Save the Planet, Eat Your Dog

R3d M3rcury writes "New Zealand's Dominion Post reports on a new book just released, Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living. In this book, they compare the environmental footprint of our housepets to other things that we own. Like that German Shepherd? It consumes more resources than two Toyota SUVs. Cats are a little less than a Volkswagen Golf. Two hamsters are about the same as a plasma TV. Their suggestions? Chickens, rabbits, and pigs. But only if you eat them."

Comments

Good grief..

[Anrego]

I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume .. an animal stops being a "pet". And would sure make an interesting dinner, as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.

I mean.. it's an interesting report.. but I don't think anything realistic has been proposed here. They may as well have proposed we treat our cars as pets..

Why even bother looking at this stuff.. there's all kinds of other areas that could realistically be addressed. For example phone books! The amount of resources spent printing and distributing something that 70% of the time probably ends up in a land fill untouched is astounding. I saw some documentary where they were taking core samples at junk yards.. there were literally layers of phone books.. they used it to date the segments..

Re:Good grief..

[JustOK]

thank goodness I have an unlisted time period.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume .. an animal stops being a "pet". And would sure make an interesting dinner, as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.

Don't worry about your daughter now, she in a act of supreme environmental saving. Will eat you after your death.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

but I don't think anything realistic has been proposed here

So little imagination. The "proposal" is implied.

This gem of enviro-wennie research will rattle around among the cocktail parties of the jet-set ruling class until one of them becomes convinced they can make a big splash by regulating pet ownership in the name of the "environment." Expect this to appear first in San Francisco in the next few years in the form punitive pet taxes. Thereafter limits and outright bans will be created.

Except for horses. There won't be any meaningful limits on horse owners.

Re:Good grief..

[kdemetter]

That article makes no sense : an animal doesn't consume more natural resources than a car.
If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources . And after digestion , a dog fertilizes the soil , so the resources are giving back the ground . That the cycle of life , and it works much better than how a car works.

And when your pet dies , you burry it , or maybe burn it , etc , but it's remains also come back to the ground.
Which will be the same of you eat your pet , but then it takes until you die to be completely returned to the soil.

Re:Good grief..

[Burning1]

I've owned a dog and a Porsche.

With the amount of time I spent driving, fueling, polishing, and lovingly caressing that car... Yeah, I kind of did treat it like a pet.

Of course, the car was too big for my current apartment, so I had to buy a pair of motorcycles. I'm having a hard time training them to stay off the couch.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Meat, as a whole, is incredibly inefficient. The most inefficient is beef, and from there on down you go to pigs, lamb, etc, chicken is a lot lower, and kangaroos are one of the lowest of them all (game, plus no methane emissions).

Sure, if you're feeding it leftovers, that's fine. But, you're just transferring the cost away from the dog itself to 'food waste'. And whatever you call it, it's still bad for the planet.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

And if your pet is a Labrador it will probably have a fair go at the table and any empty wine bottles as well. They truly are the canine garbage disposal.

Re:Good grief..

[fractoid]

So based on the inefficiency of eating meat, I presume you would see big game hunting as the ultimate act of ecological conservation? :P

Re:Good grief..

[mwvdlee]

driving, fueling, polishing, and lovingly caressing

You know what they say about men and their sportscars, right?

Re:Good grief..

[wisty]

Yeah, it seems dodgy. Cost can be used as a first-order estimate of environmental impact. A $50 fuel bill has a the same order-of-magnitude environmental impact to a $50 food bill.

And don't forget capital and disposal costs. Dogs are pretty cheap to build (since they are self-replicating), and easy to dispose. SUVs are a bit more expensive.

I think it's safe to say that an SUV costs more to run than a dog. It also costs a lot more to purchase. Ergo, the SUV has a higher footprint.

Re:Good grief..

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Actually, dog and cat feces, being primarily meat-based, is not good fertilizer. Otherwise, you're absolutely right.

Re:Good grief..

[Benaiah]

That article makes no sense : an animal doesn't consume more natural resources than a car. If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources . And after digestion , a dog fertilizes the soil , so the resources are giving back the ground . That the cycle of life , and it works much better than how a car works.

And when your pet dies , you burry it , or maybe burn it , etc , but it's remains also come back to the ground. Which will be the same of you eat your pet , but then it takes until you die to be completely returned to the soil.

My car consumes no resources either. I put gas in at the pump, and then burn it and return it to the atmosphere, thus recycling it. When its old it will eventually go to scrap and most of its parts will be directly recycled aswell. The rest will be buried in land fill, thus returning it to the ground from where it came.

Re:Good grief..

[exley]

You know what they say about men and their sportscars, right?

No, nobody has the slightest clue what you're talking about.

Re:Good grief..

[omfgnosis]

How does cost have anything to do with environmental impact? Is the same product going to have a 20% greater environmental impact if I pay 20% more for it? Or am I just a stupid consumer?

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to help raise rabbits!
I loved everyone of them even as they were evening dinner!

Re:Good grief..

[benjamindees]

The environmental impact of all the workers who built the car (and their dogs) is included in the price.

Re:Good grief..

[benjamindees]

Quite insightful. There is no such a thing as a "circle" of life. Life is not a circle. It is a process of decay. Of course it's nuclear decay, actually, so the more cyclical aspects tend to dominate on human timescales.

Re:Good grief..

[Plunky]

If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources .

Eh? It consumes approximately the same amount of natural resources as if you didn't prepare too much food and throw it away and instead spent that saving on food more suited to the dogs digestive system.. In fact you might even make a saving because dog food is often based on discarded cuts of meat, intestines, eyeballs, ground up bone, offal etc that was unsaleable as human food..

Re:Good grief..

[tech10171968]

So based on the inefficiency of eating meat, I presume you would see big game hunting as the ultimate act of ecological conservation? :P

Actually, I guess it depends on which type of big game you're talking about.

I'm sure you're familiar with white-tail deer. This is an animal which, left unattended, can (and has shown) the ability to quickly multiply to dangerous levels. A large enough herd can (and will) wipe out anything and everything related to foliage in its path (both forest and farmland), in turn causing yet another ecological clusterf*ck. Also, due in no small part to man's encroachment upon the natural habitat of the white-tail, the larger numbers can also cause increasingly recurring disasterous meetings between beast and man (you ever see a collision between a sedan and a 200-lb buck? It's ugly - neither one wins). With few other natural predators around to cull the herd (probably man's fault as well), it's actually up to license-holding deer hunters to cull the herds.

This isn't hyperbole: there's a reason for many states' hunting seasons.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, after so much drabble, finally some solyent facts in this thread.

Re:Good grief..

[Gordonjcp]

Meat, as a whole, is incredibly inefficient. The most inefficient is beef...

That is pretty much entirely untrue outside the US, where people seem to think that cows can eat grain. They can't eat grain, and most of it gets shat out largely undigested. Cows eat grass. They have four stomachs which help them digest tough nutrient-poor grass. Sheep have two stomachs, for much the same reason. I, on the other hand, have only one stomach and that's been tweaked by millenia of evolution to break down a mixure of fairly soft plants with not much cellulose and meat.

It's far more efficient to put some sheep into a field and let them graze and then eat the sheep, than it is for me to try to work out some way to eat grass. It's also worth pointing out that very little of what farm animals eat is actually wasted. One of the best ways to compost tough grasses is to pass them through a ruminant's digestive system. You get out lots of shit that you can then spread on fields and help your vegetables grow.

The final point is that it's not really useful to talk about turning the world's farmland over to arable farming. It works where you've got hundreds of acres of gently-rolling countryside and you can actually plough it without your tractor rolling sideways down a hill or disappearing into a hundred-metre-deep bog. It does not work where the vast majority of farms are hill farms, which are more suited to grazing animals. I know this might be hard for people in the US to comprehend, but not all farms are rolling Iowa cornfields.

Re:Good grief..

[fractoid]

I guess I was thinking of the stereotypical 'big game' hunter trying to bag a lion, but as you say, many mid- to large-sized animals can have severe environmental impacts when they start overpopulating.

And as for the 200lb buck - I wouldn't know about yer' fancy northern hemisphere quadrupeds but a male Big Red kangaroo will weigh up to 90kg (200lb) and often presents itself nicely at windscreen height. There's a reason that most people who drive regularly in the bush here fit 'roo bars' to their cars. And as with your white-tail, the lack of natural predators coupled with sudden (ecologically speaking) availability of farm crops they can eat has resulted in populations reaching plague proportions in some areas, and an annual cull quota for hunters.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure that the authors did not even consider the environmental impact of publishing their book. Worth 'a few' doggies. But business is business.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume .. an animal stops being a "pet".

Today it stops being a pet in the western world. But my grandmother told about how they got a piglet for autumn, named him George, played with him, and that they ate him for Christmas. And boy did George taste good.

"Martha! Stop playing with the food!"

Re:Good grief..

[1s44c]

You know what they say about men and their sportscars, right?

No, nobody has the slightest clue what you're talking about.

They say men who buy flashy impressive cars do it to make up for a lack of self esteem caused by having a small penis.

