{"id":356051,"date":"2024-12-20T15:19:28","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T14:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=356051"},"modified":"2024-12-20T15:19:31","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T14:19:31","slug":"danish-fart-tax-no-laughing-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=356051","title":{"rendered":"Danish Fart Tax No Laughing\u00a0Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Science Matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Paul Schwennesen explains the nefarious intent behind this latest government hostile takeover in his Daily Economy article<\/strong><\/a>.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cow farts are a distraction, and the joke\u2019s on us. The Danish tax is a<\/strong><\/em>
significant step toward state ownership of the means of production.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denmark, according to The New York Times, is going ahead with its livestock \u201cBurp Tax.\u201d Though hotly contested, the Danish government has nevertheless finally settled on levying farmers 300 kroners (~$43) per ton for carbon dioxide emissions, ramping to $106 per ton by 2035.<\/strong> As is the case with many of these farm-targeted green interventions, the action is ludicrously ineffectual at addressing the trumped-up problem<\/strong>, while remarkably effective at further cementing state controls over economic production.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the reason farms (and especially cows)<\/strong> are such fat targets for this kind of statist intervention is that, politically speaking, they are the perfect scapegoat.<\/strong> It all seems so harmless, after all \u2014 so silly even \u2014 that serious-minded folk risk looking ridiculous if they object<\/strong>. Is it really so very draconian, goes the argument, to ask farmers to reduce their cow flatulence<\/strong>? The ever-so-reasonable request (enforceable by law, to be sure) glides under the radar in a scree of giggle-inducing copy that distracts readers to what is really afoot.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Times plays its part in this fa\u00e7ade<\/strong>, relishing the chance to print \u201cpoop, farts, and burps\u201d in the business section so that the regulation seems plucked from an impish children\u2019s story rather than<\/strong> what it is: a deadly serious infringement on economic liberty.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defenders of the scheme insist it is necessary to address the pressing issue of climate change. But even if<\/strong> we<\/strong> were to accept the lobby\u2019s poorly understood climate science<\/strong> at face value, the claims<\/strong> would be dubious<\/strong>. Cows<\/strong> stand accused of emitting 5.6 metric tons<\/strong> in annual \u201cCO2 equivalent\u201d emissions. All this politically motivated tabulating and assessing completely ignores the other side of the ledger<\/strong>, the growing recognition that grazing livestock have a complex, largely offsetting (and quite probably net-positive) impact<\/strong> on overall carbon emissions. Nature, after all, doesn\u2019t work in simple equations and we are woefully under-informed about the rich and inherently unmodelable world of stochastic ecology.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Give Daisy a Break.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The New York Times<\/strong>, by way of perspective, accounts for 16,979 metric tons of its own,<\/strong> meaning that it, as a single company, has the footprint of ten Danish dairies.<\/strong> What would readers of \u201cAll the News That\u2019s Fit to Print\u201d have to say about an annual tax of $730,000 a year, ramping to $1.8 million, being added to the newspaper stand price?<\/strong> Advocates of a free press might well ask why the government was using state power to make the newspaper of record less competitive.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in any case, climate science and cow farts aren\u2019t really the issue here.
The issue is essentially about control, and who gets to occupy the
commanding heights of a centrally managed economy.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA tax on pollution has the aim to change behavior,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0says Jeppe Bruss, the Danish \u201cgreen transition\u201d minister in an unguardedly candid moment.\u00a0Government programs<\/strong>\u00a0to change behavior are\u00a0much easier to introduce slowly, and against somewhat laughable minority sectors<\/strong>\u00a0like farming than against, say, the population at large. They do\u00a0not<\/strong>\u00a0seem\u00a0eager<\/strong>, for instance,\u00a0to levy additional burdens on average people\u2019s heating and transport emissions, which combined dwarf the agricultural sectors<\/strong>. The Times says that livestock emissions are \u201cbecoming\u201d the largest share of Denmark\u2019s share of climate pollution which is another way of saying that it isn\u2019t the largest share.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If beef and milk production indeed posed such an existential climate risk, then why not simply tax the consumers of beef and milk<\/strong> who, after all, are the real source of the production signal? The answer, of course, is obvious: no politician wants to be pegged as the one who raised the price of butter for average Danish grandmothers. Politically, it is far easier to go after the farmers<\/strong>, knowing full well that any cost burdens<\/strong> on farm production will be passed along to consumers anyway<\/strong> \u2014 only then it will be the farmers\u2019 fault, not the government\u2019s.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an old trick, a kind of regulatory-impact laundering scheme.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The success of the Danish strategy remains to be seen. If examples from the Netherlands and New Zealand are any indication, the plan may well backfire, with frustrated farmers taking to the street and even grabbing back the reins of power.<\/strong> It is a useful warning<\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

allowing government, the power to surgically tax and thereby \u201cchange behavior\u201d
of producers is the same as granting them economic planning privileges.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Danish \u201cBurp Tax\u201d is a significant step toward the state ownership of the means of production, and as the history of centrally managed economies shows, it\u2019s not likely to end well<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cow farts are a distraction, and the joke\u2019s on us. The Danish tax is a significant step toward state ownership of the means of production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":356077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691832180,691818056,691832178,691832179],"class_list":{"0":"post-356051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-burp-tax","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-cow-farts","11":"tag-danish-tax","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/2GF0fVoJawAACVF9.jpeg?fit=2048%2C1292&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1uCL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":353125,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=353125","url_meta":{"origin":356051,"position":0},"title":"There\u2019s something rotten with Denmark\u2019s animal flatulence tax","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"03\/12\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"In Episode 472 of District of Conservation, Gabriella chats about Denmark passing the first-ever animal flatulence (fart) tax to wean people off of eating meat. This policy has been discussed for several months. 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