In my opinion, this over the top idea isn’t sustainable at any level. On a personal note, my cat eats with a footprint more like a Volkswagen microbus. I think I’ll give “Minners” a can of doplhin safe tuna tonight, just for spite.
By TANYA KATTERNS – The Dominion Post
Save the planet: time to eat dog?
The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.
Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living.
The couple have assessed the carbon emissions created by popular pets, taking into account the ingredients of pet food and the land needed to create them.
“If you have a German shepherd or similar-sized dog, for example, its impact every year is exactly the same as driving a large car around,” Brenda Vale said.
“A lot of people worry about having SUVs but they don’t worry about having Alsatians and what we are saying is, well, maybe you should be because the environmental impact … is comparable.”
In a study published in New Scientist, they calculated a medium dog eats 164 kilograms of meat and 95kg of cereals every year. It takes 43.3 square metres of land to produce 1kg of chicken a year. This means it takes 0.84 hectares to feed Fido.
They compared this with the footprint of a Toyota Land Cruiser, driven 10,000km a year, which uses 55.1 gigajoules (the energy used to build and fuel it). One hectare of land can produce 135 gigajoules a year, which means the vehicle’s eco-footprint is 0.41ha – less than half of the dog’s.
They found cats have an eco-footprint of 0.15ha – slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf. Hamsters have a footprint of 0.014ha – keeping two of them is equivalent to owning a plasma TV.
Professor Vale says the title of the book is meant to shock, but the couple, who do not have a cat or dog, believe the reintroduction of non-carnivorous pets into urban areas would help slow down global warming.
“The title of the book is a little bit of a shock tactic, I think, but though we are not advocating eating anyone’s pet cat or dog there is certainly some truth in the fact that if we have edible pets like chickens for their eggs and meat, and rabbits and pigs, we will be compensating for the impact of other things on our environment.”
Professor Vale took her message to Wellington City Council last year, but councillors said banning traditional pets or letting people keep food animals in their homes were not acceptable options.
[Gee, ya think?]
Kelly Jeffery, a Paraparaumu german shepherd breeder who once owned a large SUV, said eliminating traditional pets was “over the top”.
“I think we need animals because they are a positive in our society. We can all make little changes to reduce carbon footprints but without pointing the finger at pets, which are part of family networks.”
Owning rabbits is legal anywhere. Local bodies allow chickens, with some restrictions.
Full story here: Save the planet: time to eat dog?
###
h/t to WUWT reader GA
I wonder if Andy Revkin will now write an article musing about how too many people have pets and Rush Limbaugh will suggest IF Andy feels that way, he ought to kill his dog.
I’m not normally prone to invective, but these people can go ____ themselves.
What does any of this have to do the actual reasons people keep dogs and cats as pets? As if to say, “if you’re not going to eat the animals you keep, there is no benefit”.
The message taken to the extreme: Don’t engage in any activity or pursuit unless absolutely necessary for your survival because it produces CO2.
Tell you what, any greenie who loves their dog can send me a check, and I will keep a chicken for them, for about six or seven weeks anyway.
Maybe they should just make edible cars. You can have a car that runs on vegetable oil – it should come from the dealer with different plots from tomatoes to corn and maybe a small rabbit too. When the car finally dies, you just bury it in the ground and plant more veggies – I feel better now.
When times are rough, I’ve thought about eating my boxer “Cyrano”. Two things stop me: First, I think he would taste a little too gamey and second, I don’t think he’d ever forgive me for not eating the cats first. I suppose I should just micro-wave my pets so that I could live like the high and mighty in the environmental movement.
This incredible article could backfire quite dramatically.
Many people care more about their animals than they car about their kids and I’m shore they don’t want to hear this hog wash.
The time has come to quit this nonsense before our societies are turned into a public Goelach.
We are building the equivalent of the Iron Wall around the free world as we are adapting the same low to the ground practices and propaganda that was used by the Stasi in the former DDR.
It’s time people read Vaclav Klaus’s book titled Blue Planet in Green Shackles, wake up to the reality and start shaking the three that houses the fat cats who are responsible for this BS.
I recall from Dr. Strangelove that one man can service 10 women if they are sufficiently beautiful, etc.
I have this idea to drastically reduce carbon emissions and since I thought it up, well …
The Greenies’ motto should be ‘Humans Must Go” Idiots!!!!!!!
By the way, eating dogs is a perfectly normal habit all over Asia.
But so is Communism.
I reject both.
I wouldn’t mind being able to raise my own chicken and other small farm animals in my backyard… at least I would know what I eat.
Keep the pets; eat the architects.
This one will NOT go over well with the PETA crowd. Or with just about anyone with a pet.
Great way to alienate supporters of AGW.
Spread the word far and wide!
Kill people, kill pets, what’s next? Maybe we should start with …
I note in passing that during the last desperate moments of the Little Ice Age the people in Greenland ate their dogs. This was one of the most extreme actions on their part. Their dogs were positively precious to the Vikings. To kill and eat one was almost a sacrilege. It certainly pointed to the extreme nature of their problem. When they were visited later in the 1400s, nobody was home. The settlers had all died or possibly migrated. Given that Eric the Red discovered Vineyard in what we would now consider a cold environment and grapes or meadows were growing on what has now become a barren and somewhat frigid landscape per their reports before the Skrælings chased them out at the height of the medieval warming period we may conclude that extreme climate change had happened. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_colonization_of_the_Americas
Miles (16:21:22) : “Maybe they should just make edible cars…”
I owned a lemon, once, but I didn’t eat it.
I guess this gets the Chinese off the hook for all those coal fired power plants, I’ve often heard you never see any stray dogs or cats in Chinatown, and before all you PC types land on me, I’ll add that I heard it most often from my Chinese ex- brother in law and his family.
I suppose that one could take this to the extreme and justify cannibalism too.
I’ll gladly offer my pet fat, er, cat, to save the planet. Where do we drop ’em?
Mark
I’d eat shark, but these morons have jumped it.
Our “stomach that walks like a cat” will never see or hear of this . . . much too distressing. She’ll think the humans in the house of gone bonkers.
Rabbits???
Banned from my apartment buildings. Years back I had a roommate that had a rabbit. I never have seen so much destruction from that damn furball chewing up the place.
When I finally bought my first apartment building I banned all rodents as pets. As for the carbon footprints of my two cats.. it can’t be that high. They pretty much sleep from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm and from 8:00 pm to 3:00am. If they were any less active, they could pass for furniture.
Keep the Pets, get rid of the Socialists.
Gidday
Gawd I love being a Kiwi. Recently a Tongan family (NZ residents) BBQed their pet dog and invited friends around to enjoy their canine delight.
http://news.msn.co.nz/haveyoursay/850620/should-you-be-allowed-to-eat-your-pets
Could just catch on if Obama/Rudd/Brown/UN get traction with ETS/carbon trading.
Is http://www.ediblefamilypet.com taken? Or http://www.caninecuisine.com.
TJA,
You might want to fatten up those chickens far a few more weeks, but then maybe you don’t care for roast chicken.
But best you stay away from my flock.
Ray,
What’s stopping you from raising a few animals?
As for me I’m going to have my attack cat pay those pet eaters a visit.
What’s going on here?
Prepping the country for the rules of peasantry to be shortly induced, I can only imagine.
Disgusting and totally offensive.
I smell a foreign influence at work here pushing thier values upon us.
Let’s see, in what part of the world do they eat canine & feline cuisine? I wonder.
Its isn’t original but…..
If my dog wanders can I call it free range.
So now we’ll see the low percentage of Americans believing in the AGW scare stories go even lower.
[sarcasm]Let’s ban families to, no one can have any kids, the CO2 reduction as a result will be phenomenal by getting rid of the carbon footprint taken up by daycares and school districts that would be seen in 20 years time, colleges in 30 years time.[/sarcasm]
This is yet another example of the AGW’s going over the top, though I wonder if this will still be enforced in countries under siege from the alarmists like the UK.
Think of the “carbon footprint” of all the arts; both the production of it as well as the travel associated with it. It is not necessary, contributes to the destruction of the planet, therefor should be eliminated. Same for all sports. Fashion – gone. Not necessary. We can all just wear clothing made from burlap. There is no need for anyone to look “better” than another, as we are all the same. Food choices should be limited and very basic, as the only function of food is, or should be, sustenance. Houses should be of a minimal size and built all the same, since their only function is to protect from the elements. Pets of course are gone, as there is no real need for them. Is this what the Greenie Meanies really want? It sure seems so.
Given the esthetic and structural quality of buildings these days, maybe we should eat architects…
“I smell a foreign influence at work here pushing thier values upon us.” rbateman
Since they wish to reduce us back to serfs, could it be old wealth as in royalty?
It must really smart to share the planet with us peons.
Has Al Gore been promised a peerage?
“Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living.”
I always thought one of the main reasons for keeping a pet was to have a companion. Clearly these professors are deranged after all who would eat their friend.
Well, this just looks like another article that gains attention by going over the top. What’s with all these ideas to help stop global warming? This article is getting awful close to the joke of suggesting people stop breathing in order to help stop global warming. At some point folks are going to to exclaim “Wait a second….!”. Folks will soon learn that Earth does not have a thermostat man can manipulate with concrete results, and they will see where this is all trying to go.
BTW- “In the photo of “Minners” the shower curtain looked like it may be displaying the water cycle. After a quick online search, bingo! I want one.
REPLY: Right you are, my kids get a clean education at bath time. – A
I still want to see a study on the Carbon Footprint of fine wines.
Ooops, nevermind.
Oh, don’t waste fuel like that. Just point your cat toward Europe and let it find a way.
What is the eco-footprint of a Greenie? Or, put another way, “How many dogs can we have for each Greenie eliminated?”
Sorry to bring up Godwin, but – –
In 1942 the Nazis forbade Jews from having pets.
Just sayin’, ya know?
As an aside, instead of eating my 110 pound Shepherd, how about if I take out 2 or 3
of the ‘yotes I have chasing deer by my hunting place? Is that carbon neutral then?
Think of the “carbon footprint” of all the arts; both the production of it as well as the travel associated with it. It is not necessary, contributes to the destruction of the planet, therefor should be eliminated. Same for all sports. Fashion – gone. Not necessary. We can all just wear clothing made from burlap. There is no need for anyone to look “better” than another, as we are all the same. Food choices should be limited and very basic, as the only function of food is, or should be, sustenance. Houses should be of a minimal size and built all the same, since their only function is to protect from the elements. Pets of course are gone, as there is no real need for them. Is this what the Greenie Meanies really want? It sure seems so.
Sounds like North Korea, except the part about having sustenance.
I don’t know many people who take any of this seriously, but I’m sure they are out there somewhere.
As someone who grew up on a dryland wheat farm where we always had lots of cats as pets (and to keep the mice in check):
This is yet another looney example from the AGW crowd; confirming (as if we needed more proof) that for the ”true believers” AGW has become an all-cosuming religion. And not just religion, but fanatic, dogmatic (pun semi-intended), and intolerent religion: Jihad will be waged; and all things, living creatures, and human welfare must if necessary be sacrificed on their AGW alters.