Re:Good grief..

[Eivind]

Offcourse the dog consumes resources. It consumes the food it eats (that food was produced somehow, then transported somehow, packaged somehow etc), you don't magically make that go away by cooking too much.

Typical western-pet-dogs also receive medical care, have various objects and so on. All of which consumes resources.

A dog probably consumes an amount of resources comparable to any other hobby with a similar price.

(price and consumption isn't identical measures, there's expensive things that pollute little, and cheap things that pollute a lot, but despite this it does tend to be a reasonable proxy-indicator in many cases)

Re:Good grief..

[tomhudson]

For example phone books!

What's a "phone book?"

Seriously, the Internet is finally killing off phone books, especially the Yellow Pages. Advertisers have learned that it's more cost-effective to take out the smallest yellow pages ad possible, and just put their web site url in it. AND not to bother with the overpriced "portal" offers.

Also, the White Pages phone books are becoming obsolete, since so many people have cell phones nowadays.

Your comment has prompted me to send the following email to Yellow Pages Group:

Hi:

I always end up throwing the telephone directories (Yellow Pages and White Pages) in the recycling bin because I don't use them. For me, the Internet has rendered both products redundant. In fact, in a quick informal survey of friends and family, everyone else does the same thing.

Do you have any programs in place where municipalities can have a general "opt-out" for phone book distribution, and only people who actively want a copy can opt in, so we can help reduce the cost to municipalities of processing this waste?

Thank you.

I get enough junk mail as is ... at least SOME of the junk mail is useful ... but neither the Yellow Pages nor the White Pages gets looked at any more. They're a total waste of time, energy, and resources, and as outmoded as buggy whips. Next step - lobbying my municipality to add a "recycling surtax" on junk mail over a certain weight (this would survive a court challenge, since it's not an outright ban on all junk mail). I don't have a fireplace, so why would I want a phone book?

Re:Good grief..

[SerpentMage]

This article is crap... Notice the following:
>>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.

Ah yes, "the I don't have this and thus nobody else should have this green peace tree hugging idiot" crowd. I get annoyed by these people because they are hypocrites. They will be all nice, green and free love, UNTIL you touch something they happen to like.

What I really don't like about this study is the benefit animals like dogs have. Time and time it has proven that those that have dogs or cats have better lives. I am not saying you need to have dogs or cats, but those that do are better for it. Also dogs have been with mankind for thousands of years because there is a symbiotic relationship. As I write this my Ye old English Bulldogs are sleeping at my feet.

So what does these dogs do for me?

1) Force me to walk them everyday ensuring that I am outside doing something.
2) A jogging partner making my jog not so boring.
3) A watchdog (not guard dog) who keeps an eye on things.
4) Fire alert in case something is burning and they will make sure we get to safety.

Essentially, a dog helps me lower my carbon footprint because I exercise more and use the car less since by being healthier I will bike, walk, or take public transportation.

I guess those benefits did not fit into their study? But why should it have because after all they don't "own" a dog or cat...

IDIOTS!

Re:Good grief..

[h4rm0ny]

The environmental impact of all the workers who built the car (and their dogs) is included in the price.

No, no it isn't. Price does not necessarily reflect environmental impact at all. One of the reasons coal-power is competitive with nuclear power in the USA is because the coal industry doesn't have to pay for the environmental cost of spewing vast amounts of pollution into the atmosphere. The reason palm oil is cheap is because asian countries are engaged in massive deforestation to supply it. By your reasoning, a higher cost means high environmental damage. But how can that be when you can reduce costs by cutting environmental corners? You make no sense.

Talk of eating your pet makes little environmental sense. Why that instead of, say, not having a second car as many households do? Why that instead of, say, eating 5% less (which many Western households would actually benefit from).

There are many other things to look at first including the elephant in the room - population control. This is just some academic looking for cheap headlines.

Re:Good grief..

[boaworm]

Except for horses. There won't be any meaningful limits on horse owners.

Well, horses are one of the few "pets" we do eat after all.

Re:Good grief..

[Kagura]

No, he did it on purpose, but it's still unoriginal and dumb in this conversation.

Re:Good grief..

[h4rm0ny]

Quite insightful. There is no such a thing as a "circle" of life. Life is not a circle. It is a process of decay.

...into carrion which is eaten by scavengers, into rotting biomass that is consumed by detrivores that may be eaten by other animals or into soil nutrients which feed plants which get eaten by animals, that eventually die and become carrion or decay into nutrients... hence circle. It's not hard to grasp the terminology. Cars don't get eaten when they die and their destruction does not release the energy that went into their production. Hence not a circle. What energy loss is not released by the decay-cycle of living creatures is replaced by energy from the Sun - the renewable energy that keeps the circle of life turning. The car industry (both manufacture and disposal) is fueled by fossil fuels, i.e. not renewed. Therefore it is not a circle... more of a deepening hole.

Re:Good grief..

[tomhudson]

they can make a big splash by regulating pet ownership in the name of the "environment."

As the owner of two dogs, sign me up. I demand environmental offset credits for the offal that my dogs prevent from going directly into landfills and being converted into methane. Additionally, I want additional credits for the conversion of said otherwise-useless offal and meat byproducts into environmentally useful high-grade fertilizer. And a program for harvesting this valuable resource - maybe funded by a tax on stupid university professors dumb ideas?

I also want another credit for the carbon offset from being able to turn the heat down at night - because happiness is a warm puppy. Dogs are just as good as an electric blanket. Actually, they're better - they continue to work during power failures.

Also, I should get an additional carbon credit for every kilometer I do with the dogs dragging me around on either roller blades (summer) or a sled (winter). And both investment credits and a subsidy for the purchase of a dog-drawn cart.

And for the bonus round, you can always grind up those professors who wrote this piece of trash as a quick way to make a buck; my wolf probably isn't too fussy about who he eats - he chews EVERYTHING, and I'm sure their carbon footprint is larger than his. And, since they're already producing shit, why not cut out the middle man ...

Re:Good grief..

[eclectro]

>as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.

I knew someone who kept chickens for a food source, he also had kids. I asked about the chickens becoming their pets, and the kids eating them. He replied "you don't give them a name."

Re:Good grief..

[Joce640k]

But if we're honest, only the jealous people say that.

Re:Good grief..

[tomhudson]

Actually, dog and cat feces, being primarily meat-based, is not good fertilizer. Otherwise, you're absolutely right.

Even the screwed-up article point out that most dogs and cats eat food that is mostly grain-based, not meat-based. Most people don't actually read the labels to see the list of ingredients, and a lot of dog food manufacturers list the #1 ingredient as corn or corn byproducts. Only buy those if you like picking up two to three times as much dog shit as a better-quality food.

Also, dried turds can be burned as fuel - they still do it in other countries, and there's some experimenting going on to convert dog turds into biofuels and electricity.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about natural resources. It's about "environmental footprint". It's a demonstration of the lunacy that can ensue when you start talking about carbon dioxide as a "pollutant" - *carbon dioxide* - the product that every animal and most insects exhale, and that is required for the growth of, get this, green plants. It's like that story where the kid lobbied for the banning of dihydrogen monoxide, but on a nightmarish level.

Re:Good grief..

[tomhudson]

There is no such a thing as a "circle" of life. Life is not a circle. It is a process of decay.

Only if there's not enough dark matter to bring everything back together and start the whole process over in a few hundred billion years ...

I know ... a discussion that has dog poop at one extreme and other dark matter at the other extreme ... only on slashdot ...

Re:Good grief..

[Sique]

Yes, they say who ever has to show around his big dick, compensates for the missing Ferrari in his garage.

Re:Good grief..

[porl]

i wonder then, if in time to come, carbon-dating may be replaced by phone-book-dating as a means to determine fossil age?

Re:Good grief..

[Will.Woodhull]

Why even bother looking at this stuff.. there's all kinds of other areas that could realistically be addressed.

All I can figure is that they are doing it for the shock value. Reasonable ways of reducing one's carbon footprint just don't get the kind of attention this husband and wife team seems to crave.

Brenda and Robert Vale are architects, and with the economy being as it is, it does make sense for them to look outside their profession for ways to make some money during these slack times. However they have made one of the classic mistakes of persons who are highly trained but poorly educated: they thought they could impose the logic they know upon realms where they don't have a clue, and somehow astound and impress, and get a lot of press and sell a lot of books. But they instead are going to end up as laughingstocks, and to such a degree that it is going to affect their career as architects. For who is going to trust the designs of idiots who don't do their homework before publishing?

Their numbers are way off base. I own a 110 lb German Shepherd: he is a very large dog. He consumes 260 kg per year (almost 2 lb per day between his one meal and 2 to 4 dog biscuits).

Brenda and Robert are talking about a "medium size dog", which would be like a standard collie or one of the common spaniel breeds weighing in around 30 - 40 lb. But these two are architects and seemingly not dog people, so maybe they actually mean something like a large Doberman or a big Labrador, weighing 50 lb. They really expect even this larger dog to eat as much (259 kg/yr) as my very large 110 lb German Shepherd? Well, maybe that accounts for some of the waddling woofers I see around town. But using the morbidly obese as representatives of a species doesn't work. They need to develop some truthier statistics.

