[nightski]

Beef only is responsible for 3% of greenhouse gasses in America. I'm not sure an "emission" tax would really affect the price all that much. In addition, you have to account for and tax the emissions produced in plant production (fertilizer, agricultural soil, transportation, etc...). Agriculture is a total of 9%, whereas livestock only accounts for 3% of that.

I work for agriculture companies, and a lot of animal feed comes from by-products of other agricultural products. For example, beet pulp pellets, raffinate, betaine, molasses are all by products of sugar production and are used for animal feed extensively. They are cheap and very shelf stable.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

[prolepunk]

I believe this is a very US-centric viewpoint.

I'm using the article 'Beef Cattle and Greenhouse Gas Production' from Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/beef/news/info...

According Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN 2006 report livestock were responsible for 18% of all human-related greenhouse gas production. 14.5% according to 2013 report.

Of that 43% is Enteric.

There may only be 9% GHG emissions in the US, but beef also comes from other countries where these emissions are very different. See Regional and Production System differences.

From the article -- There was an approximately 4-fold difference in emission intensity between the top 10% of producers and the bottom 10% of producers within a system.

[nightski]

You are right, but I was discussing in reference to a U.S. based emissions "tax". Maybe I misunderstood and they were suggesting a worldwide tax? Not sure how that would work.

If the U.S. were to tax agriculture production of beef, I'm assuming that would be for U.S. farmers so the relevant statistic is emissions in the U.S.

[arcseco]

Minor note; "Manure management accounts for about 15 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the Agriculture economic sector in the United States."

If you include the emissions from manure management you end with 45% of all emissions emanating from livestock production.

[nightski]

To be clear, you end up with 45% of all emissions from the agriculture sector - which would be 4.05% overall.

Also, that manure management is part of fertilization of plants if I am not mistaken.

[megaremote]

> Beef only is responsible for 3% of greenhouse gasses in America. I'm not sure an "emission" tax would really affect the price all that much.

Are you only talking about directly? Because there is a huge amount of indirect costs, such as feed, transport, manufacturing.

[nightski]

Plant based products have similar transport & manufacturing impact so I am not including that.

In addition, for feeding often this comes from by-products of plant production (sugar by-products, etc...). The only reason corn is so popular imo is because it is so heavily subsidized by our government making it dirt cheap. But grass fed beef is a thing and it's on par or even quite a bit cheaper price wise than fake meat.