Denmark Taxes Cow Farts Because Everything Is Absurd

In today's stupidest news, the tiny Scandinavian nation of Denmark will impose the world's first greenhouse gas tax on livestock farmers — with the accent on "gas."

Beginning in 2030, Danish farmers will be taxed for "the greenhouse gases emitted by their cows, sheep, and pigs" via their rear ends. The gasses, not the taxes. The taxes come from Copenhagen's rear end.

Taxation Minister Jeppe Bruus, according to the AP report, said the country aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 30% of 1990 levels by 2030. And they'll achieve that goal, at least in part, by taxing cow farts.

Don't look at me. I don't write the laws in Denmark or anywhere else. I just report on them.

The UN Environment Program claims that livestock accounts for about 32% of human-caused methane emissions, and I assume they're using "human-caused" in the broadest possible sense. But there's an issue that the UN — and every other green-red enviro-statist group — conveniently ignores.

That's a vital issue but it will be easier to explain if I switch over to water consumption.

USGS estimated several years ago that 39% of America's water use goes to the "public supply." Of that 39%, a bit more than half — 57% — goes to residential use. That's all the water you and I use in our homes for drinking, washing clothes, taking showers, etc. What it comes down to is that just a little more than 22% of our water is used in our homes. The rest goes to irrigation, livestock, thermoelectric power, industrial use, and so on.

But let's dig just slightly deeper, with this handy pie chart produced by the EPA using Water Research Foundation data.

You don't see "Dishwasher" on that chart, so you have to presume that your dishwasher falls under "Other 8%."

But Washington keeps clamping down on new dishwashers with more and more regulations requiring that they use less and less water. In terms of actually saving water, it's like trying to save the Titanic by fixing that leaky faucet in the captain's quarters. And yet Washington insists on saddling us with new dishwashers that are worse than the old ones.

So what does your dishwasher have to do with cow farts?

(Nothing in practice, I sincerely hope.)

You have to figure that if the planet can support this much animal life, then the planet will support about this much animal life. All we humans did was promote and protect the particular animals that serve our purposes — in ways that often lead to tasty ribeye steaks. That's a win.

The point is that gassy animals abounded before we started corraling them, and they'll abound if we stop corraling them. Going further, as vegetarian Bjorn Lomborg — aka The Skeptical Environmentalist — put it, "a systematic peer review of studies shows vegetarian diets likely reduce an individual’s emissions by the equivalent of 540 kg (1,190 lbs.) of CO2. For the average person in the industrialized world, that’s the equivalent of cutting emissions by just 4.3 percent."

Even if we all went vegetarian — and this Danish law isn't even a step in that direction — nothing would change.

Taxes on gassy animals are just another government cash grab on the pretense of saving a planet that doesn't need saving.