Perspectives: Taxing my steak won’t save the planet

November 25, 2018 Utah Channel 3

OPINION — I was willing to give global climate change activists the benefit of the doubt. Then they went and made it personal by threatening to tax my passion for BBQ.

For the past couple of years, I’d been hearing rumblings about how adopting a meat-free diet might cause a reduction in our carbon footprints, leading to a reduction in climate change. Apparently, economic mobility is allowing an increasing number of people in rapidly industrializing countries to afford a meat-rich Western diet.

From a strictly personal dietary health standpoint, that actually makes some sense.

But when advocates suggested putting pressure on their governments to start applying pressure to everyone by taxing red and processed meats, they are crossing the line. First and foremost, taxing an entire major food group would certainly invite unintended consequences – particularly for the poorest among us.

Second, as Ryan Bourne points out in his recent essay “Meat Eaters Beware: The (Es)Stake Tax is Coming,” such a tax would burden healthy eaters the same as unhealthy eaters. It would fail to recognize the difference in risks of types of consumers.

Bourne also notes:

[T]he history of food science itself is littered by examples of governments sharing subsequently mistaken advice. On that basis alone, it is far too soon for governments to tax a whole major food group on the basis of speculative modelling and disputed science.

Speaking of speculative modeling and disputed science, here’s where I’ll freely admit to being a skeptic of climate change theology.

Particularly, I’m skeptical of any solution that requires that we hand over more control over every aspect of human activity to politicians, bureaucrats and the climate scientists funded by them. I don’t believe that politicizing the climate is likely to give humankind control over it.

It’s just a little too convenient that nearly every aspect of our lives can be tied in some way to the environment and the global climate. We’re being told that this is a threat so large that only big government can handle it, with the careful guidance of the environmental lobby.

Furthermore, we’re supposed to believe that this issue is so incredibly complicated that we must defer to a select cadre of scientists whose consensus is so compelling that we must trust them in all they say or claim.

Any dissent, either within or without the scientific community, is treated as intolerable heresy with an intensity that would have a Grand Inquisitor shaking his head in disbelief.

Dogmatic declarations that “the science is settled” are supposed to encourage us to shut up and go along. With due respect to scientists, politicians and bureaucrats, there’s simply too much at stake to take their word on this without question.

That there may be measurable change in the global climate is reasonable. Whether or not it is purely man-made is debatable. But the proffered solution of ever-increasing government control of humanity at a global level is definitely not something we should be taking on faith.

Any time someone is using officially-sanctioned fear to try to move us in their intended direction, we should be unapologetically asking hard questions to confirm the authenticity of their claims.

To this end, Doug Casey has written a marvelous essay titled “Why We Need More Climate Change Skeptics.”

He makes a powerful case for how skepticism is essential to help us identify where biases – intentional or otherwise – may be interfering with our pursuit of the truth.

When we are told that 97 percent of climate scientists agree with their own scientific consensus, we need to fully understand what that claim entails.

Casey carefully deconstructs the claim by outlining how the 97 percent of those climate scientists who are “actively publishing in scientific journals” are not immune from bias along their career paths. The career path they must follow puts that “97 percent” figure into perspective.

I’m not a climate scientist but I’m a student of human nature. When I hear labels like “climate change denier” being wielded as a rhetorical weapon, it sounds a lot like other bogus predicates that are used to intimidate or silence people where persuasion has failed.

Bogus – also known as unspecified – predicates have no real content. The accusation is notably lacking specificity. When someone is accused of being a “climate change denier,” we don’t know if they are skeptical of methodology or prefer to get their direction from chicken bones.

All we know is that we’re supposed to regard them as dangerous or bad people who don’t believe in science and would likely burn old tires on Earth Day as a protest.

We needn’t take on faith the word of climate scientists as if they were figuratively descending from Mount Sinai with stone tablets in their hands.

I want a healthy climate as much as you do, but I won’t be giving up my steaks any time soon.

Bryan Hyde is an opinion columnist specializing in current events and liberty viewed through what he calls the lens of common sense. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: bryanh@stgnews.com

Twitter: @youcancallmebry