Dec 22, 2009
Could Fido be more of a tax on the environment than your SUV?
According to a book by two researchers from New Zealand, because of what they eat, dogs have larger carbon footprints than SUVs.
Researchers Robert and Brenda Vale studied the composition of the most popular dog foods and found that the land it takes to produce all of the meat and grains is larger than the land it takes to produce the energy to fuel an SUV.
The book “Time to Eat the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living,” has gotten a lot of buzz. While the title may be provocative, the researchers don’t exactly suggest eating your pup, rather changing its diet to reflect a more sustainable food regimen.
However, they say a more eco-friendly pet choice would be a rabbit or a chicken. They find it socially acceptable to eat those pets.
But the book has left a lot of dog lovers and environmental types snarling over what they call shoddy figures.
The Vales say a typical medium sized dog eats 360 pounds of meat and 209 pounds of “cereals” each year, using about 2.07 acres of land. The SUV (they used a Toyota Land Cruiser) driving about 6,200 miles a year uses 1.01 acres of land.
But Clark Williams-Derry, director of research for the Sightline Institute, a nonprofit research center focusing on a sustainable economy and lifestyle in the Pacific Northwest, points to U.S. Department of Energy numbers that show that Americans drive our SUVs about 13,700 miles a year. He also says the energy consumed, plus what it takes to produce the gas and the car, are underestimated.
Then there’s the issue of the dog data. According to a study done by the Animal Protection Institute, a nonprofit animal advocacy group, dog food is made up from the scraps of human food — the stuff we wouldn’t deign to eat.
Pet food provides a place for slaughterhouse waste and grains considered “unfit for human consumption” to be turned into profit. This waste includes cow tongues, esophagi, and possibly diseased and cancerous meat. The “whole grains” used have had the starch removed and the oil extracted — usually by chemical processing — for vegetable oil, or they are the hulls and other remnants from the milling process.
Williams-Derry says that because most of what dogs eat are the scraps of what we eat, considering the carbon footprint of their food as completely additional to ours is inaccurate. He recognizes that dogs do have an environmental impact – just as SUVs do, but he takes issue with the Vales’ suggestion that owning an SUV isn’t so bad for the planet.
He says the idea that dogs are worse than SUVs is invalid. It might be time to put that idea to sleep.
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This is absolutely absurd. There’s no reason in the world that dogs cannot thrive – just as well as humans – on a plant based diet. My 90 lb dog does not eat meat or dairy and is in wonderful health. Stop with the excuses… Go Vegan.
The earth is fine. Climate gate didn’t even reach your brain yet?
The CO2 levels are at a prime level for food growth.Incredible
Plant growth can be achieved in our time but it is so simple
that no corporation could profit so it will only remain a concept.
Step 1, Divert suppossed rising sea water to barren lands such as
Mid- Africa, Mongolia ect.
Step 2), De-Salinate the water on the trip via the aqueduct and a
clear evaporation catch dome . The aqueduct would be painted black,
and the dome would be made of recycled plastic water bottles and/or glass bottles, made into panels.(Whatever you need to get rid of)
Step 3)Use more plastic bottles to create artificial shade or a hot house so less water is needed than in scorched plants and humidity can be sealed in.
Step 4)Excess water can be stored in Man Made Lakes , and these
areas can have weeds grasses and other plants placed on the perimeter for soil creation and retention.
Step 5)Feed the World, Let them harvest food, and salt, The world
doesn’t need money, It needs a a triple bypass. We need to bring its life blood back to the desert. When the Sahara isnt 135 degrees, The Arctic will grow like the frost in a Old Freezer .
Babylon had hanging gardens, and we cant make the biggest hanging
garden with all this plastic around? It does last 100 years, after a certain point the soil will be fertile again, It will rain where it hasn’t in years, and the sea will go down, and the Arctic will be a mile higher.
But it is easier to tell you having children is wrong, and tax your pet.
Make you need carbon credits to have children, Tell you that beef is horrible because cows fart. But not say a word to China, That pumps out more pollution than the US and Europe combined. They dump
millions of tons of Iron oxide into streams, Mercury into ground water
and the World biggest Dam(3 gorges dam) Thats so big it wobbled earths orbit.
But my cat is the problem, and my SUV. Welcome my friends
to the twilight zone.
Fact : Nancy Pelosi puts out more CO2 in a month than every animal
in my county, and some of the animals that eat grain, get eaten
I dont think some of these Global Warming nuts would even feed one homeless person once, let alone 200 people as a cow would.
If Obama and Copenhagen really cared about earth They would
have had a conference call, Maybe splurge on some carbon and skype some video too.But they all took 747′s that seat 12 people including the pilots. Feast on endangered species , and then make people think that Sudan needs money. They need a sustainable infrastructure , and they are incapable of building one with their corruption.We can pipe oil across 3500 miles, that comes from 2 miles below the Earth. But we cant bring water that is at sea level
2000 miles inland?. And Save the World from hunger,famine ,and overcrowding. The Earth can sustain 20 billion+ , Just every piece
of land needs a make over.
Make a Salt water lake too, Raise some fish,Replenish the sea,
It gives you water, you give it tenants.