I’m totally with some of the other comments:
Keep your pets; fight back with facts and real science against the jihadi socialist eco-extremists and their AGW religious dogma.
I think this is a totally doable idea. I just finished a sweet couple out here on vacation in the Tetons. They were delicious. My favorite pets are strident alarmists with fancy backpacks and a 16 pole tent slung over their shoulder. I usually start on their arms and legs and when they inevitably whine, I whisper to them: “Without you greens – I’d have to go vegan!!
Mmmm.
Another loopy idea thought of in my country.
Last century we were known for world firsts such as splitting the atom (Rutherford) and climbing Mt Everest (Ed Hillary). Now we are laughing stock coming up with these dim witted ideas based on fictional AGW. And these loonies are paid by my taxes. I dispair.
This is no fun anymore.
The EU loons have reached agreement on the Copenhagen proposals:
CO2 emission reductions based on 1990 levels between 80 and 95%.
And a guilt payment to the Third World.
All depends now on the US Senate.
Copenhagen is quiqly becoming a reality now and so is the establishment of
a totalitarian World Government.
Bye bye Free World, I am packing my bags.
James Allison (17:02:27) :
I read up to the space after UN & sort of misread the rest as were on the menu. 😉
DaveE.
Since when were pets not edible?
Ron de Haan (16:30:52) :
>By the way, eating dogs is a perfectly normal habit all over Asia.
Oh no! ……. NOT at least in my country.
What is the impact of allowing far out eco-nuts to control our future?
I’m ashamed to be a Kiwi right now.
Lets hope they take the next *logical* step and realize that having kids will increase their carbon footprint.
Darwin for the win!
David Walton (17:49:59) :
Since when were pets not edible?
Since the time when pets had as much status and love as many of the children in that family!
All of my pets obeyed me more often than any of my kids. Plus I never had to bail any of them out of jail!
Victoria ‘University’ must have more parasites than the average woofer would ever collect.
Jim Bob (17:39:34) :
We can all just wear clothing made from burlap. There is no need for anyone to look “better” than another, as we are all the same.
RIGHT ON comrade Jim Bob! I knew I shouldn’t throw away my Mao jacket!
Now, if I can just find my little red book…
Taking the point to its obvious conclusion, the ultimate solution to the Global Warming crisis is of course mass extermination of all undesireables. Once they put the idea out there that no one can own a pet, or that a couple can only have one child IF they have a masters degree in a worthwhile specialty, or that there’s really no need at all for all those people in Africa or China or.. well, you get the idea I’m sure. Then, of course the problem is solved (in fact many many problems are solved). Well, not quite, see there’s this one little catch – if you don’t have the right party or union card then it really doesn’t matter how many PhD’s you have; your carbon footprint is much to big. Sorry Charlie!
Dogs love to chase down Rabbits and they will bring them back to their owner with just a little training.
Cats will take on a Chicken and we all know they like to bring birds home.
So what am I missing here.
That would be sustainable living at its finest. We sit at home all day long, being as Carbon-neutral as possible, reading environmental books hand-made on recycled paper, and we let the Dogs and Cats bring home our food and their food. We use solar cooking and we compost the left-overs. We wash the dishes using recycled waste water and …
Somebody should publish a carbon foot print ranking for Hollywood celebrities and Green Peace activists who jet all over the world to protest, that compares them to the typical SUV and popular pets.
I would much rather do without a few Hollywood elitists than any of the pets I have ever had.
Larry
Would it be wrong to suggest eating polar bears?
Scratch that……..how about baby seals, penguins or whales?
Probably knock the CO2 number down a few ticks…..getting rid of all those whales and penguins……
There’s news out that production of Swine Flu Vaccine is way behind schedule, perhaps they’ve already started taking care of the carbon footprint problem. Now where did I put that union card…
I notice the AGW crowd doesn’t seem to volunteer to be the first to die for the cause. The could reduce their carbon footprint drastically if they would just do the honorable thing and expire and they would set a good example too. Just think of what the removal of one Gore would do! We could even name the amount of CO2 saved after him! Of course for the rest of us we would have to use milli-Gores for accounting for our demises. And we could hold a feast of long-pork each year in his honor.
Let them eat Poodle.
If you think my pet has a big carbon footprint, just imagine the carbon footprint of, say, a buffalo, bear or cougar! Forget beef, I’m gonna start poaching for supper and save the world! And when I run out of those, just imagine how much carbon my neighbor is producing!
Soylent Green is GREEEEENNNN!!!!
I read a lot of comments, and it seems the original position has been misinterpreted. They aren’t saying eat your dog. They are saying get rid of your dog and get an edible pet. Perfectly reasonable until you have to explain to the kids why Pecky the Rooster IS joining the family for Thanksgiving, but NOT for Christmas. Dogs and cats have been domesticated (in theory for the latter) for a very long time, before being human made you a bad guy.
If these people really want to do sustainability studies, how about doing one on the sustainability of doing sustainability studies. What is the carbon footprint of studying carbon footprints? What is the carbon footprint of giant supercomputers tracking climate change, launching satellites to study climate change, and so forth. Also, can we get a reading on the amount of hot air spewed by Al Gore and Jim Hansen? That may be enough to account for all of the warmer temperatures we have been seeing lately.
Reply: Hmm..”The Carbon Footprint” might make for a good superhero name. ~ charles the “no I’m not stoned” moderator
Slightly off topic but its annoying when humans call pets their babies and they are the mommy and daddy of their pets.
Oh, and how are you supposed to get rid of the dog? Just ship em off on (grimace) death trains (/grimace)? Let them wander stray? Shoot them? What is the preferred method?
edible pets is some states must be registered with the National Animal Identification System which is filled with privacy issues so i’ll keep spot who i only have to register with the city.
hotrod (18:28:42) :
Gregg Easterbrook regularly points this out in his column on ESPN, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. Not affiliated. It is somewhat strange that the people asking for lifestyle changes are not willing to set the example. Gore selling his house and buying a chicken ranch would be very symbolic, no?
Are the eco-wackos getting more desperate, or just dumber?
Maybe the next step is we should just eat ourselves.
I mean….they did it at Donner Pass.
Sure would cut back on American Obesity…..slicing off a little bit every now and then to reduce one’s footprint.
EWWWWW. Gross.
Enough already.
I can’t even believe that some of the CRAP that comes out of universities these days as a by-product of the AGW-Reduce-Carbon-Footprint-Sustainability Movement.
A ridiculous and atrocious WASTE of academic money, time, and energy.
No wonder the world is in trouble.
These are architects????
Meanwhile….across the world…bridges fail, power grids short out, and, in Victoria AU, close to home for these “enlightened” academics…many people are still grieving the unnecessary loss of so many of their kin and friends in…
…the tragic wildfirestorm of February this year….because??….because WHY???….becuase homeowners, in fear of the GREENS, could not clear the brush from around their houses!!
Sustainable enough for ya??
More like DIABOLICAL.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Climate change protesters bitten by police dogs
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6365728/Climate-change-protesters-bitten-by-police-dogs.html
I hope the dogs are OK.
Hey, they are on to something. Chickens are a superb vector for various diseases. If more people keep them as pets, this will create a constant source of plagues that will kill many people. It’s a “two for one” deal.
Published in New Scientist. That’s sort of like a peer reviewed journal, isn’t it?
When you’re starving, when you’re starving
the whole world starves as well
When you’re eating, when you’re eating
it’s probably a rat or someonelse’s pet.
When you’re hungry, you eat. That it is suggested we should eat pets demonstrates how hungry the greeners think we should be. However, does this tick with PETA?
This article underscores the bizarre and obsessed fixation these green zealots have with labeling everything that emits CO2 as contributing to world destruction. It is evident they are off their Prozac again.
Rick Sharp (18:51:49) :
“Climate change protesters bitten by police dogs
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6365728/Climate-change-protesters-bitten-by-police-dogs.html
I hope the dogs are OK.”
Hahaha….yeah poor pups.
Was the USA’s esteemed NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Director among the bitten??
Just curious….
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Let’s see, Andy Revkin thinks there are way too many people on the planet, and now we’re told that feeding our dogs has a huge carbon footprint – Please, nobody send this article to Limbaugh.
Anthony would be very unhappy with the win-win absurdity that Rush would come up with!
“Donald (Australia) (18:02:16) :
Victoria ‘University’ must have more parasites than the average woofer would ever collect.”
You are not wrong, wealthy students with their iPods and iPhones. Based in Wellington (Until recently was nicknamed Helengrad for obvious reasons), the capital city of NZ and the home of the political and academic elites.
Ray,
Once you get set up, chickens are easier than dogs. Just don’t keep them too close to the house. Do a little reading, keep them away from the neighbors dogs, and your own too, btw (Henny Penny, RIP).
North of 43,
Mine seem to get tough, I am probably doing something wrong, I know.
Greetings from “On 45”
Utter Nonsense. The Carbon footprint of food production and eating it is close to zero (ignoring the fossil fuel input to growing and packaging it). It is almost carbon neutral. The footprint of burning fuel is the CO2 produced. They need to go back to designing buildings, perhaps starting with a couple of kennels, and leave the atmospheric chemistry to folk who know something about it.
“Rick Sharp (18:51:49) :
Climate change protesters bitten by police dogs
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fearth%2Fearthnews%2F6365728%2FClimate-change-protesters-bitten-by-police-dogs.html
I hope the dogs are OK.”
I woinder what the outcome would have been if Hansen was there too? No arrests? I wonder how many of the 52 arrested will actually be convicted, or will they receive a slap on the wrist with a wet, used, bus ticket?
From the article…
“One protester, Laura McFarlane-Shopes, 23, wore a bandage on her arm to cover a bite she had received from one of the dogs.
She said: “We were near the fence and some people were trying to get over. I was just in front of them.
“Horses and dogs started charging down. Police shouted that they were coming.
“They let the dogs on to me and one leaped up and bit my arm.”
The student from Leeds added that after she had received the painful bite, officers continued to push her and her friends.
She said: “I wasn’t trying to break the fence, I was just near people who were and I was supporting them.””
Classic copout. “I wasn’t going anything, I was just standing here.”
“A police spokesman said: “We certainly haven’t set dogs on anyone. Dogs have remained on their leads at all times. If people have received dog bites, that’s regrettable, but dogs are a legitimate way of helping to maintain order.”
Another protester, David Martin, 28, said a friend of his had been bitten in the stomach by a dog and had to be taken to casualty.
The student from Hackney, east London, said: “A lot of people had puncture wounds from the dogs. People were bleeding.
“I saw at least 10 or 20 people who had been bitten.”
He added that police told protesters to get inside a designated protest zone they set up on Sunday morning.
But a police spokeswoman said “kettling” had not been used to contain protesters in one area.
She said: “At no time throughout the protest were protesters contained by police. Protesters were free to leave at all times.” ”
And they chose to stay? Tuff luck. Maybe the messages is getting out.
Do hybrid’s have a lower carbon footprint?