Brenda and Robert also have their numbers reversed: a healthy diet for a pet dog is one third meat and meat byproducts and two thirds cereals and veggies. They have got it the other way around. Maybe they mistook the diet that a working sled dog needs in the middle of the Arctic winter for a pet's diet.

So they got neither the total amount right, nor the proportion right. But those are small errors, compared to the big one:

A pet's diet has a negligible carbon footprint no matter how much Butterball gets to eat. First, none of the pet's food is coming directly from petrochemicals; the carbon involved is already in the biosphere, just cycling through as part of dog for a while. This of course is not the case for the SUV. Second, the animal portion of pet food is derived from meat scraps and byproducts that would otherwise go directly into the waste stream. The cereal portion is often from lots that do not meet human food quality standards for one reason or another (too many bugs per cubic foot, too much evidence of rodent droppings, etc). Pets actually reduce the environmental impact of slaughterhouses, chicken ranches, and grain handlers by providing an alternative use path for stuff that isn't fit for human consumption.

Now if Brenda and Robert wanted to do a fair comparison of the environmental impacts of SUVs and of pets, they could compare the amount of diesel each consumes over its lifetime.

Re:Good grief..

[benjamindees]

You're right. The article isn't really talking about "environmental impact". That was the wrong phrase to use. Just energy usage.

Re:Good grief..

[Xest]

I'll admit I haven't read TFA (hey, this is Slashdot!), but I'd be inclined to bet that when they did their calculations they didn't factor in some important things also- if your average cat/dog lives 10 - 15 years, then over the same period a car is going to go through what, at least 5 tyre changes? How many parts are going to have to be replaced? What about the environmental impact of scrapping the old parts? specifically, what about the environmental impact of disposing of tyres? What about averaging in the disposal cost of cars that get written off in accidents in this time? A car that's written off early leads to increased waste, a dog dies early leads to relatively decreased waste.

All these things have to be factored in, which is why making comparisons like this are generally stupid, because it's a hell of a task to account for absolutely everything. There are also unquantifiable points that are entirely objective too- you can't quantify the cost of enjoyment that a pet brings. What about the security a barking dog at your house offers when you're out? There's just too many additional factors like this.

Apologies if they actually do cover all this stuff, but going on past experience of reports with such attention grabbing headlines I'm assuming not- headline titles like this seem to focus on grabbing attention and making a point, rather than actually focussing on making sure that point is solid.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

And when your pet dies , you burry it , or maybe burn it , etc

There are also people who, when the pet lies dead, proceed to fuck said pet in the ass.

This has NOTHING to do with sport.

Re:Good grief..

[Stripe7]

Most pet food is made from what is left over from making human food, that is slaughter house offal. So the dogs do not actually posses as large of a footprint as that study makes it out to be.

Re:Good grief..

[dcollins117]

I demand environmental offset credits for the offal that my dogs prevent from going directly into landfills and being converted into methane.

Well, the offal doesn't go directly into the landfill but it's still being converted to methane. Trust me.

Re:Good grief..

[tomhudson]

I demand environmental offset credits for the offal that my dogs prevent from going directly into landfills and being converted into methane.

Well, the offal doesn't go directly into the landfill but it's still being converted to methane. Trust me.

Only if you're feeding your dogs a diet high in corn and corn byproducts. the cheaper corn-based dog foods end up being more expensive (the dog eats more AND gets fat), and you have the joy of having to pick up two to three times as much dog shit. Read the labels. If the first ingredient is grain-based (or worse, they don't list the ingredients), skip it. What you'll save per pound you'll more than lose by having the dog consume more pounds per day. Plus you'll more likely have an obese dog.

Re:Good grief..

[MrHanky]

While lampposts sometimes are made of wood, I don't think the fertiliser does all that much good for them.

Seriously, you make it look as if a dog has no footprint at all. I'm sure you love your dog, but you're talking crap.

Re:Good grief..

[qc_dk]

The jealous people with small penises.

Re:Good grief..

[macshit]

I'll bet they're only measuring "fuel usage" too -- the environmental cost of making the SUV, and delivering/selling it, and building/maintaining the vast road/parking/etc infrastructure to drive it on, and eventually disposing of it, is probably far, far, far higher than anything related to the dog.

Re:Good grief..

[hairyfeet]

Don't forget the health of the animals themselves. Most of the anti-hunting nuts haven't seen what rampant overpopulation does to a herd, but living in AR I've seen it first hand. You get sickly and diseased animals breeding among the healthy and bringing the health of the entire herd down.

And I have to say that the hunters I have known have been really good about not letting anything go to waste. They tan the hides, the bones go to the dogs or end up in soup, and if they have more meat than they can eat personally they are quick to give it to the poor, and deer meat is very healthy and can really help the budget of those that ain't got much to begin with.

So I have to agree, it is all about sustainability. While I am completely against the overfishing we see in the ocean and refuse to touch seafood anymore I see no problem with sustainable resources, like controlled culls in the deer population or the plentiful catfish farms we have down here. And you are so right about the increased accidents, as we had an anti-hunting group in the 80s cut down the number of deer allowed and not only did entire herds become sick and diseased but the accident rate down here just got insane, with quite a few in the hospital and a few even in the morgue. It is all about keeping a balance, and since most folks wouldn't tolerate large wolf packs or black panthers hunting in their neighborhoods the deer hunters have their place.

Re:Good grief..

[houghi]

If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources .

Instead of trowing it away, you could not prepare it in the first place.
From an environmental point of view what this means is less food produced and processed with all the extra things we do to get that food on our plate (and then give to the animals)
I buy in general enough food to not go hungry, but if I would have a dog and that should live from the leftovers, I am sure I will be arrested for animal cruelty.

Your dog does not give back in fertilizer all the extra energy used to get that food on your plate.

And although I think the idea is far fetched, It will come to some very nice discussions in the pub when somebody attacks me for not taking public transport and drive around for fun in the weekend, while he has 2 dogs. :-D

Re:Good grief..

[tech10171968]

Yeah, I've heard about those kangaroos, and the problem you described sounds very, very much like our deer overpopulation issue. There are quite a few recreational (but avid) deer hunters here who like to mount "deer catchers" on their vehicles; sort of reminds me of your 'roo bars', especially since they pretty much serve the same purpose (our deer have this annoying habit of suddenly darting out into the paths of oncoming vehicles at the very last second, often after sundown).

This reminds me of the time I visited a friend in Cairnes: he invited me to a cookout, where I sampled some of the most delicious ribs I'd ever had the pleasure of eating. When I asked the cook about his interesting marinade, he gave me a puzzled look and informed me that I was actually eating kangaroo! Everyone had quite a laugh at my ignorance but, I had to admit, I loved every bite!

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you kindly stop leaving your environmentally useful high-grade fertilizer all over the sidewalk?

Re:Good grief..

[KDR_11k]

Last I checked rabbit meat was also pretty common. Cats and dogs not so much (I heard some people eat wild cats in Australia and dogs make decent emergency rations during wartime). Generally an animal intended for slaughter and one held as a pet/work animal are fed differently.

Re:Good grief..

[KDR_11k]

He's just trying to accelerate the growth of the cobblestones!

Re:Good grief..

[xaxa]

People worldwide eat lots of meat that's "grown" on land that used to be rainforest.
Cattle, no matter what they eat, produce lots of methane.

You are right that a field unusable for anything else is suitable for animals -- the poor grass growing on poor soil in e.g. New Zealand or the hilly bits of Britain are suitable for sheep, for instance -- but we demand so much meat that some proportion of it is grown using crops humans could eat.

There are also costs other than feeding the animals: transporting them, refrigerating the meat, packing it etc -- these are higher than for grains. NZ lamb I buy has travelled all the way round the world in a refrigerated container, if I buy grain from Canada they don't need to refrigerate it or move it as quickly.

After living with a vegetarian for a year, I made an effort to find some nice recipes so we could cook/eat together. That made me realise a meal didn't require meat, and since then I tend to eat meat two or three times a week (also, because I cook only for myself, and I don't like wasting meat so I don't buy much).

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Eating rabbit constantly is an easy way to starve

Re:Good grief..

[jamesh]

Except for horses. There won't be any meaningful limits on horse owners.

Well, horses are one of the few "pets" we do eat after all.

Close. Horses are one of the few "pets" our pets eat.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not an either/or proposition... if their math is right, people that own pets, who usually see themselves as environmentally friendly, need to reconsider... most pets are bred just to be pets, and controlling animal breeding is doable and might be even more useful that we knew it to be before.

Re:Good grief..

[LizardKing]

Depends on where in the world you are - in parts of Europe horse meat is readily available. It's a little bit like venison, and less fatty than beef steak.

Re:Good grief..

[conureman]

That depends on how you're defining efficient. What I don't like are animals that are high maintenance, like (epic stupidity) sheep. Beef is a fairly robust animal, who can find his own food and water, and knock down pretty much anything hindering that. Pigs are so good at that, I shudder to think what it would take to pig-proof the family farm. Chickens take pretty good care of themselves, if you don't get the kind they breed for the supermarkets. (What an embarrassing, pitiful, animal. You are what you eat.) For an urban situation, I'd go with cavies, they don't spread filth and disease like chickens, and I believe they're one of the more efficient protein converters.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources.

