Does a food carbon tax increase animal deaths and/or the total time of suffering of cows, pigs, chickens, and fish? Theoretically, this is possible, as a carbon tax could lead consumers to substitute, for example, beef with chicken. However, this is not per se the case, as animal products are not perfect substitutes.
I'm presenting the results of my master's thesis in Environmental Economics, which I re-worked and published on SSRN as a pre-print. My thesis develops a model of animal product substitution after a carbon tax, slaughter tax, and a meat tax. When I calibrate[1] this model for the U.S., there is a decrease in animal deaths and duration of suffering following a carbon tax. This suggests that a carbon tax can reduce animal suffering.
Key points
* Some animal products are carbon-intensive, like beef, but causes relatively few animal deaths or total time of suffering because the animals are large. Other animal products, like chicken, causes relatively many animal deaths or total time of suffering because the animals are small, but cause relatively low greenhouse gas emissions.
* A carbon tax will make some animal products, like beef, much more expensive. As a result, people may buy more chicken. This would increase animal suffering, assuming that farm animals suffer. However, this is not per se the case. It is also possible that the direct negative effect of a carbon tax on chicken consumption is stronger than the indirect (positive) substitution effect from carbon-intensive products to chicken.
* I developed a non-linear market model to predict the consumption of different animal products after a tax, based on own-price and cross-price elasticities.
* When calibrated for the United States, this model predicts a decrease in the consumption of all animal products considered (beef, chicken, pork, and farmed fish). Therefore, the modelled carbon tax is actually good for animal welfare, assuming that animals live net-negative lives.
* A slaughter tax (a
I don't understand the meaning of this post/excerpt. It reads like a critique, but I can't tell what Ben wants to change or how he wants to change it, as the Republic summary has no clear bearing on the actions of any EA organization I'm aware of.
Also, if I weren't someone with a lot of context on who Ben is, this would be even more confusing (in my case, I can at least link his concerns here to other things I know he's written).
I recommend that people creating linkposts include a brief summary of what they took away from what they've linked to (or an actual abstract if you've linked to a scientific paper).
It can also be helpful to include information about the author if they don't have a position that makes their expertise obvious. Even if someone doesn't have a relevant background, just knowing about things they've written before can help; for example, you might note that Ben has been writing about EA for a while, partly from a perspective of being critical about issues X and Y.
On the plus side, I like the way you always include archive.org links! It's important to avoid reference rot, and you're the only poster I know of who takes this clearly positive step toward doing so.
I'm not sure what Ben wants to change (or if he even has policy recommendations).
I think the Republic parallel is interesting. "Figure out how the entire system should be ordered, then align your own life such that it accords with that ordering" is a plausible algorithm for doing ethics, but it's not clear that it dominates alternative ... (read more)