How about a nice guinea pig, marinated overnight and barbequed http://www.shelfordfeast.co.uk/guineapig.html
Sorry folks but I have roses and Orchids for pets. Know of any good rose petal soup recipies
“Miles (16:21:22) :
Maybe they should just make edible cars. You can have a car that runs on vegetable oil – it should come from the dealer with different plots from tomatoes to corn and maybe a small rabbit too. When the car finally dies, you just bury it in the ground and plant more veggies – I feel better now.”
Or we could just take a leaf out of the Flintstones 🙂
Take the motor out of our cars and have them powered by pet exercise wheels. You could have a choice of Guinea Pig Powered cars, Rat Powered Cars , Cat Powered Cars or Dog Powered Cars. Now Your pet would be sanctioned as Carbon neutral.
Seriously though. The Greenies and the AGW/Climate Change Alarmists are getting more demented by the minute.
Wait! Don’t fat people have a higher carbon foot print? Should Al Gore (at his present weight) be illegal?
Patrick Davis (19:20:28) :
“Rick Sharp (18:51:49) :
Climate change protesters bitten by police dogs
I hope the dogs are OK.”
Those people were whining like the dogs were only there as the policeman’s pets.
Here in the US we don’t apologize when people get themselves bitten by a police dog – they are considered a “non-lethal” alternative, well usually non-lethal.
Interestingly, in many states the dogs are considered police officers, and killing or injurying one is the same as a human officer.
The authors of this one… I’d bet the rent money they were sitting around a campfire, drunk as skunks, and the question came up “what is THE dumbest thing we could say?”
and edible pets as a “sustainable” lifestyle was what they remembered the next morning. That is the only explanation that makes any sense for this drivel. Being able to say things like this with a straight face (because it is a joke, they have got to be testing how far society has gone from the ability to think) certainly shows acting talent, but not much else.
Then again when you see the word “sustainable” these days, it’s best to prepare for something mind-numbingly inane (or insane, per spell-check’s suggestion).
“Professors” Brenda and Robert Vale need to get a real job that actually produces something of value. People like them should never be allowed to teach at a University.
Is it April 1st already?
These people are wingnuts! Apparently there is no value in anything in life except reducing carbon. I’ll take dogs best friend & a few degrees of warming over the alternative any day!
Some of you just won’t be able to do it. So I heard ants are pretty good!
U.N. Conference Promotes Insect-Eating for Everyone From Famine Victims to Astronauts
Prof. Arnold van Huis, a tropical entomologist known as “Mr. Edible Insect” in his native Netherlands, blamed a Western bias against eating insects for the failure of aid agencies to incorporate bugs into their mix.
“They are completely biased,” van Huis said. “They really have to change. I would urge other donor organizations to take a different attitude toward this … It’s excellent food. It can be sustainable with precautions.”
DGallagher (19:37:43) :
Patrick Davis (19:20:28) :
“Rick Sharp (18:51:49) :
Climate change protesters bitten by police dogs
I hope the dogs are OK.”
Yes they are fine. They are members of PETA – Police dogs Eating Tastey Activists
“A lot of people worry about having SUVs but they don’t worry about having Alsatians and what we are saying is, well, maybe you should be because the environmental impact … is comparable.”
Oh do I wish the entire world could see the nuttiness of this!!!
Food preferences are a regional cultural curiosity with it’s roots based on what’s available and economical in a particular area. You won’t find many Yankees that will eat grits or okra for example; or Hindus that eat beef; or Muslims, pork. As for dogs, they’re not half bad properly prepared. Monkey is also good. As are most other foodstuffs from around the world that discerning omnivores consume for enjoyment as well as nutrition.
It’s obvious to me that the authors are expressing their own cultural leanings (limited by their no-doubt provincial upbringing ) regarding food choices, and overlaying that with a crass attempt to capitalize on the currently popular sport of apocalyptic pronouncements a’la the “Left Behind” series of fantasy fiction.
They are welcome to their parochial view of what constitutes suitable cuisine, but it will have exactly zero impact on my palate, regardless of their feeble attempt to dissuade me by appealing to my (non-existent ) “fear” of the end of the world. If such comes to pass, I will treat myself to an exotic lunch and toast our time on earth with a fine wine.
Al Gore has alot more meat on him than my chihuahua does… he has a larger carbon footprint too… Also… isn’t there some guy in this administration that wants dogs to be able to hire lawyers?
I’m gonna hire a rabid lawyer for Poncho…
Mike
“DGallagher (19:37:43) :
Patrick Davis (19:20:28) :
“Rick Sharp (18:51:49) :
Climate change protesters bitten by police dogs
I hope the dogs are OK.”
Those people were whining like the dogs were only there as the policeman’s pets.
Here in the US we don’t apologize when people get themselves bitten by a police dog – they are considered a “non-lethal” alternative, well usually non-lethal.
Interestingly, in many states the dogs are considered police officers, and killing or injurying one is the same as a human officer.”
Ah yes, but this is in the UK where the Police are, usually, restricted from doing their job, especially in cases like this and others in recent decades (Animal liberation, anti-road builders (tree huggers) etc etc…
It seems in this case the Police are trying to send a message to like-minded people. Lets hope it gets through.
As for the protesters at the coal fired power station, (Just outside Nottingham).
Did anyone in the UK notice that they were all too young to have known the cold years? (Too young to have known the prior warm years is obvious.
DaveE.
Why stop with dogs? Babies are more tender, and dining on them would reduce population pressure: click
I think that the only reason that most societies don’t eat dogs and cats are only because they are carnivores. It has nothing to do with them being companions. Humans just don’t generally eat carnivores. Some eat bear (omnivores) and seals (mostly seafood). Could be a taste thing, could be a health thing, could be a farming thing. We just don’t eat mammals that eat other mammals.
PETA isn’t going to like their suggestion one little bit: click1, click2.
gtrip: does that mean I can chow down on my parakeet?
I find this very hard to believe. Taking a second look at the figures I notice the Land Cruiser is being driven only 10,000km a year, and right away I see a problem. Even when I lived in Britain – a small, densely populated island where the longest trip across country can be accomplished in a day – my average annual mileage was about 14,000. Or more than twice the 10,000 km they’re assuming. That’s in a country where everything is fairly close together – here in Oz everything is further apart so if anything I expect my annual mileage to have gone up. Since the Vales have been so optimistic about vehicle miles I wonder if the same applies to their assumptions for energy expended in manufacturing the vehicle. Compared to the production of cats and dogs, which appear to require no factories, machinery (with its own manufacturing costs ) or skilled labour (which also comes with a carbon footprint), and little extra energy, I’d have thought that making something as large and complex as a Land Cruiser would be pretty energy intensive. And is finding oil, extracting it, refining into fuel and distributing it to my local servo is more energy intensive than making dog biscuits and cat food? Cheaper than going into the bush and shooting a couple of roos in the face for the meat? Again, seems like a stretch unless you are very optimistic about fuel production costs and pessimistic about pet food production.
Bill Illis (18:27:02) :
We wash the dishes using recycled waste water and …
According to Cate Blanchett drink it too
…drink their own wastewater.
http://www.wmagazine.com/celebrities/2007/10/blanchett_cate?currentPage=5
She also says that leaf blowers “sum up everything that is wrong with the human race”
David Walton (17:49:59) :
Since when were pets not edible?
Steve (17:58:30) :
Since the time when pets had as much status and love as many of the children in that family!
All of my pets obeyed me more often than any of my kids. Plus I never had to bail any of them out of jail!
How wonderful for you. Sorry to hear about the trouble with kids. (They are edible too, by the way.) Perhaps you missed the more subtle context of my statement. Unless you stuff, embalm. or cremate your expired pet, they are edible. Heck, they are even edible while still alive. Just ask any parasite be it animal or fungus.
Worms, scavengers, bacteria, insects, and a whole host of other critters and plants have to dine too. It is part of the great scheme of things. If nature hates anything, it is waste. (And no, I don’t mean waste products, plenty of critters and plants dine on that too.)
As far as the human consumption of pets goes, many pets if more than a year old tend to be stringy, greasy and tough. Even boiling them doesn’t help much. Just try turning a year old chicken into anything but broth and you will see what I mean. Pets are best served when young and tender.
😀
Solutions:
Mass castration
Mass suicide
Destroy all volcanoes
Force people to take charcoal pills to stop them from farting
Feed charcoal pills to all animals on the planet
Controlled breathing; breathe once every 20 seconds
Stop moving alltogether, stay plugged on the internet all day long
A new law: You cut a tree, you die
eeeeerrrrr….
Invent “carbon footprint” buzzword to scare people and make them feel bad
Live in the dark, use night vision to find your way around
What about CO2 emissions during forest fires ignited by lightning?
Solution: Pass a law that makes thunderstorms illegal: lightning causes fires
If lightning does occur, capture it and send it to prison as an example
What to say to rebellious lightning in case of non cooperation: “Stupid lightning! Stop striking you stupid lightning! Ok?”
Ban the internet and all computers, CO2.
Zeke the Sneak (19:53:54) :
DGallagher (19:37:43) :
Patrick Davis (19:20:28) :
“Rick Sharp (18:51:49) :
Climate change protesters bitten by police dogs
I hope the dogs are OK.”
If these protesters were as unshowered as the ones I saw in Berkeley protesting the cutting down of a tree a few months ago the dogs are probably already sick.
Trying to understand why someone would be so unreasonably motivated to study the carbon paw prints of pets and recommend eating your pets for sustainability, I followed a hunch and googled to see if there are any known phobias or disorders tied to CO2. Much to my surprise, there is. The ASAP Dictionary of Anxiety and Panic Disorders states: “People with panic disorder are more sensitive to CO2 than others.”
Observation of the panic ridden messages of AGW doomsayers tends to confirm a very high sensitivity to CO2 in these individuals.
now they have put PETA on the Deniers side. Oh Joy.
An even better solution:
Fund research that will destroy the CO2 molecule from the whole whole Universe and prevent it from ever forming again, ever(!), thus destroying life as we know it. Stupid CO2. Go away you bad bad thing! Why did we discover you!! You bastard CO2. We were so happy without for millions of years and now we discover in the past 5 years that youve been around for millions of years!?! I DARE YOU! you you you are going to kill us all!!! How dare you form in our blood and exhale from our lungs! how dare you! I feel sooooo dirty!!!
ahem… CO2 is a necessary part of the ecosystem, and the ecosystem balances itself. end of story.
Logically then cannibalism is the best way for sustainable living… eat the rich anyone?
David (18:47:20) :
Oh, and how are you supposed to get rid of the dog? Just ship em off on (grimace) death trains (/grimace)? Let them wander stray? Shoot them? What is the preferred method?
I think it’s already covered under ObamaCare. 😉
Words fail me.
Whatever kind of cow produces the milk for Häagen-Dazs ice cream will be my pet!
When I think I’ve read and seen everything, this takes the cake… the Vales are utterly nuts…
My hunch is that these professors and the production and distribution of their publication will have a yearly carbon footprint much greater than several thousands of pets. Add to that all the lamp energy wasted reading such drivel. Truly sustainable folks will only read it by sunlight and then use it for toilet paper. (Only on page at a time, mind you!)
I suppose if some villain were to suggest an alternate guide, “Time to Eat the Professor: The real guide to sustainable living.” some folks might that a tad bit absurd.
