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?
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h/t to WUWT reader GA
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[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.