There's an article based on this book in the current New Scientist magazine, and indeed one of the suggestions for lowering the impact of pet ownership was to feed them leftovers instead of canned pet food. It also suggests fish heads from the fishmonger, instead of premium cat food.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

Or, people who are genuinely bemused that anyone would want such a thing, and are grasping for explanations.

(Me, I've reconciled myself to the realisation that not everyone has the same tastes as I do)

Re:Good grief..

[Telecommando]

My dog provides me with entertainment, an incentive to exercise and security by protecting my property from intruders. So no, I'm not about to eat him.

The authors of this article however, serve no purpose to me and are therefore fair game.

What'll you have? White meat or dark?

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Germany and most cattle is grain-fed here as well, so it is clearly false that the US was the only country wasting resources like this. This basically happens in any country with intensive farming and a large cattle industry. The US alone makes up for almost 10% of the world's cattle population, and certainly US cows are larger than e.g. African or Indian cows. About 66% of US grain and a whopping 80% of the soybeans end up as lifestock feed, that would be enough to feed an additional 1 billion people. It takes 25 grain and soy calories to produce one beef calorie (and consequently very large amounts of water but that is a different topic). Humans can eat, enjoy and digest most of what is fed to animals, that includes so-called waste products like soybean pulp ("okara") which is the firm remainder of soy milk production. I used to make soy milk and delicious okara fried with rice, salt and pepper, now I have a full-time job and buy soy milk at the supermarket like everyone else (of the people who consume soy milk, anyway).

I thought this should be mentioned, but your point was that we cannot eat grass. This is true, but even pastures that are ill fit for food production can be put to better use nowadays. Fermentation vats containing yeasts and bacteria can transform a wide variety of organic matter into methane or alcohols that can be used as fuel for cars, heating and power plants. Capturing the huge amounts of methane emitted by cattle is, on the other hand, uneconomical, so it simply dissipates into the atmosphere where it acts as a 30 times more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. Furthermore, a bioreactor produces nitrogenous matter which is a more potent fertilizer than manure. This may sound surprising at first but actually it makes sense because lifestock were never intended to efficiently separate carbon and nitrogen, so they don't. Fertilizing is all about getting nitrogenous compounds into the soil, not carbon, which plants draw from the atmosphere.

From an economical point of view, raising cattle for meat made sense in former times to reduce the amount of human labor of food production, and it still makes sense in many developing countries. This is especially true in arid regions where farming is very difficult. However, in industrialized countries it does not make any sense and we only continue to do it because we can and because we have always done it.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

and without a sports car !

Re:Good grief..

[betterunixthanunix]

Uhm...farmers slaughter their animals all the time. What is the difference between what was proposed and growing your own vegetables? Oh, right, a rabbit is cuter than a tomato.

Re:Good grief..

[wisty]

I said that cost is a first-order approximation.

Palm oil and canola oil both cost a similar amount, so they should have the same order-of-magnitude damage. Palm oil may have a large impact, but it's a cherry-picked example of a bad product.

At the end of the day, you can make a bunch of IO (a.k.a Leontief) matrices to calculate the "embedded" cost of the products. "Energy" costs will end up with a high weighting. "Labor" costs will end up with a medium weighting. "Skilled labor" will be lower. So the "embedded cost" will look like:

Energy cost of product (in dollars) * energy factor + labor cost of product * labor factor * ..

But like I said, the first-order-approximation can just use total cost. It won't be very accurate, but it's an easy way to compare a dog to a SUV on the back of a napkin.

Re:Good grief..

[vodevil]

We should most likely consume our children too (at least once they're plump enough to make something substantial). Through their life, I can't imagine the environmental footprint that they'll leave behind.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple, we just bulldoze the land to make it flat.

For example, after strip mining it.

Re:Good grief..

[Wonko the Sane]

From an economical point of view, raising cattle for meat made sense in former times to reduce the amount of human labor of food production, and it still makes sense in many developing countries. This is especially true in arid regions where farming is very difficult. However, in industrialized countries it does not make any sense and we only continue to do it because we can and because we have always done it.

No, we continue raising cattle for meat because they are delicious.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

True: my extremely large penis does get in the way at the most awkward moments.

Re:Good grief..

[salesgeek]

You are right, and have just stumbled into the scam that measuring environmental impact using carbon is for carbon based life.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

This gem of enviro-wennie research will rattle around among the cocktail parties of the jet-set ruling class until one of them becomes convinced they can make a big splash by regulating pet ownership in the name of the "environment."

They'd have a hard time convincing me to euthanize my dogs when the alternative would be euthanizing politicians instead.

Re:Good grief..

[Wonko the Sane]

First, none of the pet's food is coming directly from petrochemicals; the carbon involved is already in the biosphere

That's not entirely true. Modern farming methods turn large quantities of natural gas into food via fertilizer.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

How big are we talking? My elephant gun is getting rusty.

Re:Good grief..

[bartwol]

He advances the same stupid argument as the grandparent's argument, his only difference being that he employs offensive cultural biases instead of popular ones. And I don't think you get the point: that so many popular environmental theories are steeped in cultural bias, falsely advanced as being products of good reason and science.

Re:Good grief..

[SleepingWaterBear]

If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources .

So, you generally make enough extra food to feed an animal, and would just throw it out if you didn't have a dog? You're right. Your dog has no real impact on the environment. I might, however, suggest that you could significantly reduce your environmental impact by not serving yourself more food than you want to eat. Of course then you'd need to start buying dog food, or intentionally setting aside food for the dog.

Just because you can conceal the dog's environmental impact with a much larger personal wastefulness doesn't mean it has no impact.

Re:Good grief..

[dkleinsc]

Not only that, every firm in the business of producing cars and dogs is going to be doing everything it can not to pay for the environmental damage (as well as health risks to workers and in some cases customers, but that's another story). Those things are called externalities by policy-wonk economists, and most regulations are about trying to get businesses to pay those costs.

Re:Good grief..

[stevey]

In the interest of saving Fluffy and saving the planet I'm fully prepared to eat your daughter ..

Re:Good grief..

[drinkypoo]

While I am completely against the overfishing we see in the ocean and refuse to touch seafood anymore

FYI you can still eat squid. They're highly populated (one of the few critters, it seems, which enjoys oceanic acidification) and they don't bioconcentrate nasties, plus fishing them doesn't involve big nets that kill indiscriminately.

Re:Good grief..

[jellomizer]

there is an other danger of meat byproducts. The fact that Pet food byproducts are different then human food byproducts. When you think of meat byproduct your stomach may be turned to think of things like hoofs and noses, and cuts of meat from other body parts you don't want to think about.

For pet food it is worse. Thinks like euthanized animals, where traces of the chemicals used to put old yeller to sleep are still in the meat. Road kill where who know what animal caught what.

Re:Good grief..

[drinkypoo]

I know this might be hard for people in the US to comprehend, but not all farms are rolling Iowa cornfields.

I know this might be hard for the arrogant to comprehend, but not all beef in the US is produced in feedlots. There are many (many!) independent ranchers running cattle through hill country, grazing them on whatever is around. Those with the cojones to compete for the land with mexican weed farming operations can rent BLM land access for grazing, but honestly this is decreasing in popularity; a lot of ranchers are actually being hassled on their own land by this particular phenomenon, at least in California.

Also, all Buffalo is produced in a non-feedlot situation; they won't stand for it. It's also illegal to give them antibiotics (not sure why) so you couldn't put them in that situation anyway. The result is ranging, unadulterated meat. One solution is to get your red meat fix only from free range beef, and buffalo. We the consumer are responsible for this situation, all over the world.

Re:Good grief..

[roguetrick]

As the owner of two dogs, sign me up. I demand environmental offset credits for the offal that my dogs prevent from going directly into landfills and being converted into methane. Additionally, I want additional credits for the conversion of said otherwise-useless offal and meat byproducts into environmentally useful high-grade fertilizer. And a program for harvesting this valuable resource - maybe funded by a tax on stupid university professors dumb ideas?

Denied.The dog is a fine producer of methane and the landfill is a pretty poor one. Additionally, dog feces are a public health hazard and should not be used as manure.

I also want another credit for the carbon offset from being able to turn the heat down at night - because happiness is a warm puppy. Dogs are just as good as an electric blanket. Actually, they're better - they continue to work during power failures.

Denied. The dog never turns off and is wasting its heat, as well as being an inefficient heater. In addition, the dog is obviously a workaround for the mandatory rolling blackouts This is unacceptable

Also, I should get an additional carbon credit for every kilometer I do with the dogs dragging me around on either roller blades (summer) or a sled (winter). And both investment credits and a subsidy for the purchase of a dog-drawn cart.

And for the bonus round, you can always grind up those professors who wrote this piece of trash as a quick way to make a buck; my wolf probably isn't too fussy about who he eats - he chews EVERYTHING, and I'm sure their carbon footprint is larger than his. And, since they're already producing shit, why not cut out the middle man ...