Smokey (20:16:39) :
gtrip: does that mean I can chow down on my parakeet?
I don’t think that would be considered chowing down. But yes, you may snack on your parakeet!!!
I don’t care if people want to be nutty like this. I just wish they’d keep it to themselves.
An elderly cousin of mine, born in 1904, passed in 1996 and was an oral surgeon from U of Penn class of 1930, said to me in the year or so before he died, that he was glad he lived in the time he did – despite two world wars, the Spanish Flu pandemic, TB, no antibiotics and the cold war – because it was the greatest time in American history; indeed, with the rapid advancement of medicine and technology, according to him it was the greatest time in world history. He said he felt sorry for me, at the tender age of 30, for the type of world I was facing. At the root of it was the computer – in his view it would bring the downfall of our society. I silently admonished the old fool, knowing (as an engineer) how the computer had advanced us so much in just a few short years – medically, scientifically, technologically. . .
Now, almost 14 years after his passing, I can google my own name and find out all sorts of things about myself. I can do the same for distant relatives I’ve never even met or anyone else who sparks my interest. My employer can monitor my drivers license and be notified within 3 business days of an accident, ticket or DWI. My employer’s “company cars” have dash cams that record my speed along with everything else I do or say. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear or read about someone’s identity theft horror story or an identity theft “insurance” commercial. Anyones credit report and financial history are available to anyone who wants to purchase it from one of these credit reporting or investigative background check agencies.
Smart Metering is coming to a community near you, and along with “incentive billing” how much electricity you use during different times of day will be “premium priced” and at worst, you will receive a daily allotment of electricity, beyond which you will either be cut off for the remainder of the period or pay an astronomical price. The incentive, of course, is to get you to reduce your energy usage – and your “carbon” consumption. (Don’t believe that ? I work for a large electric/gas utility and we’re installing them now. Executives and beauracrats have already discussed the need for the “competitive pricing structure” as they called it.) Andy Revkin wants to assign “carbon allotments” to all human beings on the planet and limit all human beings to one child per family. Free speech rights are under assault by the American Government as demonstrated by its recent attacks on a critical news network, talk radio shows, and support of “net neutrality laws” and proposed reinstitution of the un-“fairness doctrine” and/or radio “diversity laws.” Soon we may all have every word of our medical records electronically available to any/every doctor, clinic (or government beauracrat) who wants or “needs” to have access to them whether we want them to or not. I guess the so-called “constitutional right to privacy” doesn’t apply in any of the afforementioned situations………………………..
I’m not saying I agree with my cousin’s perspective, although on the other hand, it is certainly the computer and technology that makes all of the above, and many, many more examples possible. However, for the past year or so I have been unable to shake the feeling that I’m living in a nightmare that I just can’t wake up from, and the preposterous subject of Anthony’s post is just the icing on the cake………………….
Again, I’m not saying I agree with my cousin’s perspective, but inmany ways I’m beginning to envy him.
And I’m becoming frightened for my two young children.
If it was a choice between eating my pet or eating a liberal progressive psycho environmental whack job, should I find myself starving to death, I’d slice up the liberal progressive psycho environmental whack job, skewered and barbecued with a touch of lemon and Tabasco, and feed me and Fido first.
Pete M. (20:27:47) :
An even better solution:
Fund research that will destroy the CO2 molecule
Hey, add to that the deadly compound dihydrogen monoxide and I’ll sign on.
Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment. A few of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:
* Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
* Tissue damage from prolonged exposure to solid DHMO.
* Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
* DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
* A major component of soil erosion.
* Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many substancess.
* Atmospheric DHMO is a major component of global warming
“Climate change protesters bitten by dogs… I hope the dogs are alright.”
Precisely. Next to a self-righteous alarmist, a plump policeman makes an excellent meal. Except that I came down with a nasty case of hives after swallowing Ranger Rick. And three bites of Dudley DoRight caused me to lose my lunch! Yechhh!
The vet told me it was a case of “tainted flesh” and that there was a lot of it going around. Hmmm.
“What about CO2 emissions during forest fires ignited by lightning?
Solution: Pass a law that makes thunderstorms illegal: lightning causes fires.”
This is already the case in IPCC climate models.
The problem with this idea is that most people care more about their companion animals than they do about Brenda and Robert Vale. I’m trying to remember if Thursday was Soylent Green day…
This is an indication that our society is doing TOO well. When we have time to worry about stuff like this and make these kinds of arguments, then it means we have a surplus of both resources and time.
If you take this argument and put it in the context of a global famine from unexpected cooling, it takes on an entirely different (and just as silly) meaning as many pets would have been eaten already and nobody will give a rat’s pair of hips what kind of car you have. And mark my words, such a time will come to pass, it always does. A major volcanic eruption about now while we are already in a period of natural cooling could be catastrophic. Arguments such as these would instantly disappear.
This is more about people way having too much time to think themselves out into crazier and crazier tangents than anything else. If they actually had to work at surviving from one day to the next, they would have less interest in telling other people what they should be doing.
Well, I have a pet. Norwegian Elkhound who thinks she is a coon dog. She has treed dozens of raccoons in my backyard. If times get bad enough, we’ll eat the raccoons rather than the dog.
If any environmentalists come into the backyard, she’ll probably tree them also. Anyone have a recipe for environmentalist? I was thinking a very slow oven, with lots of liquid. Heard that they are rather tough and stringy.
Here is the ultimate solution…get rid of all domesticed animals and humans and the world will be free of AGW. The scarey thing is, someone, likely a government agency, PAID for this research!
crosspatch (21:12:08) :
“This is an indication that our society is doing TOO well. When we have time to worry about stuff like this and make these kinds of arguments, then it means we have a surplus of both resources and time.”
YES. Well said.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
@ gtrip (20:08:27) :
I think that the only reason that most societies don’t eat dogs and cats are only because they are carnivores. It has nothing to do with them being companions. Humans just don’t generally eat carnivores. Some eat bear (omnivores) and seals (mostly seafood). Could be a taste thing, could be a health thing, could be a farming thing. We just don’t eat mammals that eat other mammals.
Guess what goes into the food that cows eat and why we have mad cow disease and Creutzfeld Jacobs. We do eat animals that eat other animals.
I’d like to imprint my eco-footprint right on the Vales’ faces.
Here’s something amusing from Snopes:
Hound by the Pound
Claim: A Korean company solicited American dog shelters for excess dogs to turn into soup.
Status: False.
Example: [Letter from Kea So Joo, Inc, 1994]
Dear Executive Director,
Excuse my English Please, Thank You. First congratulation on all you good work with animal. We support. We would like to help your company make money, so we like to offer help so you make money.
Dog shelter kill million of dog, cost money. Dog shelter cremate dog cost money. Dog shelter need money to operate. Where it get money? Hard to get money.
Many people like to eat dog. People need to eat dog. Where do they get dog? Some people they raise dog to eat. Some steal dog, make some people angry, hurt some people. That not right.
We like make proposal to your dog shelter to sell us dog. You save money, you make money. We buy all dog, regardless of size or color. We prefer big, young, strong dog but we take all dog from your dog shelter. We cook dog in America. We can dog in America and sell some dog in America in Asian market place. Lot people in America eat dog. Most dog we ship oversea. Lot people eat dog. Many country eat dog. Korea, China eat dog, Philippines, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia eat dog. Dog is healthy for you. This way your cost of business is less. You make more money, more people happy. You get cleaner air. No burn up dog. No waste dog. People pet no disappear. Everybody happy.
Cause we understand some people no like idea to eat dog. But they make trouble for people who like eat dog. Those people called two face. Those people eat cow, rabbit and mice, squirrel and frog and every thing else, but still give us trouble. But dog is good food. Dog is good medicine, make sick people strong, make old people young, make penis hard, make sex good again. Our business getting very big. Need more dog. We are prepared to offer you ten cents per pound per dog. We pick up dog every day, so you also save on feeding dog. We like very much to speak with you and make deal. Please tell us how many dog available in your business. We have deal already to do same with dog shelter in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. We hope to be eventually in big city cross America. You can join us now, save money and continue doing your good job. We do big business together. We have big business already with many dog breeder and many dog hospital. Dog no suffer, We have quick death for dog.
Looking to hear from you soon,
Thank you
Kim Yung Soo
President
Kea So Joo, Inc.
Origins: The letter quoted above raised a media firestorm in 1994. Fifteen hundred such missives were received by animal shelters across the U.S.A. Though some recipients saw it for the hoax it was, others immediately hit the panic button and summoned the media to decry such a horrid proposition. Imagine wanting to eat dog! Imagine approaching American animal shelters with such a slimy deal! Never mind that in 1992, 6.3 million dogs were euthanized in animal shelters! At least they weren’t eaten . . .
Shelter workers and animal rights groups were appalled. The media had a field day. And the greater the outcry, the more all of them did the work of a prankster extraordinaire for him.
Kea So Joo (Korean for “dog meat soup”) wasn’t a real company. Its only real-life manifestations were letterhead, a P.O. box, and a phone number. The idea for the sting came from Joey Skaggs, a man who has been the bane of the media for thirty years.
Skaggs sees himself as a performance artist on a mission. Where others use canvas and paint, he uses telephones and fax machines. His medium of choice is the imaginative prank. His messages often get lost in the fallout over his pranks , but they are always there. And you usually don’t have to look very far for them.
For the dog project he set up a phone line and recorded an announcement in Korean and English, complete with dogs barking in the background. Two days after the letters were sent out, the line was swamped as Skaggs logged thousands of calls and taped messages from animal welfare officials, police, reporters, and various appalled cow-eating Americans. Animal lovers called him a filthy yellow devil and suggested Asians be deported, killed, or canned.
The phone was never answered by a person. All incoming calls were answered and recorded by a machine. That didn’t stop various outraged parties from claiming they’d spoken to someone at the other end.
”I asked what I could do with dogs since I’m in Colorado and they’re in New York,” said Robin Duxbury, director of the Denver-based Animal Rights Mobilization. “He said, ‘We have people that come pick them up from you, even in Colorado,”’ said Duxbury, who then claimed to have hung up.
Dozens of newspapers and television stations carried staff-written and wire-service articles reporting investigations by concerned officials at animal welfare groups. One article noted a possible link between the letter and the disappearance of large dogs in upstate New York; another quoted an official on Long Island as claiming “proof” that the letter is from a real company.
After the furor had been hullabalooed in the news for a week, Skaggs completed his work by sending a news release headlined, “Dog Meat Hoax Exposed.” In it, he confessed his role and explained that his purpose has been “to bring to light issues of cultural bias, intolerance and racism,” as well as to demonstrate the media’s tendency to be “reactionary, gullible and irresponsible.”
Skaggs believed the American public, with its own prejudices regarding which animals it’s okay to consume, would go bonkers when confronted with the dog-meat proposal — and he was right. Animal rights groups and public officials took the story completely out of his hands — in the process, he believes, exposing their own racism and cultural bigotry. One of the messages of the prank, Skaggs maintains, was “We are culturally intolerant. It was about prejudice, as illustrated in the letters, faxes and calls I received.”
