Vermont’s WCAX 3 news station, posted an article from the Associated Press (AP) titled “People often make wrong climate choices, a study says. One surprise is owning a dog,” in which the writers claim that owning a dog is bad for the climate because they are meat eaters. This is completely misguided. Meat eating does not have an inordinate impact on the global climate and studies show that dog ownership can be beneficial to peoples’ mental health – an important consideration in a period where the media coverage of climate change is stoking climate-fear-related anxiety and mental health issues.
The post summarizes points from a recent study from the National Academy of Sciences, which looked at survey participants’ beliefs when it came to the impact of their individual efforts to “fight” climate change. Participants apparently ““weren’t very accurate when assessing how much those actions contributed to climate change, which is caused mostly by the release of greenhouse gases that happen when fuels like gasoline, oil and coal are burned.”
Aside from the point that it is very much not an established fact that most climate change is caused by human use of fossil fuels or is dangerous, it is interesting that the study ranks some very intrusive climate efforts as low-impact. Those included things like using energy efficient appliances and lightbulbs, and recycling. Those individual efforts are things that the U.S. government has pushed for decades, imposing burdensome regulations on consumers and appliance manufacturers alike, as well as hijacking public school classes to promote the merits of recycling.
Associated Press’ writers claim that that the three actions that “help the climate” most are avoiding flying, using renewable electricity, and “choosing not to get a dog.”
These three items were consistently underestimated by study participants as effective mitigating climate change, at least according to the authors. The most offensive is probably the claim that dog ownership is particularly harmful to the planet.
The article claims that because dogs are carnivores, they are a significant contributor to climate change since “farm animals, which will become food, release methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.” They claim that beef is a particular problem on that front.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) it is simply false to claim cattle raising is a significant contributor to emissions, let alone global climate change.
The EPA reports that livestock as a whole contribute 3.9 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, and cattle by themselves contribute just 2 percent.
Figuring out what proportion of that beef is then turned into pet food in general and dog food specifically is almost impossible, but it would seem safe to assume it’s very minimal, especially since most commercial dog foods outside of specialty brands are made with animal byproducts that might otherwise go unused. Check the ingredients listed on the label of most dry and canned dog food and you’ll find that even when beef is an ingredient and listed first, it makes up a small portion of the overall content of the food.
Climate Realism has covered discussed methane a lot, but it is worth re-iterating, especially as the media and climate alarm machine target man’s best friend. Methane itself is yet another trace gas, and while it does play a role in the atmosphere’s energy balance, it does not stay in the atmosphere for nearly as long as other gases like carbon dioxide, and much of its ability to trap heat is already covered by water vapor, which plays a much stronger role.
A paper written by physicists William Happer, Ph.D., of Princeton University and W. A. van Wijngaarden, Ph.D., of Toronto’s York University, says that “the contribution of methane to the annual increase in forcing is one tenth (30/300) that of carbon dioxide.”
So whatever percentage of cattle emissions result from your dog eating beef-based food, or even all the dogs in the country, they still have such a miniscule impact on any warming, it can hardly be taken seriously as an “underestimated” contributor to climate change.
Besides all of that, climate alarmists probably should think about getting a dog (if they are responsible enough) because having a dog in particular is known to reduce anxiety, which, as Climate Realism has covered, climate alarmists seem to suffer inordinately from. Repeated studies show that pet ownership in general, and dog ownership in particular can reduce stress and anxiety. Thus, a canine companion can help fight the mental illnesses and anxiety that the daily torrent of false stories claiming that human-caused climate change is destroying the planet is generating in some people. Owning a dog can be doubly effective in shoring up mental health, if those alarmed about climate change come to recognize the fact that dog ownership is not hurting the planet.
The AP, WCAX 3, and the study authors are not accurately portraying the true state of the planet. They certainly have no place talking anyone who wants to own dog out of doing so, at least not as a means of preventing climate change.
but climate change is a crisis because it may reduce the amount of life on this planet?
I think the authors were sucking up to vegans and PETA types who hate pets in principle. I was a bit surprised, though, as cats are more obligate carnivores than dogs.
Dogs have family, cats have staff.
WUWT had this post 3 days ago.
And I’m still not getting rid of my little English staffy. !! 🙂
We’ve three dogs, and I feed them beef as and when I can. They on the whole do reduce stress for the missus and me. But, after reading this trippa, as a good person of Sicilian ancestry I provide you, Miss Leuken with well-desrved Italian arm salute, along with a raspberry for good measure. I’ll keep my scruffies and feed them what’s good for them, thanks.
