Tax meat, fish, dairy and eggs

Animal agriculture is significantly damaging to the environment, and to public health. It is hugely wasteful - and in modern society it is completely unnecessary. Rain-forest clearance is happening mostly due to the demand for land to produce arable crops which are used solely for animal feeds, and for grazing pasture. Greenhouse gas emissions from animal farming are greater than the entire global transportation sector. Around thirty per cent of the microplastics which foul our oceans have originated from discarded commercial fishing equipment. Without animal agriculture, and its harmful practices and products, there would be no zoonotic pandemics, no rivers poisoned by slurry, no rain-forest burning, no anti-biotic resistance, a reduction in heart disease and obesity, a greater abundance of natural wilderness, more bio-diversity, etc. The "sugar tax" has been successful in reducing the demand for harmful products. A meat and dairy tax could be equally successful - and is arguably far more important.