Shows the complete absurdity of the impending CO2 eco-footprint taxation scheme…
When I was 9 I ate an edible black licorice Saturday Night Special revolver. But that probably wouldn’t count. I threw it up.
crosspatch (21:12:08) :
If they actually had to work at surviving from one day to the next, they would have less interest in telling other people what they should be doing.>/i>
“Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living…”
No. Having a job (or two) doesn’t make a bit of difference. The self-righteous are always sneering. Learning to tell the truth might.
The new sunspeck has already disappeared.
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 1 days
2009 total: 231 days (79%)
Since 2004: 742 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days
When are w going to see come serious articles or threads on the solar minimum?
The police dogs reported that they tasted like chicken.
Say, we could “fire up” Soylent Green factories [but only if they use green power], and then we could process all the greenies first.
End of problem.
You know, I thought these people were stupid in the 70’s but this is stupid on steroids. You can take my kitties over my cold dead body.
How does that old joke go?
A farmer had a pet pig, and the pig was able to count, add, subtract, prepared it’s own meals and cleaned up after itself.
Someone noticed that it only had three legs, and asked the farmer what happened.
The farmer replied, “Well, with a pig that smart, you don’t eat it all at once…”
Now for that old-fashoned holiday song. “Chipmunks roasting on an open fire…”
How much sillier can the AGW’s get?
BTW, Obama has a dog now, right? Set an example for the kids, Mr. President.
Is it not politically correct to prerequisite the words “Climate Change” with the words “Man-Made Climate Change”?
Hmm, Google ads illustrated this article with a large photo ad with the title “Respond to world hunger” 😉
Pamela Gray (21:43:29) :
“When I was 9 I ate an edible black licorice Saturday Night Special revolver. But that probably wouldn’t count. I threw it up.”
Well girls ARE cats. Thats what they do….throw up things.
Hairballs….licorice revolvers…..squirrel remains.
Meow. 😉
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I believe in Non-Man-Made Climate Change.
Come on everybody, say it with me.
I think that my long-held theory that New Scientist is the crappest “science” magazine on the planet has quite possibly reached “universal law” status.
OT
Vitamin D, mainly produced from the Sun through exposure to it, May be the cause of deficiency due to the Solar Minimum.
The Uber Nutrient Worth “Hundreds of Billions”
http://dailyreckoning.com/the-uber-nutrient-worth-hundreds-of-billions/
Go ahead Anthony, use this as a title to a story.
Robert van der Veeke (21:34:09) :
Whatever.
Save the World — Eat a Greenie!
Sorry, but I could not help myself…………completely barking!!!!!
Michael (22:12:13) :
I believe in Non-Man-Made Climate Change.
Come on everybody, say it with me.
I believe in Non-Man-Made-Climate-Change
or NMMCC for short.
I also believe that AGP is occurring.
Er….um….Anthropogenic Global Pollution.
But that is a far cry from AGW.
The former we can do something about.
The latter….we can’t….because it is JUNK SCIENCE and doesn’t exist!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Time to start eating architects?
Some people have been educated way beyoud their intelligence. What a waste.
“Robert van der Veeke (21:34:09) :
Guess what goes into the food that cows eat and why we have mad cow disease and Creutzfeld Jacobs. We do eat animals that eat other animals.”
That was mostly because “producers” were feeding the waste products from diseased animals or sourcing their “raw material” from uncontrolled/unlicensed suppliers. British Govn’t officials told everyone it was safe. Of course, it was cheap, and returns were high.
We reap what we sew.
AAAAAH! Soylent Yellow is OLD YELLER!
Some old vege jokes –
“If God meant us to be vegetarian why did He make animals from meat?”
“Salad isn’t food, it is what food eats…”
Hum? well as CO2 is evil, then maybe everything that produces CO2 is evil, just think, if we can go from 380 ppm, and surpass where we were at 280….
let us get it down to 180 ppm at least, things will be much better, life will thrive.
The lovers of universal equality will have their Nirvarna, as misery of all life (whatever life is left) will be equally miserable.
Isn’t New Zealand the country that has a tax on cattle and sheep farting? It is small but 10000 km? I am an Australian, I just have been to Queensland 4000 km in 15 days. Weekend next I am off to Victoria for 4 days 1500 km at least. Contrived figures for an already determined result I reckon.
I have to agree with David Walton about Dihydrogen Monoxide it should be banned and every vestige of it eradicated. It is the most potent greenhouse gas by far. If you don’t believe us visit http://www.dhmo.org/ and support them if they aren’t successful we are all doomed!
Mao had once a “great” idea: He noticed that the sparrows eat a lot of the harvest. So he commanded the whole chinese people to hunt sparrows. They killes millions of sparrows. The result was a massive plague of insects (their enemy was gone now). Finally they had to import sparrows from other countries.
Moral of the story: If a totalitarian communist has an idea, ignore it.
How utterly idiotic can people get?
I suppose these folks have never heard of the food chain? Or, is CO2 produced by say a wild wolf somehow ok, while not for pet dogs? Every wild wolf must be worth as least a volkswagon, a bit less than an average size dog just because their food supply isn’t canned or bagged and trucked to them… even so, gotta be a fairly large footprint and all that hunting does take a lot of energy and therefore all the more prey… so perhaps to save the planet we ought to go out and kill all of them off. But then, what about all those deer? Is a deer the equivalent of a mustang, or a porche? What’s a beever worth? Elk, now an Elk ought to be at LEAST an SUV!! How about an elephant? Is each wild elephant we allow to exist perhaps the equivalent of cruising around in a semi-rig with loaded trailer? No matter, they’ve all gotta go, gotta go – FAR too much CO2 footprint for any of them to be tolerated.
How about all of those endangered (by global warming, you know) polar bears who’s numbers have been on the increase in a major way (shush, don’t say that! you’ll let the cat out of the bag, if you haven’t eaten the cat yet that is)? Well golly, we’d best hurry up and kill all of the polar bears off also. As large as they are and all that they eat and the resources necessary for all of that prey to develop, well those polar bears, they’ve GOT to contribute a large CO2 footprint – no question, they gotta go. My, then we’d best not forget about all of the seals, walrus, orca, whales – now WHALES, geeze, what are they, equivalent to a loaded transport train at least, or maybe a 747?? Never mind, they’ve gotta go too, WAY too much CO2 there!!
Oh, geeze, minor problem — without polar bears what will the environmentalists and AGW believers use to tug all of our heart strings about all the damage global warming is doing to the arctic and the sea ice, if all those polar bears are gone? My My My, what to do, what to do. Well, never mind, just start calculating the least CO2 intensive way to wipe out all of these horrible polluting animals!!
Well, rather than having to feed your pets and racking up a [fake] carbon credit (it’s a CO2 credit not a carbon credit, sheesh) you could use your pets instead as biofuels to provide heat as this town in Sweden is doing. That provides heat while eliminating a drain on resources that causes continual output of greenhouse gases to feed them and not to mention the CO2 they breath out nor not to mention the H2O greenhouse gas that they breath out that is 10 to 20 times worse than CO2! Ok, admittedly they are capturing wild rabbits that are running wild but heck who’s going to nitpick?
Swedes divided over bunny biofuel
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8309156.stm
Reminiscent of the Matrix where humans were batteries providing energy to a robot society.
CO2 madness gone crazier.
What’s next? Soylent Green is People?
The only thing remotely sustainable about this warmist BS is the endless assault on common sense.
Cheers Anthony from a Kiwi that can’t believe how we managed to produce such idiots. Thanks for the fun post and providing an opportunity for all the banter and ridicule.
Soylent Green… Is that a product of GangGreen?
Johnny Honda, That was a great story.
I think they should have been more agressive with their leader. Can you say
– MAO-POW-CHOW ?
Considering the large carbon footprint of humans, it seems to me that we are edging up on Swift’s Modest Proposal:
http://www.online-literature.com/swift/947/
“DHMO (23:49:28) :
Isn’t New Zealand the country that has a tax on cattle and sheep farting? It is small but 10000 km?”
Well it was propsed, but I understand there is research into animal feed to reduce emissions fro their guts. Still a silly idea IMO.
“I am an Australian, I just have been to Queensland 4000 km in 15 days. Weekend next I am off to Victoria for 4 days 1500 km at least. Contrived figures for an already determined result I reckon. ”
Yeah Aus is big. I recently did the Sydney – Melbourne trip, 9-10hrs each way. It was quite smooth and not tiring at all. I also drove through a dust storm. The Wellington – Auckland SH1 road on the other had is only 700k long, and it takes at least 8hrs and you feel it.
“I have to agree with David Walton about Dihydrogen Monoxide it should be banned and every vestige of it eradicated. It is the most potent greenhouse gas by far. If you don’t believe us visit http://www.dhmo.org/ and support them if they aren’t successful we are all doomed!”
A NZ green MP got caught out with an e-mail about this a few years ago, AND she released a press announcement about it. LMAO…it was rather funny. Janet Fitzsimmons I think her name was, but don’t quote me.
It seems I’m looking at this article differently from everyone else here. These Kiwi architects are saying that a dog has a bigger carbon footprint than a car. Now, I don’t have a dog – can’t stand the bloody things – but I do have a car, so if any greenie wants to criticise me for driving it I can just point to this study and say, “But I’m entitled to have a car – I haven’t got a dog. Just ask Brenda and Robert Vale.”
I remember Robert and Brenda Vale from when I was a student. They were two of the loveliest academics you could meet, both very sincere, talented and dedicated. They had at that time already spent many years putting into practice their ideas, and with little recognition for it. You can read “The Autonomous House” for a practical guide to the technical problems of living off the grid.
To be fair, their perspective isn’t to be alarmist. As I recall, some key issues they were thinking about, long before climate change, are about how when architects design buildings, the buildings end up remaining in use for a hundred years. So you need to take a long view and examine your assumptions, life today might not be the same in 100 years. What does that mean for building design?
But see, this is why WUWT is so important. Is CO2 really a problem? Is energy really running out? (I suspect that for the Vales, the issue of CO2 is more about energy use than it is about climate change).
They are talented designers, but which problems they choose to tackle depends very much on having the best science available to identify the real problems.
For example, take the notion of living off grid in small communities. What is the data that proves that this is the most efficient way to live, even in a world of energy shortages? Is low density more efficient, or is high density more efficient? And—my own personal interest—what effect does the size of the community have on the culture and psychology of the people? Personally this is the one issue that always leads me back to believing that cities might be better, simply because cities are bigger communities and they force people to adapt and become much more open minded and tolerant. Becoming more open minded and sensitive we also become more interested in the global space, and start to care about other cultures, and care about the environment. (So living in cities might be the thing which permitted us the freedom to think about the environment and the globe).
But again, this is a matter of data, and depending on what data is available, architects (who are neither psychologists nor nuclear physicists nor climatologists) can then go forward and design buildings to suit; they need good data.
I am surprised !!!
With such intelligence and logic why have one, or better still, both of these marvelous people, been elected to public office ? With a little bit more experience we could have a new world leader ! (sarc off)
I recommend the carbon-neutral Norwegian Blue Parrot. Very restful.
The problem with food chains is that there are so many of them. I mean, there is Safeway, and Albertson’s and Kroger … and so if food is scarce at one, you simply demand that they stock more. It’s just that simple.
