Beefed Up and Chickened Out

Shocking though the news may be to anyone who hasn't opened their eyes for the past few decades, it appears that market forces and individual freedom alone may not be sufficient to ensure socially responsible behaviour. A Government restauranteur recently proclaimed it politically impossible to tell people to change their eating habits, and a clinical trial demonstrating the anti-farmer, un-American and nanny-state potential of climate impact labelling will doubtless meet the same moderate and sensible dismissal from administrations eager to maintain the electoral coalition of gammon and Ronald McDonald. Warning labels on foods with high climate impact led to an increase of twenty-three and a half per cent in the number of people choosing more sustainable menus; on the other hand, the United Kingdom's less nuanced but more tabloid-friendly policy of simple starvation does have the advantage of being politically possible.