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'd second Thinking, Fast and Slow.
I took a general primer on human biases ("Psychology of Critical Thinking") at a local university in high school, which overall had an enormously beneficial effect on my thinking.
Thinking, Fast and Slow is the most comprehensive popular book I've read which covers that territory, and wins points for describing in detail the experiments that Kahneman and Tversky used to reach their various conclusions. My understanding is that most of Kahneman and Tversky's results have held up, but not everything ... (read more)
Worth noting that Thinking Fast and Slows has some issues in the replication crisis (mainly around priming). Eg. this article here. https://jasoncollins.blog/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-thinking-fast-and-slow/
I just want to flag up that The Better Angels of Our Nature, whilst a great book, contains quite a few graphic descriptions of torture, which even as an adult I found somewhat disturbing. I don't necessarily think teenage-me would have been affected any worse, but you might still not want to put it in a school library.
+1 to Sapiens, parts of Moral Mazes, Deep Work, and Seeing like a State.