/sarc
I suppose one could modify a crow recipe …
The Dark Ages resulted from an eruption of Krakatoa at about the same time as a period of natural cooling. The Great Famine came about at the same time as a dual eruption of Pinatubo, Philippines and Kaharoa, New Zealand. Kuwae erupted in the early 1450’s causing global misery. These people have no clue as to the power of natural forces.
Maybe they should do there research on the additional CO2 expired by sportspeople. Let’s ban the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, World Cup, etc as any one of those hyper-active people are (probably) putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than my wife’s toy poodle.
There is also the issue of the wasted energy and resources put into the Olympic organisation and the cities that strive to hold the Games and other sporting activities.
BUY YOUR ECO-FRIENDLY DOGS HERE!! CLIMATE ALERT!!!
These dogs will give you more dog beef for the bucks than any other breed. Feed them the normal amount of organic dogfood and they will grow real big real fast. The prius among dogs. ALL HAIL AL, HALLELUJA!! What am I talking about? Well, Hansens bulldogs of course, such as those seen below…
http://www.headstrongkennels.com/males.html
This study is further excellent news; the greater the number of such manifestly absurd papers and the more ridiculous their conclusions then the increased likelihood of the general public saying “sod-that” grows ever larger.
Am now waiting for the latest UK Gov scare tactic advertising campaign….”Act on CO2 kids, or Fluffy gets flambéed .”
Cheers
Mark.
Sorry, must have fallen asleep ! Didn’t realise it was April 1st already !!
Yeah, but to meet the insane levels of carbon reduction in the insane carbon reduction targets, after getting rid of the car and the electricity to our homes, and the gas to our homes, we would have to eat RAW dog or cat, for to cook them would release too much carbon.
Try living your normal life in your home without gas and electricity for a week. Heck, try it for only 24 hours. No gas or electricity at all!
Then you will see what the Copenhagen treaty in action will feel like.
I reackon if you rendred down the gorecal you’d have enough oil to run an suv for a year.
I don’t think there’s any danger of PETA ending up on ‘our’ side, thank God. Just google ‘peta kills animals’ to get an idea of their philosophy on pets.
Well any owners of a large dog should look on the bright side. Still greener to own your pet than own a Prius.
I wonder if New Scientist has any readers left?
jeez (17:36:58) :
I still want to see a study on the Carbon Footprint of fine wines.
Ooops, nevermind.
After considerable philosophic contemplation, I’ve decided to eat the authors of that study Jeez, what wine would you recommend?
Perhaps 0bama should set the right example for all of us and barbeque the family dog at his next press conference.
The entire White House Press Corps could share in the feast and write wonderful stories about canine cuisine. I’m sure that would seal the deal for many people and the world would soon be on a path to complete wonderfulness.
It’s the right thing to do. Maybe he’ll get yet another Nobel as a result.
“Stefan (01:45:29) :
You can read “The Autonomous House” for a practical guide to the technical problems of living off the grid. ”
Do they address cost issues for living off-grid? When I did mine in NZ, it was going to cost at least NZ$60k, for the generating system and matched appliances (You have to match the systems, 6V, 12V and 24V generation with 6V, 12V and 24V applainces otherwise you lose too much in adjusting where needed). Added to that, a comprable sized fridge, runing at 12V, would have cost NZ$12,000 at the time, circa 2001. I don’t see many “ordinary” people being able to afford a NZ$12,000 frudge.
“To be fair, their perspective isn’t to be alarmist. As I recall, some key issues they were thinking about, long before climate change, are about how when architects design buildings, the buildings end up remaining in use for a hundred years. So you need to take a long view and examine your assumptions, life today might not be the same in 100 years. What does that mean for building design?”
Have you been to England? There are, including pubs, several hundred year old buildings still in useful service today. In fact some buildings are older than European influence in teh US, NZ and Aus.
They maybe good people, but it seems they are looking at a govn’t CO2 gravy train grant.
how could you propose this?
hey, people, this is a real world, we are all creatures, either do pets
never tell this again
Q: How do you stop a few billion lemmings from jumping off a perfectly good cliff into the sea?
A: You don’t, because you can’t.
Roger Knights (21:40:59),
That reminds me of a proposal from a South American company. They wanted to import cats from shelters to make fur coats [this was pre-PETA].
Their idea was to raise rats, and feed the rats to the cats. When they skinned the cats, they would feed the cat carcasses to the rats. It was almost like a perpetual motion machine.
But even though the cats were going to be euthanized anyway, the ASPCA protested, and the idea never went forward.
@Patrick Davis
Yes, I live there, my own house is 120 years old, and it was just something a few miners knocked up.
The Vales built some very energy efficient stuff in the UK. But as for cost? Well, personally I never understood how the methods could become widely applied, just because the existing buildings last a long time already and we won’t be replacing the existing housing stock anytime soon.
We have just 6 years left, as they claim, to stop global warming. Even if all new buildings were designed to be autonomous, there’s hundreds of years needed to replace all the existing buildings. And by that time, either we’ll have new energy, or we’ll have become used to living the hard life without it, and the only people living in the few autonomous houses will be the local bandits or clan lords.
“Stefan (05:14:56) :
@Patrick Davis
Yes, I live there, my own house is 120 years old, and it was just something a few miners knocked up. ”
Oooh, listed, nice.
“The Vales built some very energy efficient stuff in the UK. But as for cost? Well, personally I never understood how the methods could become widely applied, just because the existing buildings last a long time already and we won’t be replacing the existing housing stock anytime soon. ”
Well, cost is a factor. If being “green” adds “100,000” to a building, is it worth it? Energy efficiency is a very different beast. Look at the housing stock in NZ. Utterly appalling. Insulation? LMAO What’s that? 90% of NZ housing stock is uninsulated.
“We have just 6 years left, as they claim, to stop global warming.”
What? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…I am working right now, have been for 4 days, roughly about 24hrs a day. I needed a laught!!!
“Even if all new buildings were designed to be autonomous,”
Autonomous maintenace? Like after an earthquake (In NZ). Funny!
“And by that time, either we’ll have new energy, or we’ll have become used to living the hard life without it, and the only people living in the few autonomous houses will be the local bandits or clan lords.”
Thank crunchie I am wearing my PlayTex 24 girdle…I think, no, my sides HAVE split!
Let us not forget the last time humans killed millions of cats. Of course it was in the mistaken belief that cats caused the plague. You gotta respect the law of unintended consequences.
You need to look at the ultimate motivation behind ideas like this. They KNOW that people aren’t going to give up their dogs and cats for chickens. They are laying the foundation for politicians to PROPOSE the banning of such pets, and then COMPROMISING by ‘letting’ pet owners pay a ‘pet carbon tax’. It’s the money they want, and they know that pet owners will pay dearly to keep their pets.
I’ll admit to not having the patience to read the entire thread, so apologies if it’s been said already.
This, I think, says less about the dog and more about the car.
This clearly shows how out of touch these extremists are. Their views are so far from the mainstream of people that it is shocking. This is a perfect example of the “tyranny of the minority”. I can’t help but wonder when will the majority wake up, and see these ecofascists for what they are and stand up against them?
jtom (05:30:34) :
You need to look at the ultimate motivation behind ideas like this. They KNOW that people aren’t going to give up their dogs and cats for chickens. They are laying the foundation for politicians to PROPOSE the banning of such pets, and then COMPROMISING by ‘letting’ pet owners pay a ‘pet carbon tax’. It’s the money they want, and they know that pet owners will pay dearly to keep their pets.
You may be right.
Thinking this through – my dog likes to eat charcoal biscuits, so he may well be up for a rebate as he’s a “consumer of carbon”… Mmm on the other hand, his methane production can be somewhat excessive – could end up being expensive…
…still, I’d pity the poor Government official who’d have to try to fit the meter….
Cheers
Mark
Time to organise a bit of polar bear hunting to cut down their emissions!
Ref Tim Clarke “After considerable philosophic contemplation, I’ve decided to eat the authors of that study Jeez, what wine would you recommend?”
How about a side dish of fava beans washed down with a glass of Chianti ?? !
Since PETAs been mentioned a couple of times, here’s this link:
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
The documentation, etc., is a little disturbing. You should read the related newspaper articles, too. While PETA wouldn’t have any trouble with killing the pets, they still probably wouldn’t let you eat them.
How about quietly doing away with the sort of simpletons who try to prove a point like this? And then have the unmitigated gall to publish a book and profit from it. If they’re that concerned about the environment, lead by example, stop travelling, lose the stuff that creates the alleged “carbon” pollution, and shut the hell up. Better still, why don’t they quietly sink themselves into a peat bog somewhere? That way at least they’d stop polluting… gah.
How exactly does one equate a motor vehicle with land surface area? I’m scratching my head over that one.
We live in strange times.
The concept of “carbon footprint” will, without a doubt be known as the most idiotic, insane, asinine, and destructive in the history of mankind, and those who peddled it and profited from it will be reviled as pariahs. Children will read about it in history books with puzzled amazement and think “what was wrong with those people – were they on drugs or what?”
I already have a recipe for smothered pheasant. And without my cheater glasses, defeathered pheasant would kinda look like defeathered blue parrot. I would suggest a red wine to cut the gamey aftertaste and a well seasoned sauce. My grandpa would use any feathered friend he could find to make faux smothered pheasant. We didn’t know the difference. It was delicious. In fact, Grandma often caught him looking longingly towards her pet cockatiel.
Professors Vale: You can have my German Shepherd when I pry his teeth from your cold, dead bodies.
How about I pop one of the 150 pound Timber Wolves in my area that the Watermellons keep suing to prevent population control of? That ought to help.
Pet control is not about the pet, it’s about the control.
Yep. “Think I’ll go hug my chicken.” Sounds a little kinky. I assume these dreamers have also figured out how to housebreak the chickens, rabbits and other critters they now advocate?
This sounds like something PETA will love, another reason for them to encourage euthanizing every pet in the world. Why? Because animals have rights. Ooops! If PETA is (are?) right about pets having rights, then how dare the Vales suggest they can be just discarded?
@tokyoboy Indeed, it is confined to the mainland. Tokyo is quite attached to its dogs.
@chris Wouldn’t that be global cooling reducing the populations of polar bears. I can just see a bleeding polar bear on an ice flow from Al Gorge’s next picture “A convenient way to make me more money”.
As to cats, they have been an important part of any human habitation for nearly as far back as we have records. The reason is simple: They hunt down, kill, and eat vermin. I have several cats, and they have brought back the “spoils” of their hunting expeditions for us to admire. Along with mice and the occasional gerbil, they have also captured gophers and moles. Matter of fact, several of my neighbors have told me that they don’t particularly care for cats, but mine are welcome in their yard, as they no longer have gopher problems in their garden.
I think you should turn this argument around … what it’s actually saying is that the environmental cost of building and fueling that Toyota is simply not a big deal. It’s less than the cost of keeping a dog.
The cost of the human owner simply staying alive by continuing to eat, clothe themselves and stay warm in the winter totally swamps the cost of the SUV.
