Ecologically, is it time to eat your dog?
Should owning a Great Dane make you as much of an eco-outcast as an SUV driver? Yes it should, say Robert and Brenda Vale, two architects at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, who specialise in sustainable living. In their book, “Time to Eat the Dog? The real guide to sustainable living”, they compare the ecological footprints of popular pets with those of various other lifestyle choices – and pets do not fare well.
As well as guzzling resources, especially eating processed meat which requires a high input of resources, cats and dogs devastate wildlife populations, spread disease and add to pollution. It is time that we recognized the ecological footprint of our pets.
To measure the paw, claw and fin-prints of the family pet, the Vales analysed the ingredients of common brands of pet food. They calculated, for example, that a medium-sized dog would consume 90gms of meat and 156gms of cereals daily in its recommended 300gm portion of dried dog food. At its pre-dried weight, that equates to 450gms of fresh meat and 260gms of cereal. That means that over the course of a year, your dog will wolf down about 164kgs of meat and 95kgs of cereals. It takes 43.3sq m of land to generate 1kg of chicken per year (it is far more for beef and lamb), and 13.4sq m of land to generate 1kg of cereals. So that gives him a footprint for an average dog of 0.84 hectares. For a bigger dog such as a German Shepherd, the figure would be 1.1 hectares.
Meanwhile, an SUV such as a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser driven a modest 10,000 kms a year will uses 55.1 gigajoules, of energy both to fuel it and to build it. One hectare of land can produce approximately 135 gigajoules of energy per year, so the Land Cruiser’s eco-footprint is about 0.41 hectares – which is less than half that of a medium-sized dog.
Owning a dog really is an ecological extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat.
The Vales found that cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares (slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf), hamsters come in at 0.014 hectares apiece (buy two, and you might as well have bought a plasma TV) and canaries half that. Even a goldfish requires 0.00034 hectares (3.4 sq m) of land to sustain it, giving it an ecological fin-print equal to two cellphones.
What can we do about this? We could:
1. Give up owning a pet altogether for environmental reasons. If we are unwilling to do that, then…
2. Trade down first to smaller pets, and then to vegetarian pets.
3. And if in the end, you must have a pet, probably go for a goldfish.
4. Or why not get a virtual pet? www.virtualpet.com/vp/links/links.htm
by Michael Norton
Does the man make a valid point?
9
Answers
Yep… here are some serving suggestions…
http://www.puppybeef.com/recipes.php
In some countries, dog is a delicacy. Sounds like Spot may be on the menu.
I don’t think Zasquatch would approve. Eating your dog only causes more issues rather than solving any.
My question is how long before the liberals want to serve overweight poor people?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:0Master_Past_20000yrs_temperatures_icecore_Vostok_150dpi.png
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/global_warming.html
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
http://reasonmclucus.tripod.com/CO2myth.html
http://mc-computing.com/qs/Global_Warming/Atmospheric_Analysis.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
Where the heat came from and why it was abnormally cold previously
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~dbunny/research/global/215.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_minimum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
I’m skeptical of their calculations. They compare the amount of energy consumed by an SUV to the amount of energy produced by a hectare of land. But they seem to be neglecting the amount of CO2 released by burning the fossil fuels to power the SUV.
It seems like a bizarre calculation to me, like they’re comparing apples to oranges. The amount of land to produce chicken vs. the amount of energy to power the car.
I think I’ve got it figured out – they’re calculating an “ecological footprint” instead of a “carbon footprint”. The carbon footprint of the SUV is far larger than the dog, and is a much less important metric. Therefore I don’t think their point is particularly valid. You could apply it to people just as well as dogs. A person’s ecological footprint is far larger.
Liberals are getting more lame brained as time goes by. pretty soon they will be
as clever as a blade of grass.
Ask the Chinese. As one of the oldest civilizations on the Planet, they’re been doing it for Centuries during Hard times… And the World is “Headed”- where They’ve “come from…”
the government has a great solution to the problem…tax you for owning pets.they are throwing bs like this @ us everyday to prepare us for it.
The world is nuts.-