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
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.