Will be taken into consideration, in the meantime it is recommended you feed yourself to your pet.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Meat, as a whole, is incredibly inefficient. The most inefficient is beef...

That is pretty much entirely untrue outside the US, where people seem to think that cows can eat grain. They can't eat grain, and most of it gets shat out largely undigested. Cows eat grass. They have four stomachs which help them digest tough nutrient-poor grass. Sheep have two stomachs, for much the same reason.

All right, all right, but all grains are species of grass family, you know.

Unlike us, cows should be able to eat grain stalks, chaff and husk, but I doubt they can't eat the seeds too.

After all, it is probably just the matter of which microbes their bowels host. If the grain was laced with traces of human feces (like grazing meadows are laced with bovine feces), or if they were given yogurt, cows could digest grain seeds easily.

Re:Good grief..

[dkleinsc]

That is pretty much entirely untrue outside the US, where people seem to think that cows can eat grain.

It's more along the lines of "perverse agricultural subsidies make it cheaper to feed grain to cows and pump them full of drugs than it is to feed them grass like evolution or $DEITY intended". Scale back the corn subsidies (that appear to benefit farmers but are actually benefit ADM and Cargill) to get a proper price for corn and a lot of the other problems in the US food chain would go away.

Re:Good grief..

[jimicus]

It's far more efficient to put some sheep into a field and let them graze and then eat the sheep, than it is for me to try to work out some way to eat grass.

Excuse me, but Bull. Shit.

Let's say you have 10 acres of land. Your neighbour also has 10 acres of land.

You use your land to farm sheep.

Your neighbour uses his land to farm soy.

I bet you anything you like your neighbour can feed a hell of a lot more people than you can - and soy is high in protein.

(Of course, this argument is actually fairly silly because it has a huge flaw. It assumes that it's equally practical to farm sheep as it is to farm soy on a given area of land. This is of course rubbish - there are plenty of parts of the world where the land or the prevailing climate make for lousy animal farming but great arable - or vice versa - and generally speaking few farmers are silly enough to try and grow corn on steep rocky patches of land where it rains for 300 days of the year).

Re:Good grief..

[jimicus]

There's an article based on this book in the current New Scientist magazine, and indeed one of the suggestions for lowering the impact of pet ownership was to feed them leftovers instead of canned pet food. It also suggests fish heads from the fishmonger, instead of premium cat food.

Because I'm quite sure the tuna catfood my cat got this morning contained no tuna heads, fins or arseholes.

Re:Good grief..

[MrKaos]

With the amount of time I spent driving, fueling, polishing, and lovingly caressing that car... Yeah, I kind of did treat it like a pet.

Have you tried polishing the car with the dog to conserve chamois?

Re:Good grief..

[Excelcior]

They may as well have proposed we treat our cars as pets

What a horrifying thought! The relationship my car and I share is far beyond that of a pet. To suggest that I begin to treat my car as nothing more than a hamster that spends its time running in a wheel... *shakes head in disgust*

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

Because I'm quite sure the tuna catfood my cat got this morning contained no tuna heads, fins or arseholes.

Sarcasm noted, and I was merely repeating the article. Your canned pet food did have to go through an energy intensive canning process, haulage through the supply chain (including the extra weight of the can), etc.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

Eating nothing but rabbit will give you protein poisoning.

Combine it with vegetables and other meat, and you'll be fine.

Re:Good grief..

[Jason Levine]

Additionally, I want additional credits for the conversion of said otherwise-useless offal and meat byproducts into environmentally useful high-grade fertilizer.

Wait, isn't fertilizer one of the components that terrorists use to make bombs? So you're saying that your dog is a terrorist?

uh oh... Now I've just united the Right and Left in the goal of banning pets. The Left will do it to save the environment and the Right will do it to fight the terrorists!

Re:Good grief..

[Hasai]

Nah; sports cars are a second-childhood thing.
Monster pickup trucks are the vehicle of choice for the micro-dick crowd. Micro-brain as well, as evidenced by the way they behave on the road....

Re:Good grief..

[Attila Dimedici]

Except for horses. There won't be any meaningful limits on horse owners.

Well, horses are one of the few "pets" we do eat after all.

In the U.S., most states ban the sale of horse meat for human consumption.

Re:Good grief..

[ArcherB]

I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume .. an animal stops being a "pet". And would sure make an interesting dinner, as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.

That actually happened to my cousins. They raise cattle. It's not their primary source of income so it's not something they do a lot of. They had a cow. Its name was Hamburger. My aunt and uncle would take the kids out there to pet, feed and ride hamburger. He was kind of like a pet to them.

Eventually, the time came to send Hamburger to slaughter. The family kept the good pieces of meat and sold the rest. As they were eating steak one night, my aunt and uncle kept saying, "Hamburger is a lot better that I thought" and "Hamburger sure is tender". The kids would say, "this isn't hamburger, this is steak." Finally, it hit them. They pushed their plates away and went to bed without saying a word.

This actually happens more times that you'd think. Kids take FFA in high school tend to get attached to the livestock they are raising. My little brother for example raised a pig for FFA. After slaughter, he refused to eat any of the ham or bacon that came out of it.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

So what does these dogs do for me?

1) Force me to walk them everyday ensuring that I am outside doing something.
2) A jogging partner making my jog not so boring.
3) A watchdog (not guard dog) who keeps an eye on things.
4) Fire alert in case something is burning and they will make sure we get to safety.

I don't think it's constructive to list the benefits of having a dog, since if you go down that route, you also need to list the benefits of having a car. The study merely compares the resource usage of a dog vs a car. Not the cost/benefit of each, which would be much more difficult to calculate in aggregate, since "benefit" is such a nebulous thing.

At the end of the day, all you can do is decide how much environmental impact matters to you (for some, not at all); get some idea of the environmental impact of various lifestyle choices, and factor that into how you live your life.

I personally wouldn't get a dog, because the monetary costs, the extra responsibility, and the disruption it would cause to my other pleasures (e.g. travel) outweigh the benefits as I perceive them. This extra information about environmental impact is just another factor.

For you, the benefits outweigh the costs, and that's fine.

Re:Good grief..

[h4rm0ny]

I said that cost is a first-order approximation.

I said that it's an awful one. It makes very little sense and only then in terms of energy cost, not environmental impact. Consider this:

Palm oil and canola oil both cost a similar amount, so they should have the same order-of-magnitude damage. Palm oil may have a large impact, but it's a cherry-picked example of a bad product.

How can a counter-example be cherry-picked when it's disproving a statement? If you say X is true, and I provide an example of X not being true (two examples, actually), then you can't dismiss it as being cherry-picking. I've shown that X need not be true. Furthermore, I'm challenging you to show why it should be true.

Energy cost of product (in dollars) * energy factor + labor cost of product * labor factor * ..

That doesn't mean anything. I can say it too but it tells us nothing about any particular instance which is the point because you're saying that it tells us something about a general case. It doesn't. For product A, your energy cost might be very low and your labour cost very high. For product B, this might be reversed. In either case, your "cost" was listed in dollars which does not have a connect to environmental impact. The logic isn't even bad, it's missing.

If palm oil is "cherry-picking" then how many examples would you like of this principle being wrong. Trafigura dumped toxic waste off the African coast in order to save money. If they had disposed of it properly, both the energy cost that you give so much weighting to, and the financial cost, which you rely on for your hypothesis, would be much higher, yet the environmental impact would be far, far lower. What about mark-up. If two models of car are made with, similar in size and perhaps only 10% different in fuel economy, say a Porsche and a Ford, then your principle of "final cost is an approximation of impact" is going to say that the sports car, costing four times as much, has four times the impact. Patently false. I have a limited edition book at home, it cost twice as much as the ordinary run of the book (with nearly the same page count). But the content is somewhat different. You assign them different impacts?

But like I said, the first-order-approximation can just use total cost. It won't be very accurate, but it's an easy way to compare a dog to a SUV on the back of a napkin.

It's a terrible, terrible way to compare a dog with a SUV. You can't just say "owning a dog over its life costs the same as a SUV, therefore environmental impact is the same" or whatever ratio of dog to SUV you want to say. How does that make sense? Does the environmental impact of a SUV fluctuate with the economy, supply and demand? If one SUV factory is in France and is powered by a clean nuclear powerplant and one is in the US and powered by a filthy coal-plant next door, is the environmental impact of both SUVS the same because they're priced roughly similar? Dear gods, man.

Re:Good grief..

[DuckDodgers]

Hey, the professors logic makes perfect sense. It takes many pounds of vegetables of input into cows and pigs to create a pound of meat. So vegetarian humans and herbivore animals require far less land use, and less artificial or organic fertilizer, and less irrigation, and less fuel for farm equipment than non-vegetarian humans and animals that eat a lot of meat.

Beef is my favorite food, and I have a large dog. That doesn't change the reality that the environmental impact of my lifestyle and the pet I choose to keep is far higher than a vegetarian with a pet hamster.

