandments

I came across these a few days ago in a family history society magazine. I’ve tidied them up a bit.
The Ancestors’ Commandments

  1. Thou shalt use the same forenames for at least one person for every generation, preferably at least once in every family, just to cause confusion.
  2. Thou shalt wait the maximum amount of time before registering births and deaths, or better still somehow forget to get them registered at all.
  3. Thou shalt have two forenames, and use them both separately on official documents, but never together.
  4. Thou shalt change your forename at least once during your lifetime.
  5. Thou shalt use every conceivable spelling for your surname, and make up a few others as well.
  6. Thou shalt never use the same year of birth or birth date and always vary it adding a couple of years here and taking away a couple of years there.
  7. Thou shalt use the house name and country as your place of birth and not the village or town.
  8. Thou shalt completely disappear without trace for at least 15 years of your life and suddenly turn up again.
  9. Thou shalt use at least two different versions of your father’s name.
  10. Thou shalt not use family members as witnesses at your wedding(s).
  11. Thou shalt get married somewhere where neither of you live.
  12. Thou shalt not have all of your children baptised and shalt not always use the same church.
  13. Thou shalt move between counties at least once every ten years.
  14. Thou shalt move hundreds of miles from your home at least once.

Brilliant, aren’t they. And so, so true. I think Noreen and I each have a full house in our family trees.

quotes

Quotes

So here we have this month’s collection of quotes …
It’s a crufty pile of ad-hocery, but it works.
[Alex Parker]
The more extremism surrounds me – of any hue, religious, political, right, left – the more I find that I react with an extremism of my own. I am becoming extremely moderate, extremely reasonable, extremely centrist, extremely keen to understand others. If there is such a thing as a fundamentalist moderate, I think I’m turning into one. For what other choice is there, as the world becomes harder and more jagged, than to allow oneself to become softer and more flexible? What other strategy, if faced with an implacable wall, than to seep in through the cracks? What other option, when confronted by inhumanity, than to become more human?
[Alex Andreou on Facebook]
This is an article in support of fairness and inclusivity … I am fully in favour of fairness. I am fully in favour of inclusivity. Fairness and inclusivity are not natural, however. They are artificial human constructs. Nature is not fair and it is not inclusive. Human beings, as a naturally occurring animal species, are not fair or inclusive unless we try very hard to be, unless we go against our natural inclinations.
[Brad Warner at http://hardcorezen.info/monks-depend-on-soldiers/5308]
Ripping down … public protections means freedom for billionaires and corporations from the constraints of democracy. This is what Brexit – and Donald Trump – are all about. The freedom we were promised is the freedom of the very rich to exploit us.
[George Monbiot at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/04/ripping-up-protections-brexit-trump-freedom]
If the government agrees to a “bonfire of red tape”, we would win bent bananas and newt-squashing prerogatives. On the other hand, we could lose our rights to fair employment, an enduring living world, clean air, clean water, public safety, consumer protection, functioning public services, and the other distinguishing features of civilisation. Tough choice, isn’t it?
[George Monbiot at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/04/ripping-up-protections-brexit-trump-freedom]
Whenever we hear the word freedom, we should ask ourselves, “Freedom for whom, at whose expense?”
[George Monbiot at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/04/ripping-up-protections-brexit-trump-freedom]
At last a use for children. Accessible food orderers for those wanting chips and chicken nuggets instead of posh grub.
[John Hein]
One of the ways of avoiding being beaten by the system is to laugh at it.
[Peter Cook]
If a man is born ignorant, to parents that are ignorant, in a society that is ignorant, lives a life of ignorance and eventually dies in ignorance … ignorance is a norm. So indoctrination can be called education, hypnotism can be called entertainment, criminals can be called leaders, and lies can be called truth, because his mind was never truly his own.
[unknown]
To all appearances he is a fool. His steps leave no trace.
[Chuang-tzu, The Perfect Man]
Being an arsehole is an equal opportunities business.
[Someone I didn’t note on Facebook]

history, personal

Ten Things

This month we have an historical Ten Things …
Ten Interesting Historical Figures

  1. Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)
  2. William Byrd (c.1540-1623)
  3. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
  4. Lewis Carroll, aka. Charles Dodgson (1832-1898)
  5. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
  6. Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
  7. Sir Francis Walsingham (1532–1590) (shown right)
  8. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
  9. John Aubrey (1626-1697)
  10. Dr John Dee (1527-c.1608)
personal, photography, ramblings

Sprunging

Suddenly it’s Spring. Everything in our garden is growing, and green, and flowering. From the bright shocking pink of our “Ballerina” crab apple tree to …
… our small pendant ornamental crab apple …

Apple Blossom

… the cherry tree …
Cherry Blossom

… and the tulips.
Tulips

Our edible apple tree is just beginning to break into flower, so it should be full out in the next couple of days, and the lilac won’t be very far behind.
And just to top it all, the sun is shining!

environment, medical

Not King Coal

Well who would have guessed it? Well to be fair, I don’t think I would have guessed it, at least not quite in this way … because according to a report in yesterday’s Guardian, coal-fired power stations are more injurious to health than nuclear ones.


In what’s described as a “natural experiment”, researchers followed the switch from nuclear to coal following the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, where they could compare power generation by nuclear (before) and coal (after) in the same area. They found particulate pollution increased by 27% and average birth weight fell. And that’s without any effect of the particulates on things like asthma.