There are many many other things you could have compared it to instead of slavery though ... but giving up on it has brilliantly worked as "setting an example" for the rest of the world as strad has pointed out already
viewtopic.php?p=856789#p856789 ... love how for example it has gotten clear that the world cup was bought by Qatar and despite the slave like conditions the stadiums are being build in no one seems to give a damn which is depressing.
That's a lot of assumptions DChemTech, about me and about the willingness of the third world to change in a certain way.
I'd say most prices on food are fine as they are, they're quite high actually and raising them further would, as i wrote previously, be a disproportionate financial burden.
Don't know how old y'all are but think back to before we had the euro and then translate that to the previous currency ... no one would have bought apples for 6 DM/kg (and no, the wages did not increase proportionally)
It is however silly that if you go to a supermarket then most fruit and vegetables (even seasonal that grows locally) are from the surrounding EU countries, fortunately there's still the locally grown stuff.
Unless you did not mean food in general but mainly meat and related products, in which case you should have written that - i recently read that some politicians suggested applying the full sales tax on meat (all in order to save the environment of course, not in order to flush even more money into the state treasury, i'm sure) even an actual "meat tax" wouldn't necessarily go to lowering emissions or anything since taxes here aren't bound to a specific purpose (just like the eco tax on fuel is just going to plugging the holes in the pension budget instead of the infrastructure) so you'd only end up with wishful thinking that people would buy less because it's more expensive.
There probably would be better ways to lower the impact of meat production (more biogas plants, different sources of animal food etc) but that's rather something you'd do through policy than just stupidly raising prices, but the government probably doesn't want to anger a 21 billion p.a. industry.
But either way, meat could get more expensive if it was for better conditions for the animals and for lowering the environmental impact of it for all for all i care, i don't each much of it anyways.
Don't know what else you could mean with 'paying a fair price for food', maybe only buying 'bio' products ? ... but those are mostly a scam anyways.
On the topic of food - one thing that never ceases to amaze me is when i'm at the store and see the shopping cart of certain types of people with a composition of all kinds of 'bio' products, some wannabe soy* meat replacements ... but then also a sh!tload of exotic imported fruits and those so called 'superfoods' presumably for some chia acai fruit smoothies ... god bless them ... lmao
* soy that largely comes from southern america, brazil for example, who are currently burning down the rainforest for agricultural land which is a bit ironic (and yes, i know it's also being used as animal food for meat production, i mentioned it above - but also for lifestyle soy products and even "bio fuels" 
)
About trashriver having countries ... How many years are they back? ... decades? Centuries? I mean ... staying with 'breeding like rabbits' (and the important addition of "without being able to sustain themselves" which you left out) - when was the last time europeans did that? Having like 4 kids on average in 1900 isn't it ... so how far back ... maybe around 1800 with 5 kids on average? That puts us before the industrial revolution - thinking they'll have theirs without f*cking up the environment like our ancestors did or how India and China are doing now (the latter already starting to implement stricter environmental laws tbf) even if we lead by example of being "sustainable" is a laudable but a rather idealistic view of things.
So yea ... I fully agree with the statement that the transformation of third world countries to 'emerging markets' and those turning to "first world" ones will ultimately increase their pollution and carbon footprint but there's little our governments will be able to do about it, certainly not us by vastly changing our way of life.
And even if their economy makes a large step, they'd still do the rabbit thing because stopping it would also require large cultural changes, education and implementation of some minimal social security systems (lessening the reliance on family support) but that's another thing altogether.
They will also still need to be fed and with reaching a higher standard of living they'd also increase their consumption or demand for resources so it might ultimately not even be about "use less so the others will also use less because you led by example" and might eventually turn to "use less and lower your standard of living so that they can use more than they used before in order to catch up and achieve the same low standard of living" ... but that's just a wild guess, i admit.
Another aspect you mentioned previously was that a large part of the production from developing/third world countries is destined for western countries, i'm fully aware of that but there's not really much one can do on a personal level.
If it's resources then a lot of "green" technology needs them - so by continuing to drive my small relatively low emission car for a few more years i'm not contributing to the problem ...
Clothing? You can try to look for "fair ... " labels or buy slightly more expensive clothes in hopes that the companies which produce them abroad make sure that their suppliers adhere to the local environmental standards and you have to rely on those governments to make sure they have decent environmental standards ... In reality you end up with clothes that are made by kids in sweatshops and coloured with chemicals which are then dumped into a river because the local suppliers bribe the inspectors to look the other way - no matter if it's some designer sh!t or the cheapest garbage - only difference are the profit margins.
That's one of my main issues with the entire debate around climate change and the environmental impact of our lifestyles, i think.
We're being told to do this and that, we are supposed to pay more for things, save water, save electricity, buy diesels, no diesels are bad, buy EVs instead, go vegan, don't fly and the list goes on yet no one seems to want to hold the companies accountable who are largely responsible for most of the pollution and emissions - it would probably be possible to maintain the current prices for goods with more sustainable sources and production by just cutting the profit margins of those companies but nah ... eat maggots, peasant
Wait ... what was the topic again...uh ...UK cars 2040 something something ...
... damn the summer break can't be over too soon ...