Unlike that propaganda piece [i]An Inconvenient Truth[/i], the facts here are pretty clear and difficult to dispute.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

When will the world lock these fucking retard greenies in the looney bin where they belong? Instead of discussing their mad ideas in serious forums?

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

if your average cat/dog lives 10 - 15 years, then over the same period a car is going to go through what, at least 5 tyre changes? How many parts are going to have to be replaced? What about the environmental impact of scrapping the old parts? specifically, what about the environmental impact of disposing of tyres? What about averaging in the disposal cost of cars that get written off in accidents in this time? A car that's written off early leads to increased waste, a dog dies early leads to relatively decreased waste.

Well, you can chase extra complexities a long way. Plus there's some synergy between the two things. How many otherwise unnecessary car journeys did you make to buy pet food? How far out of the way do you go on the way to the airport, to drop off the dog at the kennels? Would you even need a car if it weren't for the dog? Do you have a larger car because of the dog?

I think it's better to just take away from this - whether it's more than a car, less than a car, or about the same, a pet consumes a *lot* of resources, and if that matters to you, you should bear it in mind before getting a pet.

Similarly, people get pets without thinking about the long term financial costs. It's good to remind people of that, so they don't make the same mistake, resulting in abandoned or neglected pets.

Re:Good grief..

[h4rm0ny]

It's a mark of selfish, lonely people too lazy to go out and interact with humans on the same level as their dog.

Walking a dog is a great way to meet girls (and other people too, if you like). You should try it. But I guess you'll always have parrots. :)

Re:Good grief..

[buchner.johannes]

Making the SUV also involves making or mining scarce resources. Aluminium for example takes a vast amount of energy to make. Unfortunately, there is no container deposit legislation on that so that they will be recycled -- in other words, no one is encouraged by a financial benefit from recycling at the moment. Cost vs. environmental impact.

Re:Good grief..

[smoker2]

Do you buy your pets food ? Well that's time spent working for something that could have been spent working on something else. Does your pets food come in containers ? Well those are things that only exist for the purpose of feeding pets. Do you carry pet food in your car ? Well that decreases your mileage. How many advertising executives are wasting time designing flashy labels and tv ads simply for the purpose of pet owners. How many fish owners have tanks running with heaters 24/7/365. How many pets do nothing except sit around at home waiting for their owner to come home from work. They provide nothing of economic value (from the owners perspective) except to the producers of animal feed.

Of course pets cost money and are generally not green, where green is the reduction of all unnecessary energy consumption. If you want to spend money and time solely to feed an animal with no return other than "lurve" then go right ahead, but don't try to pretend it has no impact. Imagine you have a dog (if you don't already - if you do imagine you have two) now put aside that money every week for food, transportation, vets bills etc and see how it adds up. Is that a reasonable expenditure for something that isn't essential to your existence ? How long can people keep animals merely as pets when they provide no return for a large outlay.

Humans and dogs originally got together because there was a mutual benefit. That benefit hasn't existed for a very long time. Dogs are largely free-loading these days. You may as well have an Aibo, they're cheaper to buy and cost less to run.

Re:Good grief..

[jeffmeden]

They calculated the "average dog" consuming a pound of "meat" a day, along with half a pound of "cereal". I don't know about *every* pet owner, but I have two dogs on the smaller side of medium (about 25 lbs each) and between them they don't BOTH consume more than about half a pound of high grade kibble a day, the ingredients of which are split about 50/50 between meat and cereal. The authors of this study clearly are not pet owners.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume .. an animal stops being a "pet". And would sure make an interesting dinner, as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.

I had a friend at school who's parents ran a smallholding. While dining on pork from Eilonwy the pig, they reflected on the pig's sweet nature while she was alive. I think it's quite a healthy attitude to meat, and one which most of us are sadly divorced from.

That said, I imagine wild rabbits are quite a different eating proposition to a fluffy pet bunny.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad there isn't moderation "stupid". What kind of a fucking mouth breathing anus licking RETARD needs to interject this bloated ass garbage little informational point in every food eating discussion. Get an account you rectal bleeding fucking loser, and then go back to your momma's snatch and dig out your brain, it obviously got left in there. Watch out for the neighbor's crusted cum while you are in there, it will cause infections under your fingernails.

Re:Good grief..

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Dogs are working animals and they're dirty,
  In case anyone is wondering, I have a small parrot.
And what meaningful labor does your parrot do? As for cleanliness pay no attention to how much parrot shit winds up on your parrots perch that said bird then walks on and then feeds itself with those same feet. And this little gem, It's a mark of selfish, lonely people too lazy to go out and interact with humans...
Is a pretty good troll coming from a bird owner.
Of course your diatribe does bring up a key point, who has more right to live a German Shepard pup born in a Western Country or a baby born in drought ridden Africa?

Re:Good grief..

[plague3106]

No, stuff like this isn't important to consider. It's just same asshole who doesn't own a pet and doesn't think anyone else should either trying to guilt people into not getting a pet.

Of course you want to know what consumes even more resources than a pet? A child. And I seriously doubt anyone is going to consider THAT before having one.

Re:Good grief..

[Locke2005]

In most cities, you face a hefty fine if you let your dog "fertilize the soil". I believe the majority of suburban dog shit goes directly into landfill, usually surrounded by a plastic bag. Also, there is a multi-billion dollar dog food industry, so the can't all be eating table scraps.

Re:Good grief..

[Culture20]

quite a few in the hospital and a few even in the morgue.

You state this as if it were an unintended consequence. Certain groups would love to cull the human population.

Re:Good grief..

[ArsenneLupin]

black panthers hunting in their neighborhoods

Hei ee Lëtzebuerger!

Re:Good grief..

[Curunir_wolf]

There is no such a thing as a "circle" of life. Life is not a circle. It is a process of decay.

Only if there's not enough dark matter to bring everything back together and start the whole process over in a few hundred billion years ...

Sorry, but I think it's pretty well established that dark energy is beating dark matter and the universe will expand forever.

So, this sustainability argument is bogus. In the long run, the Earth, the Sun, and even the universe is unsustainable. Give it up already. Let's try "progress" instead.

Re:Good grief..

[Locke2005]

I think it's safe to say that an SUV costs more to run than a dog. It also costs a lot more to purchase. Ergo, the SUV has a higher footprint. It's not a one-to-one relationship. It takes about a dozen dogs to pull your dogsled to work every morning; so replacing SUVs with dogs would have a huge environmental impact. And remember, back before cars, cities had a very serious pollution problem called "horseshit everywhere!"

Re:Good grief..

[Culture20]

People worldwide eat lots of meat that's "grown" on land that used to be rainforest.

Technically, going back to Pangaea maybe. Reindeer meat is not grown on recent rainforest land despite the homophone.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

It's just same asshole who doesn't own a pet and doesn't think anyone else should either trying to guilt people into not getting a pet.

Regardless of this "asshole"'s motivations, it provides some data to potential pet owners, that they can use how they wish.

Of course you want to know what consumes even more resources than a pet? A child. And I seriously doubt anyone is going to consider THAT before having one.

It's one of the reasons I'm not having one.

Re:Good grief..

[plague3106]

All of our red meat is pretty much buffalo. It takes better, and the fats in it are healthier than beef.

Re:Good grief..

[evanbd]

There's a common theme here: the *externalities* aren't reflected in the price. That includes environmental effects, in the absence of proper regulation to internalize them. However, things like energy cost of producing the SUV are reflected in the price, at least roughly. Hence the original poster's claim: cost is a viable order of magnitude estimate. If something costs 50% more than something else, it's hard to tell which has the higher impact from that alone. If the cost difference is 10x, it's a good bet the more expensive one has a higher impact.

Re:Good grief..

[Dragonslicer]

(you ever see a collision between a sedan and a 200-lb buck? It's ugly - neither one wins)

Where I grew up, you were considered lucky to hit a deer. Take a look at the results of a collision between a sedan and a half-ton bull moose. It's even uglier, and there's usually a pretty clear winner.

Re:Good grief..

[penguin_dance]

Why even bother looking at this stuff.. there's all kinds of other areas that could realistically be addressed. For example phone books! The amount of resources spent printing and distributing something that 70% of the time probably ends up in a land fill untouched is astounding.

Or for that matter...THEIR book. Why did they bother publish on tree-killing paper since most of them will no doubt end up in a landfill?

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

Of course you want to know what consumes even more resources than a pet? A child. And I seriously doubt anyone is going to consider THAT before having one.

Sorry to double-reply.

A rational person would consider as many factors as possible before making a choice such as having a child. It's perfectly OK to decide that the rewards of parenthood outweigh the costs (time, money, environmental impact, and many more factors). But throwing away data without even considering it? That's just dumb.

Re:Good grief..

[Xest]

"I think it's better to just take away from this"

It's not, because it's the entire premise of the article. A few people have made the point of the impact of going out your way to get dog food, but I wonder, who actually does that? Anyone in their right mind will just pick it up when they go and do their shopping, it's never something you have to go out your way for. Buying a car for your dog or a less environmentally friendly car for your dog is generally just human stupidity rather than an inherent cost of dog ownership.

