It’s time to ditch the special treatment of those who profit from the suffering of animals, as they have across the ditch.
New Zealand has just decided to put a price on agricultural emissions. Cows and sheep belch and fart out around fifty per cent of their total greenhouse emissions, and the exemption of agriculture from emission controls has been making a mockery of the country’s attempts to reduce global warming.
New Zealand has about 10 million cattle and 26 million sheep. Australia, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, has 26.6 million cattle and 71 million sheep and lambs, so the greenhouse problems here are far greater. Every one of those animals will live a short and brutal life, branded, castrated, mulesed and eventually slaughtered for his or her skin or meat, while scarcely more than juveniles.
A fart tax to help pay for the emissions would be a good start, but leaving the products of these cruel industries off our forks and out of our cupboards is the best thing we can do to reduce the nation’s greenhouse footprint.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