Finally, even if you *did* eat the dog how much are you really saving? How much edible meat can you get off a dog? Not much would be my guess.
What about the eco-footprint of humans?
I say we eat 50% of the human population. Solves all the problems.
No more overpopulation
No more hunger
No more “CO2 problems”
The ultimate solution!
Hey, how’s about proving that CO2 is doing what politicians and the uneducated media claim it’s doing? Nobody has managed to prove any “global warming”. “Global warming” is only happening inside climate models, which are computer models sitting on computers that are usually NOT top of the line and which are used to predict the long term development of a large non-linear and chaotic system, which is… UTTER RUBBISH and 100% impossible.
Global warming is the new religion for the mentally retarded and uneducated who want to be on the moral high ground.
UK government must be planning to eat horses. Passports, microchips, etc. should make them easy to round up. Unbelievable, the sooner we get rid of these clowns the better. Only a few more months, hopefully.
Wow! Edible pets. Some people in North America do have rabbits and chickens, but they are pets; they wouldn’t dream of eating them! Long ago people raised rabbits for pets and for eating, but I don’t think it’s done that much in North America. I’ll stick with cats and dogs for pets. Besides, we use a lot of land because the human population keeps expanding. I don’t see anyone saying it’s time to put a stop to or a limit on procreation.
Monkey is also good.
Smoked monkey meat on a stick. Yum!
Takes me back to my sailor days and visits to the flesh pots of Subic.
I’d laugh, but I’m afraid it’d come out a little hysterical.
As a former farm-girl, I know what it takes to slaughter/butcher an animal. Do these people really think it would be a good idea to encourage EVERYONE to do this in their own homes? The animal rights people don’t think farmers can do this in a humane way. Not to mention all the people who are going to injure/kill themselves in the attempt.
This world gets weirder by the day.
Sorry to lower the tone of this debate, but this is a little like our previous Lord Mayor of London (Ken Livingstone) who advised not flushing the toilet as an aid to environmentalism.
So this is what it has come to. The Romans had perfectly good sanitation systems, and I am sure they did not eat their pets.
But now we have reached the enlightened era of the 21st century, we have to do both. Progress, huh?
.
What is ‘sustainable’ about eating a dog, or a cat?
Unless you have a steady source of dogs and cats, you cannot even continue to feed yourself with dogs and cats.
And how sustainable is that? Is it ‘sustainable’ to raise cattle?By the Green measure of the word, that’s fairly obvious. But it is certainly ‘sustainable’ to to farm animals, particularly animals well suited to farming. I would suggest that small furry animals are not suitable to such farming.
Someone mentioned that humans very rarely eat carnivores. I thought this odd at first, but then it’s quite obvious. The energy cost of raising carnivorous animals as a source of food is a lot higher than raising herbivores. Simply, you’d need to also raise something that your food can eat.
Once again, the article simply demonstrates the ignorance of people who push green agendas – or rather, not those that push it, but those that support it.
>>>I say we eat 50% of the human population. Solves
>>>all the problems.
Well you would have the support of David Attenborough (the UK’s premier naturalist). He not only likes animals (so will not be eating any pets), but is also the patron of the Optimum Population Trust (so does not appreciate so many humans).
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/releases/opt.release13Apr09
.
What I am about to tell you it is the truth: During the 70 and 80’s leftist economic measures were imposed in Peru, S.A, inflation went to several million per cent.
Up to those years there was an abundance of cats in Lima city. When the economic nightmare (originally authored by the latin american economic council) was abandoned, we all realized that someting was different: There were no cats left.
It is for you to imagine the reason why.
Ron de Haan (16:30:52) :
By the way, eating dogs is a perfectly normal habit all over Asia.
But so is Communism.
I reject both.
recipes?
50 ways to Wok your Dog.
The analysis provided does not talk about CO2 emissions. It is about land required to produce the fuel (chicken or BioFuel). This was done just for the shock value, and has no other value.
>>How exactly does one equate a motor vehicle with land
>>surface area? I’m scratching my head over that one.
Amount of bio-fuel a car consumes. But I think their estimates are wrong.
Average oil yields for crops vary, with 300 gallons per acre being good and 600 gallons the absolute best (for the tropics). Lets call it 250 gallons an acre.
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html
Presuming this to be a diesel SUV, lets say it chews up 20 miles/gallon (it is a USA vehicle, after all, my Citroen C5 does 50mpg). At an average 10,000 miles a year, that is a requirement of 500 gallons of bio-diesel a year.
That equates to 2 acres or 0.8 hectares, required to fuel an SUV for a year. So I estimate the SUV chews up about the same as an Alsatian.
This was probably worth pointing out, as the typical Champaign Green supporter might have considered trading down their Range Rover for a Citroen 2CV, but would never think of getting rid of the Afghan hound.
.
Ralph,
I don’t think you could lower the tone of this discussion any way anyhow.
I saw a report Sweden had a power station running on rabbits, with a pic of lots of sweet bunnies. I was a bit surprised they would burn readily enough to generate power but apparently it worked. Even my brother was shocked, and he’s normally pretty unflappable…
“Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” Mark Twain
The solution is obvious. Feed all the nutcase AGW alarmists to our carnivorous pets — only after rigorous inspection and sterile processing and thorough cooking however.
Some of the bones can be made into treats for parakeets too.
This would really be funny if these people weren’t so stupid. It’s scary the direction this nutiness is going.
Pamela,
I have, on occasion, prepared “Pheasant-stuffed Turkey.” It is absolutely delicious! I’m guessing you’d need three or four cockatiels, but only one good-sized Macaw. Plus you’d have all of those beautiful feathers that you could find a use for – maybe a feathered cape, like the Polynesians made.
Wait a minute! I’m seeing furs coming back into vogue. Look out Dalmatians!
🙂
Conserve pet meat! Eat environmentalists!
Nobody talked about herding cats yet 🙂
Oh and the pay-off line at the end is, well.. see for your self.
When I read this stuff, Jonathan Swift comes to mind. But then, his Modest Proposal was satire. These population-reducers and cat-and-dog eaters are serious. That makes them hilarious….so start laughing at the AGW crowd—it may be the best way to disarm them.
KW
If the authors did an analysis of the carbon footprint of the paper production required to print their tome, they may have been disuaded from their project. They did more to increase CO2 emissions by having their story printed than my dog does.
If their point was to show how much the average vehicle costs in terms of GHG production, they failed to convince me.
In a system where skeptics are derided for not being climate scientists and therefore not having standing to speak on the subject, architects are somehow held up as climate experts, if their opinions follow the faith. Very strange.
Just glanced at the review of the book on Amazon, and apparently one tip in the book is to not leave your current partner until you find a new one, so as to not run two households!
In the end, it does come down to this question of whether the world’s resources are finite. Is this an “inescapable conclusion” ?
And yet, our imaginations have already dreamt of scenarios where this is not so. Fusion power? Laboratory grown meat slabs? New materials that allow us to build higher? Always liked Arthur C. Clarke description of housing humanity in just four extremely tall towers, leaving the planet to return to wilderness.
I don’t think humanity has a problem with finite resources. If there is a problem, it is about timing. But you know, we don’t always keep developing forward. Sometimes there are setbacks. The Arab world was ahead of the West in science and technology hundreds of years ago, then they had a setback, and the ideas were picked up in the West and carried forward.
If there are real limits, we’ll run into them anyway. Then we’ll figure out how to get past them. If there are real limits, there’s far too many people already for us to try to conserve our way out of it. Most of the world will not go for conservation any time soon, and efforts to impose it would mean force and war. Maybe you know how to improve your partner, if only they would listen, but do you want to wreck the relationship trying?
How much longer until somebody seriously suggests the “Soylent Green” solution to hunger and perceived human over-population?
Jonathan Swift once wrote a scathing satirical criticism of the British domination of Ireland which suggested the problem could in part be solved by consuming Irish infants (“A Modest Proposal”, 1729). Will we see something like that soon from the radical greens, but as a serious proposal?
Stefan (09:22:01) :
I don’t think humanity has a problem with finite resources.
Unless administrated by communist economic rules. Then we should all turn to eat pets, as history shows. (Chinese used to eat rats before the advent of odious capitalism, now they prefer “delikatessen”)
See above: Adolfo Giurfa (08:10:52) :
I think their suggestions about eating pets to reduce GW is beneficial to the skeptic cause because as the warmer-extremists get craizier they will alienate the silent majority who ultimately will decide upon common sense.
Wife geting ready to make supper: ” here kitty kitty”
Farrakhan Meets Malthus
miscellany by http://www.seablogger.com
I doubt very much that Louis Farrakhan has ever heard of Malthus, but consider this rant, excerpted from a three-hour tirade:
The Earth can’t take 6.5 billion people. We just can’t feed that many. So what are you going to do? Kill as many as you can. We have to develop a science that kills them and makes it look as though they died from some disease.
Context? He was talking about H1N1 vaccine, which he imagines to be a product of the same conspiracy that spread AIDS in Africa. So deep ecology converges with deep lunacy. If such people ever gained real power, they would unleash hell on earth. And they have never been so close to power as they are now, with their ally in the White House.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/10/19/Farrakhan-suspicious-of-H1N1-vaccine/UPI-63931256011008/
First…CO2 is not a threat to the world, so their point is pointless. Secondly… ‘sustainability” is an oxymoron when applied to the environment/biosphere. Environmentalists use the word ‘sustainability’ to mean ‘stasis’ or ‘unchanging’ which is equivalent to death in the environment. Life is dynamic and all about change and adaptation. Ironically, the greatest threat to the environment is the modern environmental movement.
While it seems ironic, it is hardly unusual. Hitler came to power to on the promise of preserving the Fatherland and then destroyed it. Communism comes to power on the promise of eliminating poverty, then makes it endemic. Pol Pot came to power on the promise of ending corruption, then murdered millions. DDT was banned on the promise of preventing harmful impacts (for which there was no evidence) and we had the ‘harmful impact’ of many millions dying unnecessarily from malaria to this day.
The pattern repeats throughout history and AGW is just one more emotionally supported ruse that will be our undoing.
The real question is why do we never learn!
For those of you debating the culinary quality of dog , I seem to recall that Meriwether Lewis , after spending a dismal winter at Fort Clapsop , declared that he preferred dog to dried salmon . As for eating AGW wackos , be sure to avoid eating their brains – it can cause Kuru aka the shaking death . Otherwise , it is a commendable idea .
P Walker (10:59:01) :
As for eating AGW wackos , be sure to avoid eating their brains – it can cause Kuru aka the shaking death
That is because of the prions molecules which reinforce when recycled, as in the mad cow disease.
@Rick (18:42:45) :
Soylent Green is GREEEEENNNN!!!!
Wish I had said that first! Do you suppose you can trademark that? Is Soylent Green a registered trademark or servicemark? I wonder if we could license the name for a new line of pet food?
Eating a pet reeks of treachery. Raise animals for food or raise them as pets but don’t try to do both at the same time.
Sheesh!
When has human civilization ever been sustainable, except for paleolithic and neolithic societies? Are we never supposed to grow, advance ourselves, invent new machines or medicines?
