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
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!!