The article doesn't seem to be trying to tell people the cost of pets in terms of financial impact and worry of abandoned pets- I agree with your point there. The problem is it's claiming that a pet dog is less environmentally friendly to own than a car. For what it's worth I do own two dogs, I also own a car and I can say for sure that even two dogs have less of an environmental impact than my car, the short annual trip to the vets, the big bag packaging of dog food that only has to be thrown away about once every few weeks and the transport of that just doesn't come close to the transport of petrol, the pollutants generated by burning the petrol, the manufacture of the vehicle, the disposal of the vehicle, the manufacture and disposal of replacement parts. There's just no real contest. My sister owns a horse and I'm not even convinced something that size has more of an environmental impact than a car.

I imagine perhaps those people who are stupid about owning a pet, the type who dress it up and insist it go and be groomed on a weekly basis cause high environmental impact from their pets, but even then they tend to be the type of people who drive things like gas guzzling hummers so I'm not sure it even holds in a realtive manner in the extreme cases.

Again I don't really disagree with the cost argument as you say, they do cost more than people realise. I still disagree however that pets should ultimately be less environmentally friendly to own than a car and that the only reason they would be is if their owner is stupid about pet ownership in the first place.

Re:Good grief..

[archangel9]

Watch moar Survivorman.
You get protein poisoning from rabbits if you only eat the meat. Eating the internal organs, brain and eyes will give you enough fat.
are rabbits the other other white meat?

Re:Good grief..

[Whorhay]

I'm not sure why people keep bringing up how much farm production is "wasted" on raising beef and other meats. The food shortages of the world are caused by politics and poor national economies, not a lack of food or food production capabilities in the world at large. In fact in the US we have massive farming subsidies which encourage farmers to destroy specific crops. The purpose of the subsidies is too keep the supply lower which keeps the price on the market higher.

Re:Good grief..

[xaxa]

Um... what?
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=deforestation+cattle.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

Humans and dogs originally got together because there was a mutual benefit. That benefit hasn't existed for a very long time.

I agree with everything else you said, but from observing dog owners there's still a mutual benefit. The dog makes the owner happy.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Rabbits are food.
Bunnies are pets.

Re:Good grief..

[mpe]

I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume .. an animal stops being a "pet".

Indeed if you are raising animals for food it's advised that you don't treat them as pets...

I mean.. it's an interesting report.. but I don't think anything realistic has been proposed here. They may as well have proposed we treat our cars as pets..

Some people already do.

Why even bother looking at this stuff.. there's all kinds of other areas that could realistically be addressed. For example phone books! The amount of resources spent printing and distributing something that 70% of the time probably ends up in a land fill untouched is astounding. I saw some documentary where they were taking core samples at junk yards.. there were literally layers of phone books.. they used it to date the segments..

Regular books and newspapers have also been found in old landfills and remain readable after nearly a century. Paper is far better recycled. If you want to compost it then it needs to be cut into small bits (e.g. with a cross cut shredder or even a woodchipper) and well mixed with with other organic materials.

Re:Good grief..

[GargamelSpaceman]

I agree, MONEY is the only meaningful measure of resource consumption. Even labor requires resources indirectly. Even watching tv consumes resources. Electricity, and the cost of the set, but also, you pay for the salaries of all those involved in producing it and bringing it to you and they consume resources that they would not consume had there been no audience paying. That is why piracy is the most environmentally friendly form of copyrighted material consumption.

In spending money, you take the thing you bought out of circulation. This tends to make more of those things produced. Up to the prevailing price for the item in resources will be used to bring another such item into existence.

Because everything needs some energy to operate ( you can't spend a buck to get a pat on the back and then have the person who patted your back pay you a buck so you can pat their back and so on forever without you both spending money on food ) even things that don't appear to be resource intensive involve engaging some resources. In the back patting scenario, a fraction of a cent's worth of food would have to be purchased for each pat on the back so that less than a dollar would be spent on each back pat until the entire dollar had been spent on food.

Of course food isn't the only consumable resource. There's land ( use of land for a time interval is consumable ), there's metals, there's hydrocarbons, there's energy, water, etc.

BECAUSE money is the only meaningful measure of resource consumption, doing things you wouldn't do for the money is environmentally damaging. For instance recycling is more environmentally damaging than not recycling.

Don't believe me? It's true! Your labor goes into separating your trash into different piles. This has value. Maybe it contributes to increased messiness in your house because you need bins for all the different crap. It takes time out of your day so maybe you don't have time to make supper and go out ( CONSUMING MORE RESOURCES ) maybe you even decide you need a bigger kitchen to house all the bins for paper/plastic/glass/etc. Washing cans and glass jars also increases your water bill.

Some of the crap you recycle such as aluminum cans and metal is worth something, but that would be scavenged and recycled anyway ( for money ). Most of it like much of the paper, and plastic just doesn't pay. Yet it is recycled anyway because you have subsidized it with your labor ( your town dump probably mandated it ), and because of other subsidies. Your town dump probably still pays to get rid of your paper, but because they can recycle it, the dump gets a discount on how much they must pay to get rid of your recyclables. Of course given the many hours the citizens have spent doing this nets the town coffers a tiny fraction of minimum wage for those hours, but who cares right? At least they didn't have to raise taxes to afford a real landfill.

This recycled material is valuable. The cheap availablity of recycled this and that makes resource intensive economic activity that would be uneconomic given high material prices possible further increasing environmental damage. High material prices would have slowed economic activity easing environmental burden, but recycling has lubricated the plundering of the earth with recycled crap.

And in the future when resources are drained, our children's children's children will curse us, not for using up all the resources before they were born, but for using them up so completely even being so cruel as to recycle when it was uneconomic to do so stripping the landfills they now mine for a living of the plastic and metal they survive on. They can't imagine why we would do that unless it was for some sadistic pleasure...

Re:Good grief..

[simenfiber]

Cows don't eat much grass. At least not in northern Europe. They eat mostly concentrates made from soy. The soy is grown in south America and shipped to the farmer in Europe where the cows eat them. I don't know what the grass/concentrates ratio for cows, but in Norway goats eat 50% concentrates. And goats eats the least amount of concentrates of the eat farm animals. Beef is thus made mainly from concentrates from south America where they cut down the rain forest to grow soy.

Re:Good grief..

[fyngyrz]

Denied. The dog never turns off and is wasting its heat

Look, that dog is clearly offsetting global cooling. In such a role, this pet is an environmental treasure. We need more heat, and more CO2; just ask any plant.

Re:Good grief..

[Whorhay]

I owned an old Porsche 944 and drove it as my daily driver for about five years. It was not an incedibly fast car and it was old and busted in many respects. But it was a very fun car to drive. And the economics of it worked out such that so far it has been one of my best investments so far as cars go. I bought it for $3000 and probably put about that much more into it over time in repairs. Now I drive a 1990 Toyota Corrola, it's not as fun to drive but it does have working AC.

Re:Good grief..

[archangel9]

Your neighbour uses his land to farm soy.

Maybe he can tell me how to make it grow in those neat little cubes.

Re:Good grief..

[drinkypoo]

As I point out in other comments, I own the bird unintentionally. Here's the full story for those who [apparently] care: My last girlfriend is into pets and bought three parrots; First this Sun Conure from some people who decided they didn't have time for her any more, then an abused Citron Cockatoo that bit me in the face, then a Patagonian Conure which was the winning bird. This came right after her failure with chinchillas, whose cages she was too lazy to clean, and they all died. When she decided that a future wasn't sexy and she wanted to have one-night-stands with deadbeats, one of whom knocked her up and dumped her immediately thereafter like I told her he would, we broke up and I took the Sun Conure because it had bonded with me and I am not such an asshole that I would subject a bird on the upswing to that kind of punishment a second time. She has maybe 10 years left on her clock, probably more like 5, and I am kind enough to let them run out. However, I would never go to a pet store or even to a breeder and get a bird. I am not a pet person. The bird loves me, I can't help but love her back, and I don't intend to eat her; she'd barely make an appetizer. I'm doing my best to keep her impact low, e.g. we [organically] grew a bunch of sunflowers this year, and they will provide a substantial part of her feed.

Of course your diatribe does bring up a key point, who has more right to live a German Shepard pup born in a Western Country or a baby born in drought ridden Africa?

The right to life is a pipe dream. No government actually believes in it, or they would do more to try to prevent your death. If we had a right to life, we'd be immortal. So, neither has more right to live, but a human who chooses a dog over a human is simply not a very good human. They might, however, be a better denizen of Earth.

Re:Good grief..

[dschmit1]

Too late, in the hands of the enemy already: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,569218,00.html

Re:Good grief..

[R2.0]

"I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume .. an animal stops being a "pet". And would sure make an interesting dinner, as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.

I mean.. it's an interesting report.. but I don't think anything realistic has been proposed here. They may as well have proposed we treat our cars as pets.."

That viewpoint is really only prevalent in urban, Western culture, and even then mostly in the US. Farm kids all over the world eat their "pets" - go to a 4H meeting and find out.