Imagine barely making a living in subsistence farming. If you can’t live off the land, you die. No medicines, no electricity. That’s the definition of sustainable.
Gene L. (06:51:31) : “Yep. “Think I’ll go hug my chicken.” Sounds a little kinky. I assume these dreamers have also figured out how to housebreak the chickens, rabbits and other critters they now advocate?”
I actually had a rabbit that was housebroken, and used a litter box. The little beastie just had a bad habit of chewing electrical wires (it’s a rodent thing), so had to be confined to certain rooms, which she absolutely hated. She was a junk-food addict, too. Would jump up into a person’s lap and beg, if they had just opened a bag of chips. Didn’t like dip, though. I don’t think she realized she was a rabbit, as she would occasionally scare the snot out of the dog by attacking, jumping up in the air and snarling. The dog had enough sense to get out of her way at those times.
In its more extreme forms AGW drifts off into irrational silliness.
This study is a great example fo that.
John Galt (11:59:34: …Imagine barely making a living in subsistence farming. If you can’t live off the land, you die. No medicines, no electricity. That’s the definition of sustainable.
Hmmm — With an optimal diet (meat and good fat) you might not need many medicines. For the times you do, herbs are all around. One only needs knowledge to use them.
And there are plenty of people who can live without electricity, even now, and not necessarily see it as privation.
We could all “go bush” and the old skills and knowledge will be worth retaining for the future – it could be a physically demanding life but perhaps not a totally miserable one. 🙂
Oops – sorry – I stuffed up a tag. 🙁
Reply:Fixed. ~ ctm
Jim Clarke (10:36:48) : “The pattern repeats throughout history and AGW is just one more emotionally supported ruse that will be our undoing. The real question is why do we never learn!”
Dark Helmet: And now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb!
A flaw in the calculation seems to be in the energy to build and fuel the
Land Cruiser for 10,000 km.
A Toyota LC gets an average of 15 MPG.
10,000 km = 6,200 miles.
6,200 miles @ 15 MPG = 413 gallons
Gasoline = 48 MJ per kg (that’s the energy you get out of the gasoline, which is less than the total embodied energy that it represents, ie. the drilling, transporting & refining energy inputs)
1 gallon of gas = ~3 kg
48 MJ per kg = 144 MJ per gallon of gas,
Thus the gas used for 6,200 miles is nearly 60 GJ
I haven’t a clue as to how to figure how much energy goes into building a Toyota LC
The 135 GJ per year appears to come from studies done on how much ethanol you can get from an Acre of Corn minus the energy it takes to grow the corn and convert it to ethanol. The number they used is the oldest and highest number.
Other, more recent and detailed studies, suggest the number is lower and nearer to 100 GJ per acre.
Annette Huang (12:20:08) :
We could all “go bush” and the old skills and knowledge will be worth retaining for the future – it could be a physically demanding life but perhaps not a totally miserable one. 🙂
There was such an experiment a few years ago. It was called Pol-Pot.
Patrick Davis
It was Jaqui Dean she failed i’ll be damned it was so clearly a dire problem.
“In 2007 Jacqui Dean, New Zealand National Party MP, fell for the hoax, writing a letter to Associate Minister of Health Jim Anderton asking “Does the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs have a view on the banning of this drug?””
I could say gee NZ polys are dumb but really it is not NZ that is the whole western world descending into superstition. I am thinking since I don’t watch football I should campaign to switch of the lights on games so that is not played at night. We can all do scientific articles that advocate the banning of anything we do not like on environmental grounds and we will be taken seriously!
@ Annette Huang (12:20:08) :
I do believe their are many pleasures to be gained from a simple life. A healthy diet and clean living are their own rewards. I’m also a big supporter of natural foods and herbal medicine.
Still, I wouldn’t like to live like the Unabomber, or even Thoreau at Walden Pond without a good medical center and supermarket nearby.
Millions do live that way and millions of people also suffer from malnutrition, chronic diseases and parasites. At the beginning of the 20th century, the average person in the USA could expect a life span of about 50 years. I’ll take modern medicine any day.
The type of living that Annette Huang is advocating is not very efficient. In other words, it is a poor use of the natural resources available. There is no way that 6 billion people could live like that on this planet. It takes modern farming and live stock methods to feed 6 billion people. The simple life is great, but ‘simple’ does not mean we should do away with the obvious benefits of modern technology. Modern methods are better in large part because they use natural resources much more efficiently than more primitive methods.
John Galt also makes the great point that such lifestyles have historically resulted in much shorter life spans.
If you want to see environmental degradation, then have everyone do exactly what the environmentalists say to do. It will get really ugly, really fast.
The suburban environment would be greatly improved by eliminating the noise pollution from barking dogs.
Alternatively all the dog owners should be forced to live under the flight paths of airports as noise obviously doesn’t bother them.
When it comes to dogs, species extinction is fine by me.
“Let’s have a war. ”
– Lee Ving
Interview with Tom Bombadil, one of my three cats (and the toughest of them):
Tom: C’mon, this is unfair. I stay out all night, fighting with any other cat who dare to approch my territory, and I kill lots of mice, rats, birds, in fact I kill anything ‘cept big dogs, cars and people.
So you see, I’m actually working very hard for my carbon footprint. I deserve it. “Edible pets?” My tail.
Rick Sharp (18:51:49) :
“Climate change protesters bitten by police dogs
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6365728/Climate-change-protesters-bitten-by-police-dogs.html
I hope the dogs are OK”.
Rick, Where can I get such a dog?
Fox News Channel is running a news story this evening which they are calling “Fondu-ing Fido.”
B-b-but I feed my dawgs on slow racehorses and table scraps!
The Vales should do everyone a favor and “eat worms” or better yet, “drop dead”!
“dhmo (13:07:52) :
Patrick Davis
It was Jaqui Dean she failed i’ll be damned it was so clearly a dire problem.
“In 2007 Jacqui Dean, New Zealand National Party MP, fell for the hoax, writing a letter to Associate Minister of Health Jim Anderton asking “Does the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs have a view on the banning of this drug?””
No I don’t recall it being in 2007 as I was still living in NZ at the time and that was before July 2005.
For all those dining on humans first, may I suggest you accompany your meal with a nice Chianti and some fava beans …ef, ef, ef, ef,
Mike Nicholson (06:04:20) :
Apologies. Missed your post re Chiant & fava beans.
[snip]
“At the beginning of the 20th century, the average person in the USA could expect a life span of about 50 years. I’ll take modern medicine any day.”
-John Galt
Please be aware that most of the gain in lifespan comes from safe water supplies and modern sanitation/plumbing. All these things have come about because of the wealth generated by fossil fuels… We can go back to simpler times, but shortened lifespan will accompany us on our journey to the green utopia. If you like infant mortality, old age at forty, friends and family dying too young, and a hard, brutal, miserable existence… you’ll love the planned environmentally correct collective coming down the pike.
Police dogs Eating Tastey Activists is just a chapter of Pets Eating Tastey Activists. I renew my cats’ membership every Christmas, as a stocking stuffer.
PS, If anyone were to start this group, I would join! hint hint
My only words for prfsrs Vale: Molon Labe.
With any luck this is just a cry for help, a symbol of desperation from those who are beginning to realize that their gravy train is approaching its last stop… and it’s snowing.
I’m rather disappointed that I’ve read this far and I’m the first to point out the obvious –
Any cooking that you do is likely to require expenditure of a carbon based fuel so it rather defeats (or at least diminishes) your purpose unless you eat your pets raw.
By the way, I’d personally been hoping for a little more C02 in the atmosphere by next summer – my lawn near the pool has been looking a little pale.
[snip]
What the hell!? Do you really think people who have a pet cat or dog is really going to get rid of them just for the sake of the economy? And if people get a pet chicken or rabbit instead why would them eat them? If you’re somone who wants a pet you’re not going to eat them! This is ridiculous! These are living creatures not just objects.
Environmentalist to start marketing Soylent Green soon.
hotrod (18:28:42) :
“I would much rather do without a few Hollywood elitists than any of the pets I have ever had.”
A few?
I could do without all of them.
Annette Huang (12:20:08) :
“John Galt (11:59:34: …Imagine barely making a living in subsistence farming. If you can’t live off the land, you die. No medicines, no electricity. That’s the definition of sustainable.
Hmmm — With an optimal diet (meat and good fat) you might not need many medicines. For the times you do, herbs are all around. One only needs knowledge to use them.
And there are plenty of people who can live without electricity, even now, and not necessarily see it as privation.
We could all “go bush” and the old skills and knowledge will be worth retaining for the future – it could be a physically demanding life but perhaps not a totally miserable one. :)”
You might need to be quite competitive at the beginning to fight off all the others wanting your space, food (whatever it might be), drugs and iphone.
Still, once over that the positive side would be not having any cares about health insurance, nor a need to contribute to a pension fund. Plus one could reasonably expect a much shorter life span so the potetial problems of old age – dementia and so on – would no longer be a concern.
I love the mix of clouds and silver linings in this sort of message.
The figure seems impossible but if it’s true then the answer would be to introduce a carbon tax onto the pet license.
As for introducing edible animals into urban environments I think the promotion of vegetarianism is a better option. Most of there creatures just go about eating and creating shit in places its not supposed to be in. Farming seems like something that ought to be left to farmers at least where animals are concerned.
I have my doubts about pets, I think they’re a distraction and a nuisance but each to their own.
Tougher licensing laws.
paul v. cassidy (03:59:05) : Thanks for proving the post I made at 05:30:34. Taxes will solve everything, huh? Just how do you propose spending the money to reduce the carbon footprint of my pets? Just another money-grubbing liberal trying to force your belief on others through extortion. Since YOU believe its a problem, why don’t YOU pay to reduce CO2 emission? Most of the rest of us don’t buy intro your ignorance.
Someone above mentioned Sweden burning bunnies for fuel.
Here’s the full story.
http://www.thelocal.se/22610/20091012/
the reality of co2 is it’s only a measure of a productive country and it’s a very poor insulating “blanket” that cold cause global warming, but co2 is a good measure on how to punish the productive countries. good thing global warming is caused by the sun and the other planets have mirrored exactly the same rises and falls in global temps just like the earth has without having any dogs, cats or suvs, capitalists or socialists. so the good news is you can completely discard this story as pure bunk from envious socialists bitterly jealous of capitalism and go about your lives not worrying about how much co2 you or your pet emit since the sun is producing warming not a poor insulating gas. so be sure to educate yourself on the facts that are needed to debate the socialists who are trying to scare people into their scheme of global wealth redistribution, which in reality wealth redistribution never ever seems to get to “the poor” like it says it will, but instead lines the pockets of big government plans and schemes to pad their bureaucracy . have you ever noticed that, the poor never ever seem to prosper under big government plans, only the government grows under these plans to help the poor. hhhhhhhhmmmmmm and now they’re trying to scam you with this spooky the sky is falling fairy story when they manipulate the data, inject and omit pertinent information to force the results they want but it took some independent scientists to look at the raw data and with an unbiased review of it proved there isn’t anything to worry about any more than 2012 or the boogeyman hiding under your bed.
I think that we shouldn’t have to get rid of our soft furry friends for our own benifit.