6 winners and 3 losers from CNN’s climate town hall

https://www.vox.com/2019/9/5/20850009/cnn-climate-town-hall-2020-presidential-democrats-winners-and-losers

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Loser: meat

Several candidates had to contend with variations from the audience on one of the trickiest climate questions: How will you encourage Americans to reduce meat consumption, given the disproportionate greenhouse gas emissions of beef production compared to other foods?

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Several candidates also used the diet question as an opportunity to point out that Republicans have made the hypothetical threat of Democrats taking away Americans’ hamburgers an argument against the Green New Deal. “The important thing to understand is that we can have a more balanced diet and therefore a more balanced footprint and not abolish the cow,” Mayor Pete Buttigieg said. “[Abolishing the cow] is what people are saying about the Green New Deal. Because it’s an easy Republican talking point.”

Buttigieg noted that his carbon tax applied to meat would help curb meat consumption by demonstrating to consumers the climate costs of meat production. “We change the economic signal and bring it into balance, and balance is what we have lost when it comes to our relationship with creation, with the Earth, that sustains our ability to live,” he said.

Booker, who is vegan, suggested that his administration would also rein in subsidies to the meat and dairy industry. “We are going to have to make sure our government is not subsidizing the things that make us sick and unhealthy and hurt our environment and start to incentivize the practices that get farming and get agriculture and get the health of our communities back.” —Eliza Barclay