The people's voice of reason

The left wants to tax cows

The far left is blaming cows for climate change and their response it to force farmers to pay taxes on owning livestock. This has long been a plank of the anti-capitalist Far Left

Denmark is a major dairy and pork exporter. The government claims that agriculture is the country's biggest source of emissions.

The government has come up with a climate agreement, which also entails investing 40 billion krone ($3.7 billion) into measures such as reforestation and establishing wetlands (many of these new forests and wetlands) will be created by taking farmers farms. The aim of these draconian new initiatives is ostensibly to help the country meet its climate goals.

"With today's agreement, we are investing billions in the biggest transformation of the Danish landscape in recent times," Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in a statement Tuesday. "At the same time, we will be the first country in the world with a (carbon) tax on agriculture."

If the radical environmental left has their way, taxing farmers to fight "climate change" is an idea that will be exported across Europe and perhaps even to the USA.

The radical measure has angered some farmers.

Danish farmers' group Bæredygtigt Landbrug said called the measures a "scary experiment."

"We believe that the agreement is pure bureaucracy," chairman Peter Kiær said in a statement. "We recognize that there is a climate problem... But we do not believe that this agreement will solve the problems, because it will put a spoke in the wheel of agriculture's green investments."

Farmers, whose livelihoods have been attacked by the left, held protests across Europe just months ago. The farmers blocked roads with tractors and pelted the European Parliament with eggs. They blame the EU for the crippling environmental regulation and excessive red tape that is putting farmers out of business.

The radical environmentalists claim that the global food system is producing around a third of greenhouse gas emissions, with livestock farming accounting for around 12% of global emissions.

This is despite the fact that the modern cows are domesticated versions of the now extinct aurochs, which was first domesticated between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago. The Chinese domesticated hogs over 8,000 years ago. Stone age farmers/herders domesticated the first goats by at least 8,000 B.C. Horses were domesticated by 3,500 B.C. – centuries before the first pyramid was built in Egypt. Sheep were domesticated sometime between 8,000 and 11,000 B.C. and are discussed in Genesis in the Bible. Llamas were domesticated 6,000 to 7,000 years ago and camels over 3,000 years ago.

Man has coexisted with his animal partners for over ten millennium's now and now the radical environmental left is targeting the very animals who provided the meat, milk, labor, and fertilizer that lifted humanity to the point that we could create civilizations, write books, and build cities. Farm animals have not produced any climate Armageddons in all that time and claiming that they will is a scientifically dubious claim at best.

The tax is expected to be approved by Denmark's parliament later this year. It will climb automatically in the proposed legislation over time, increasing over 150 percent by 2035.

In the U.S. growing urban sprawl and farm policy decisions in Washington have already led to such a dramatic loss of farmers and farms that the U.S. cow herd is the smallest that it has been in 60 years. The total number of cows and calves on American farms is just 89.3 million; down from 132 million in 1972 – a 24.8% decrease. Meanwhile the U.S. population has increased from 210 million to 335 million over the same time period – most of that was due to immigration and the children of immigrants – a 59.5% increase.

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