Danes Get Ready to Tax Cow Farts

Denmark's Tax Commission is considering putting a tax on farmers' greenhouse gas emissions, which they reckon to be approximately 4 tons per cow per year (that's more than an average passenger car, which they say emits approximately 2.7 tons). What's a poor farmer to do?Arla Foods, a huge dairy products company in Denmark and Sweden, has reckoned that a farmer with 120 cows would be looking at approximately 100,000 Danish crowns (US$17,000) in taxes from greenhouse gas emissions each year if the tax, which is part of a new tax package the government is working on, becomes reality. Farmers are said to suffer 16 times more than other industries from the new tax ideas, which also include taxing nitrogen emissions.

The Danish Tax Commission figured that the new greenhouse gas tax on farmers could raise about 400 million Danish crowns of revenue each year. Far better to spend that money on devising methods to better utilize poo power or for cows and pigs to release less gas through their burps and farts. Currently Danish researchers are studying kangaroos, which have lower "emissions" to see if they can find any clues - they already believe it may have to do with the microflora in cows stomachs and a particular brand of flora called Archea. Via: ATL (Swedish) and Politiken (English)

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