Tuesday, December 22, 2009
According to a new book titled, “Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living” by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale, man’s best friend could be one of the environment’s worst enemies, citing a new study which says the carbon paw print of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling SUV.
And with this allegation, the environmental movement has officially lost my support.
The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 360 pounds of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.
Combine the land required to generate its food and a “medium” sized dog has an annual footprint of 2.07 acres — around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4×4 driving 6,200 miles a year, including energy to build the car.
To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.
“Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat,” Barrett said.
If discouraging dog ownership is the next, inevitable step in the environmental movement, I think environmentalism could be on its last leg. Americans, Europeans, and South Americas will never be persuaded to give-up our beloved four-legged companions.
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Christine Macdonald
Steve Katz
the Zen Haitian
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Comments
Why not eat the dogs? Or turn em into biofuel?
As to the bigger picture, global warming started with the industrial revolution, positive feedback loops are probably going to keep it going regardless of what ever we do about it. The best use of money now is to figure out how to peacefully survive, sustain and prosper on a hotter (or colder, check local listings) and drier (or wetter, again check local listings) planet.
“The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. – along with all of its descendants – is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh.”
Simply comparing environmental impact of one pet versus another, or of a dog versus an SUV, does little that is helpful in dealing with the current environmental problems we face. This may help point out the complexity of those problems if this is presented in the proper manner of what it is rather than to say people shouldn’t own dogs.
If humans weren’t using more resources than the planet is able to replenish, then this issue of dogs and cats would not even exist. The problem is not that people own pets, it is that people are irresponsibly destroying the environment in the name of consumerism, or perhaps over-consumerism is more appropriate.
In the end, this is valuable information to have as long as it is not abused or misused as I perceive is the case in saying people shouldn’t own dogs.
Oh well, that's for our children's children to deal with, I suppose.
It's all trade-offs. There is always someone, somewhere, who is more green than me. There is always someone, somewhere, who is less.
what makes you think this research was intended to convert people to a movement? Is that the purpose of research? I guess they should ignore any evidence of facts that might discomfit people and massage the data to reach cheery pro-environmental (orthodoxy of the moment) conclusions.
All these researchers did was point out that pet ownership (like so many activities we enjoy) has a carbon footprint associated with it.
You want to punish a movement over these facts that have been pointed out to you?
I'm not sure that really makes sense.
No one is stopping you from surrendering your pet(s) to our local SPCA or pound.
If the purpose of research was simply scientific, the Vales could've submitted their treatise to the Victoria University of Wellington and been done with it but instead, they chose to publish a book which would reach a much larger audience. Of course they intend is to advance a movement.
To believe anything else is naive.
Providing information is not coercive. It is not as if these people invented the fact that dogs eat meat. They are only pointing it out.
As to any decisions or policies that may flow from these newly emphasized facts. . . probably none in your or my lifetime.
I mean, since when do obscure enviro-books automatically translate into harsh policies and decisions that fly in the face of the sentiment of hundreds of millions of people?
That doesn't sound like the world I live in.
Of course it may pay to express outrage at policies fifty or a hundred years before their enactment. I'm just not sure of how.
No wonder our pets have so many illnesses. Why stop at being mad at some extreme enviros? Why not think further about how actually weird having a pet is—having a non-working animal hanging around solely for your good pleasure. There's nothing natural about it.
In less developed societies, they are mainly scavengers. They eat any and all waste. Look it up.
Of course, we don't waste food in our house - all the dinner leftovers are eaten by us as lunches. But then, we don't have a dog (or a cat, or any other pets), either. And we cook vegetarian, so any potential dog probably wouldn't be too happy about that.
In regard to the original article, though, how many families have more than one SUV? I know families that have FOUR. They also have two dogs. So if they traded in the SUVs for more environmentally friendly cars, can they keep their dogs? :P
my guess.... more than anything, they want to sell books.
and, I wonder if they have calculated the carbon footprint of a book? It's huge!
When Mike the Fence Jumping SOB Steer would escape, he'd try to get up on the porch to eat dog food, he smelled the corn and ate it, beef ingredients and all. If the grill was out and open, he'd lick it. The chickens ate everything but potato peels, those that didn't "sit" ate their own eggs if there was a speck on them.
Keep the SUV, you could be living in it soon. Keep the dog, it will alert you if someone's trying to carjack your housing while you're sleeping. Don't worry about the environment Wall Street is taking care of our consumption power, the children in the U.S. are getting closer to having the same carbon footprint as the children in Bangladesh.
Things even out.
Also, their numbers are probably BS: http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2009/11/02/dogs-vs-cars
Dogs and cats don't generally eat meat and cereals that were grown especially for them. They usually eat waste products that humans don't eat anyway.
Finally, if you're concerned about the carbon footprint of your dog, vegetarian dog foods are available, or grab a copy of Dr. Pitcairn's Natural Health for Cats and Dogs and make your own.