Is that possible outside a totalitarian / authoritarian state?

If so, would it work for jet travel, and all other sources of environmental stressers?

Yes, it is possible, but then you'll probably lose the next elections. Or perhaps even encourage riots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_riots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1902_Kosher_Meat_Boycott

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Then the route is legislation. You're not allowed to eat more than X grams a day. Our technology is not advanced enough to enforce this in a customer friendly way.

The other route is education. That will take a long time. The poorest are often also the ones that are difficult to reach using this route.

So, meat rations? Of course there will be a black market trade in them, so you are back to rationing by price again, with the slight advantage that everyone gets a "universal meat income".

I think it's impossible, and undesirable, to ration a commodity that people want, by dictat, perhaps even when there are strong negative health and social impacts, as with alcohol, tobacco, drugs, etc.

The route has to be by some form of economic penalty/redistribution, ie taxation (which people will accept to some degree), and/or through education, persuasion, cultural shift, etc.

In the end I think the only answer is technological progress.

If there is artificial meat, with sufficient small footprint, the debate is mute.

The commies used to do that in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union with meat being rationalized. They were exporting it to Western countries at dumping prices to obtain hard currency. It was quite unpopular. If you want a swift regime change, then go ahead and tax food or rationalize it.

That's a good and important point. Affluent folks like us can just shrug off such a tax, but that's harder for people who are already $fewdollars above having to skip meals entirely. If you want to make the wealthy feel a tax, you have to levy it on capital gains on companies engaged in that kind of commerce. Make it less profitable to invest in that area than in some other. Even better, as others have suggested, use the proceeds from the tax to fund development of alternatives. If I could have something that tastes like meat, but that can be produced with 10% of the greenhouse gases and chemical runoff and energy cost (including fertilizers), then I'd love it. We're getting close. Just a little push might get us over that line.

Then don't tax it. Rather than that, stop subsidizing it. Also pass legislation for propely labelling meat from livestock treated with antibiotics, listing the types of antibiotics used and the trace amounts present in the meat.

Ostensibly the "withdrawal period" means that there aren't trace amounts present in any meat.

In the US, current labeling standards allow farms not using antibiotics to differentiate themselves by stating as much on the label (they must not use antibiotics as a feed additive).

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/6fe3cd56-6809-4239...

Regarding the antibiotics, that's already the law. Additionally, I have veterinarian friend working for a state government in livestock inspections. She says there are no antibiotics in our meat, and that it hasn't been allowed for years.

That is surely true for beef. For chicken and pork, I don’t think that is completely true.

Something like a partial tax might be better. A tax that doesn't affect the meat, the lower classes buy. A much higher tax on the cuts of meat preferred by the upper classes.

Ex. no tax on ground beef, but a very high tax on filet mignon or ny strip steaks.

I personally think we can have a less divisive higher environmental impact by banning private jets.

Have you done the back of envelope calculation to compare private air miles to pounds of meat or are you just guessing?

it predicts this inevitability, but it should also be noted that it will be inevitable that humans can develop meat substitutes or artificially grown meat that is indiscernible from traditionally produced meats. In this context, yes you should definitely tax the latter, if the former are legit options.

Good luck with that. The rich will just eat it in a country where it isn't taxed, like Argentina, buy it on the black market, or go hunting. The poor and the rest of us will end up paying the tax or eating even unhealthier industrially processed substitutes.

Spot on! So the only solution is to combine meat tax with basic income.