Typical liberal elitist, demanding that the rest of us make sacrifices they are unwilling to make themselves
Full disclosure: I like meat.
I've eaten countless steaks, hamburgers, pork chops, bacon, hot dogs, chicken and fish in my life. I am what you might call a red-blooded, meat-eating American - and proud of it.
And, apparently, I'm a threat to the planet.
It's official. The global warming nutsos think that cows and pigs are significant contributors of greenhouse gases, and that meat consumption is a waste of natural resources. They believe the world would be better off if we were all vegetarians.
And they're coming after our food next.
Are you aware that among the items for discussion at next month's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is limiting livestock production and meat consumption?
Global climate change expert Nicholas Stern (that's Lord Stern of Brentford to us commoners) told the London Times recently that the conference would be considered successful if it leads to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate greenhouse gases.
"Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases," said Stern. "It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better."
Lord Stern is no crackpot; he's a former chief economist for the World Bank.
Maybe becoming a vegetarian is a better dietary choice. Still, I'm not going to give up eating meat based on the recommendations of some foppish English lord.
It's becoming clearer all the time that the global warming scam is just a way for the left to get the rest of to change our ways and adopt their preferred lifestyles.
Punitive taxation is their means to control our choices. If energy use becomes too expensive, they figure we'll have to use less of it. Now they want to call cows, pigs and chickens a danger to the planet and impose a tax.
The global warming zealots won't be satisfied until we're all living like Ghandi - no electricity, no cars and no food.
Recall that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a plan that would fine livestock operations because they produce carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. The proposed fines would make beef and pork products more costly to consumers.
South Dakota's Sen. John Thune introduced a bill that would prohibit a cow tax, and while it may have seemed like a joke at the time, it's no laughing matter.
Thune was able to add an amendment to the Interior funding bill this year that would prevent the EPA from creating a livestock emissions permit system for one year.
But what happens next if the U.N. climate change delegates adopt a plan to get the planet's inhabitants to give up meat consumption - you know, to save the planet from destruction unless we all start behaving like, God help us, liberals.
U.S. News & World Report asked Thune, the sponsor of the cow tax bill, what he thought of Lord Stern's comments. "With falling beef prices, higher costs of production, and onerous cap-and-trade legislation looming, the last thing ranchers and employees of America's meat industry need right now is elitist lecturing and misinformation from Lord Stern - a reported meat eater," Thune said.
Apparently, Lord Stern is not a vegetarian himself. Typical liberal elitist, demanding that the rest of us make sacrifices they are unwilling to make themselves.
Chew on this: No president or Congress should adopt a treaty that tries to tell Americans what they should eat.
