Time to Eat the Dog? Weird Green Living Advice
October 28, 2009 · Print This Article
Imagine carefully feeding your beloved and faithful dog a healthy diet that will help him grow fat and juicy, eyeing him one day and declaring, “Yep, it’s time to eat the dog.” That’s what two professors at Victoria University in New Zealand are proposing we consider – sort of – after finding that our choice in pets causes our carbon footprints to balloon out of control.
From the Dominion Post:
The couple have assessed the carbon emissions created bypopular 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.
Despite the title of their new book – Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living – Brenda and Robert Vale don’t really want you to serve Fido burgers at your next cookout. They are urging people to consider taking herbivorous food animals like goats as pets instead of dogs and cats.
The carbon footprint of our pets is probably something that most people haven’t really thought about, but while dogs and cats may not provide food or eat the most earth-friendly diets, they provide comfort and companionship that most people aren’t willing to give up. And, it’s highly unlikely that cities are going to begin allowing people to keep cows in suburban backyards or geese in their apartments.
Though some people can get away with having goats, chickens and rabbits as pets, not all of us can or want to – and an important way to offset the impact of dog and cat ownership is to adopt unwanted animals at shelters instead of buying from breeders. (And be sure to spay and neuter!)
Link [The Dominion Post]
Photo credit: HahaStop.com
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Thanks for the advice given in the last paragraph: adopting is the answer, alongside a prohibition of breeding (including of animals like goats, chickens and rabbits). Whoever wrote the article on which this blog post is based on is completely bonkers. The point is NOT to have pets, and only do that when we rescue them.