Regards,
MCR
Your raspberry should be directed at the AP, WCAX 3, and the study authors cited by Linnea Lueken, not LL herself – she is just reporting. But if you believe the AP, WCAX 3 and the study authors, then you should use only an e-raspberry because a real raspberry has an enormous carbon footprint – when they decide to ban raspberries they will undoubtedly find a study showing that raspberries’ carbon footprint exceeds mammoths’ at their prime (and we all know how that turned out for the mammoths).
My staffy is a great guard dog. Here she is on duty on the sofa on the front veranda. 🙂
“The EPA reports that livestock as a whole contribute 3.9 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, and cattle by themselves contribute just 2 percent.“.
The EPA got that wrong. The correct figures are: livestock as a whole – 0%. Cattle by themselves – 0%. The reason is simple and easily verified – livestock, including cattle, get all their carbon from the atmosphere via their food. If anything, they are a net sink of carbon throughout their lives. 0.0% or 0.00% might be more accurate, but without more detailed analysis, 0% is close enough for most purposes.
I wonder whether the authors have kids? They breathe in 0.04% CO2 and out 4% CO2. Maybe they should consider likewise disposing of them.
My dog spotted an intruder tonight after our walk. It was a frog almost as big as my hand. As the frog jumped from couch to floor to chair, the pup tracked every move. He saved my wife from an unpleasant suprise in the morning. Whatever his carbon footprint is, my dog is worth 10 Al Gores and 100 John Kerrys.
He’s useful, loving and loyal. Beware you climate reptiles.
Our late German Shepherd once woke us with continued barking. It turned out that a snake had got into our bathroom while I had the screen off the window for mending.
It was only a harmless 1 metre python, but she didn’t know that. She got mega-treats for a week!
I think you over valued Al Gore.
The idea that we raise cattle to feed our pets is hilariously ludicrous. We feed them all the bits we don’t want to eat!
In Australia, kangaroo is a great lean supplement for dogs. We don’t have enough of a market to sell all those we need to cull.
Just another example of the vego-fascists corrupting science in their ongoing effort to impose their lifestyle upon everyone else. There’s not much I can do about it other than my pledge to eat another steak and give extra scraps to my furry best friend every time I come across another example of this jackasseryness.
That will be a very plump canine 🙁
Nice report on climate absurdity. Without pardon to AP or WCAX3, the study authors introduced the Dogs Cause Climate Change (disruption, chaos, catastrophe, etc.) notion in their Journal Article, “Climate action literacy interventions increase commitments to more effective mitigation behaviors”.
The dog haters are not climatologists, veterinarians, or even scientists of any stripe. They’re psycho-logists. Would it be improper to name the authors and their “schools”? Danielle Goldwert, Dept. Psychology, New York University, Yash Patel, Dept. Environmental Social Sciences, Stanford University, Kristian Steensen Nielsen, Dept. Management, Society and Communication, Copenhagen Business School, Matthew H Goldberg, Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, Yale University, and Madalina Vlasceanu, Dept. of Psychology, New York University. Not one scientist or person with knowledge about the climate on the team.
The climatistas are already well-known for their hatred of babies, children, mothers, fathers, white people, hetero men, hetero women, Trump (goes without saying), cars, trucks, buses, railroads, airplanes, the economy, houses, appliances, cattle, horses, goats, farming, food crops, and you name it, so why not throw dogs into the hate bucket, too. And pound that hate drum remorselessly. These folks hate you, the horse you rode in on, and your dog. They thrive on hatred. It’s a wokey thing. Kill all humans, and their pets, too.
With Friedericke Otto taking over at the IPCC, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this stuff…
This is a repeat topic from two days ago. Still, I like shaggy dog stories.
“Still, I like shaggy dog stories.”
Extreme porn alert !! (:-))
Ahh, you must have watched Uncle Doug’s “Naughtiest Home Videos”
6 dogs live on the place just now—4 working dogs watching over my goat herd, and 2 little road side rescues that tend to my mental health. Have only this old Texas proclamation for any one who thinks they shouldn’t be here–“Come and Take em”
Dogs are more valuable and important than liberals. My Mastiff ate as much as I did and was worth every bite.
The poor dog gets blamed for everything from bad smells to lost homework, so I guess this attribution was inevitable.