Fight Global Warming With a Sin Tax on Meat and Fish

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) recently sent a letter to all the presidential candidates calling for a 10-cents-per-pound “sin” tax on meat and fish to be imposed in grocery stores and restaurants. Why? According to the United Nations’ 2006 Food and Agriculture Organization report meat and fish production, not vehicle emissions, is the main cause of global warming. This means that if you put together the emissions from all the cars, trucks, SUVs, Hummers, airplanes and ships in the world, the meat and fish industry still emits 40% more global-warming gases than they do. There is also a serious health risk involved in eating meat, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity and a number of cancers.

Since there are already sin taxes on alcohol, tobacco and gasoline, PETA thinks it is only fair that that meat and fish are added to those three products. Eating meat and fish has necessitated huge government expenditures to pay for the resulting environmental and health damage, so a tax on these products would fight global warming and save lives—and this means all lives, including those of animals. Some of the revenues from the tax, PETA argues, could be used to fund educational programs on the environmental and health advantages of reduced meat consumption.

PETA points out that a recent University of Chicago study concluded that being vegan is 50% more effective than switching from a standard to a hybrid car. It warns that unless people drastically reduce their consumption of animal products, global warming won’t be significantly impacted.

Factory farming of land animals is a morally repugnant industry that involves routine mutilations without anesthetic, filthy living conditions, and often painful, prolonged deaths. Farmed fish don’t fare any better. They live in crowded, dirty tanks awash with parasites. Wild fish and seafood contain dangerous toxins such as lead and mercury and other dangerous chemicals.

As part of its Tax Meat campaign, PETA members will wear pig costumes and carry signs that say “Tax Meat” at campaign events in all the early primary states.

You can learn more about the sin tax at TaxMeat.com. Please write your senators and representative and urge them to support this tax.