NOTED VEGAN BORE AIRS CURE FOR
HIGH BEEF PRICES: HIGHER BEEF PRICES
RISKY CLIMATE
GERNOT WAGNER
What oil and hamburgers have in common
Hamburgers and fossil fuels are both dense sources of energy, and society has made them convenient. That doesn’t mean they’re good for us.
Hamburgers are sometimes described as “the perfect food” and sometimes as the source of all evil… I haven’t had one, or any meat, in well over a decade. (See: “evil, source of all.”) ...
You might be asking, dear reader, why I’m delving into the virtues and vices of hamburgers when there are bigger things happening in the world. In short, it’s because you can think of that hamburger as an analogy for oil in one too many ways.
While avoiding that hamburger makes for a healthier life, and perhaps even a happier and longer one, actually doing it requires more than simply knowing that information.
In the U.S., there are plenty of misguided calls now for gas-tax holidays, and some policymakers are heeding them. It would be much better to give cash directly to the poor who need the help the most, while keeping in place the incentives to get off oil. The best cure for a high oil price, after all, is a high oil price.
Fortunately, we also have a deeper understanding of the overlapping nature of the national security, energy, and climate crises. The moral clarity afforded by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is yet another push.
Here’s hoping we emerge from this moment searching for better alternatives to SUVs and hamburgers, with many more of the right policies helping guide things in the right