The main issue is that urban and suburban culture in the US has discarded the idea of animals having practical uses. On farms and in most of the rest of the world, domestic animals have a job - home defense, catching rats, etc. Their value is in their utility. Contrast this with urban pets - not only have they been made ornamental, but even the ones who were bred to work are having those traits removed from the breed. True, they have a "utility" in that they make their owners feel good, but other than that they simply take up resources.

Ironically, the root cause of this is connected to some of the roots of modern day "environmentalism" - the idea that Nature is an entity in and of itself, and that animals and plants have innate value separate from their utility. The same meme that drives conservation and "Saving the Planet" also drives the resource used to maintain pets as if they were human.

Back to the original point, turn it on it's head - how bad would it be to teach kids about the realities of life at an earlier age than we do now?

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

I say, leave the pets alone, lets eat the people... they certainly are plentiful! Maybe that what Zombie movies are all about, being green and saving the Earth from those pesky gun wielding humans!

Re:Good grief..

[drinkypoo]

Wow, the GP comment gets +5 for "green peace tree hugging idiot" and I get -1 for "Getting a dog instead of a human friend is pathetic." I don't mind being modded down, but clearly the comment I replied to was the flamebait, and my comment was the flame. I guess there's a lot of lonely dog owners with mod points out there... This is why I've marked myself unwilling to moderate, I don't even want to be a part of it. I guess I should eliminate all karma bonuses for moderation, and just count on my friends and friends of friends bonuses.

Re:Good grief..

[Shotgun]

As the owner of two dogs, sign me up. I demand environmental offset credits for the offal that my dogs prevent from going directly into landfills and being converted into methane.

Good try, but sorry. McDonald's has already laid claim to those credits.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

But it was a very fun car to drive.

See, thinking of driving a car as "fun" is one of the things that bemuses me. But as I said, people's tastes vary.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

And after digestion , a dog fertilizes the soil , so the resources are giving back the ground .

No he does not fertilize the soil, because as a responsible pet owner, you do pick up his waste and throw it in the trash in a sealed plastic bag that will take a very long time to break down.

Re:Good grief..

[pherthyl]

>> If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources

Uh, where do you think those leftovers come from? Those leftovers are food. If you routinely have enough leftovers to feed a dog you're cooking way too much food. We rarely have leftovers, and if we do, we eat them the next day.

So your logic is about as sound as me saying "Dog's aren't the problem, because I buy a bag of dog food every week and throw it in the garbage. If I had a dog I could just give it to the dog and it would be the same!!"

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

It may not the intended point of the article, but it's something entirely valid to take away from it:

  - A pet consumes a lot of resources
  - It's so high that it can be compared with a car

Whether the exact comparison is a large car, a small car, half a small car, it's still a lot of resource, especially when you think that most pet owners won't even have considered what their pet consumes.

This in a climate where people worry about a 60W lightbulb or a TV on standby.

Re:Good grief..

[tomtomtom777]

My car consumes no resources either. I put gas in at the pump, and then burn it and return it to the atmosphere, thus recycling it. When its old it will eventually go to scrap and most of its parts will be directly recycled aswell. The rest will be buried in land fill, thus returning it to the ground from where it came.

True but there's a huge time-scale problem you are missing

The difference is not in how it is recycled but in where its energy comes from. The carbon in dog food was taken out of the air some mere centuries ago at max. The carbon in gas was taken out of the air hundreds of millions of years ago.

No matter how many humans or other animals there are, they are all still part of the same short-time carbon cycle. It is extracting carbon from fossil fuels that imbalances this cycle.

Re:Good grief..

[MightyYar]

Cars are one of the most completely recycled things on the planet.

According to Ward's Motor Vehicle Facts and Figures, at least 84 percent of an average car's material content gets recycled. As incredible as it seems, automotive recycling ranks as the 16th largest industry in the United States. Recycling those vehicles provides enough steel to make nearly 13 million new cars, while also providing jobs for 46,000 people.

Re:Good grief..

[Sulphur]

dinner, as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.

Fluffy had an accident -- that's dogma.

Re:Good grief..

[russotto]

Unfortunately, there is no container deposit legislation on that so that they will be recycled -- in other words, no one is encouraged by a financial benefit from recycling at the moment.

If it was actually more economical to make new aluminum from scrap than from ore, aluminum companies would buy the stuff. As it turns out, they do... at about 80 cents a pound. At about 32 cans per pound, that's 2.5 cents per can. Which just isn't worth the effort of collecting (which isn't free in terms of energy cost either!), for most people.

Re:Good grief..

[wrencherd]

Parlez seule pour toi, mon ami!

Re:Good grief..

[darth_linux]

I, on the other hand, have only one stomach and that's been tweaked by millenia of evolution to break down a mixure of fairly soft plants with not much cellulose and meat.

you've been evolving over the last millenia? wow. you're old.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

In fact the article doesn't discuss carbon. It measures energy use in terms of hectares/year. You can interpret that how you like. If you're concerned about CO2, you can probably translate it into CO2. If you're concerned about finite resources, you can think of that too.

If you're convinced that there's plenty to go around, move on, there's nothing to see here.

Re:Good grief..

[smellsofbikes]

In Iceland they served horsemeat at breakfast buffets.

That wasn't as weird as broiled puffin, though.

But the weirdest of all was in the big Reykjavik flea market where people were selling whale-on-a-stick, basically whale jerky with a skewer through it.

Re:Good grief..

[MightyYar]

Don't take it too personally. It's just information. I moved away from New York and bought two cars... I've vastly increased my families footprint - but that doesn't change my decision to leave based on $$$.

Re:Good grief..

[MightyYar]

people who are genuinely bemused that anyone would want such a thing

That's how most people feel about me posting on Slashdot ;p

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

a healthy diet for a pet dog is one third meat and meat byproducts and two thirds cereals and veggies.

Uh, no. Dogs in the wild rarely eat cereals a veggies. Very rarely.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Think Globally!
Pave Locally!

Re:Good grief..

[MartinSchou]

Well, while vegetarian humans may have a seemingly lower environmental impact, everyone seems to forgetting the impact of all the supplements that they have to take, because the human body is evolved as an omnivore and thus needs various things we cannot get from a vegetable diet.

Re:Good grief..

[maestroX]

Save the planet, eat your Wiener.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe funded by a tax on stupid university professors dumb ideas

I think you that just solved the deficit! Although, I feel like you could also add taxes to stupid politicians' ideas.

Now we're talking a surplus.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Dog and Cat waste is not a valuable fertilizer. A carnivores waste has the wrong ph and to much ammonia, applying it as a fertilizer will kill your crops.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

If it helps, I'm on your side on this one.

MOD GRANDPARENT UP!

Re:Good grief..

[kurt555gs]

I'll bet the American Association of Asian Restaurants (AAAR) will be all over this.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why even bother looking at this stuff.."

Because pets are luxeries as are automobiles. You seem to want to go after some people's habits but not others, whatever suits your opinions and what you consider a benefit.

Again, the article/story/opinion fluff piece showed that some pets were *worse* than SUVs on an *energy consumption basis*. And yet you are still defending pet ownership on a non-energy consumption basis. Well, that applies to vehicles as well, more so than over pets. I think it is far more realistic for people to give up theirs pets than their vehicles, the latter required to go to work, get food, etc.

btw, I haven't received a phone book for years. You can also put a small reflective sign on a stick next to your mailbox or driveway saying "no phone book" if you want and the guy that drives around at 2am some September-October usually won't deliver it. Yes, simple communication and planning does work.

The scrape and save energy ideas are good where they are economical. Not all are. There is a lot of happiness in having a pet. Same with a vehicle, particularly given that over 40% of most populations still live outside cities. When you dispose and replace your pet with some DS equivalent of Horses or Tamagochi(sp), I'll replace my SUV with a large tricycle with an oversized wicker basket over the back tires.

Re:Good grief..

[SoupGuru]

Your argument about hunting looks good on the surface but if you look closer, you see that hunting has led to scrawny and unhealthy game. Natural selection in a big game herd is now a hunter looking for the biggest and healthiest, ensuring the weak and sick survive to breed.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/01/14/hunting-big-game-speeds-evolution-of-shrinking-species/

Re:Good grief..

[jc42]

Eating nothing but rabbit will give you protein poisoning.

Actually, that's only true for wild or "free range" domestic rabbits that get exercise. Rabbits raised in cages generally have enough fat to prevent protein poisoning, which is mostly due to eating protein without fat. This is the origin of the old practice of adding bacon to various kinds of meat, since before modern prison-style production methods most meat was fairly low in fat.

Of course, the cage-raised rabbits don't have much flavor to speak of. Sorta like chicken, y'know. I've had some squab (pigeon) that was similarly fatty and tasteless.

But we do need the veggies for their vitamins (and flavor) content. Humans just weren't designed to survive on a simple diet. We're mandatory omnivores, mostly because we need so many different kinds of trace substances that aren't all available from any single source. Your dog or cat can survive eating nothing but rodents or small birds, but you can't.

Re:Good grief..

[Xest]

- A pet consumes a lot of resources

Relative to a lightbulb, or not having a pet at all? Yeah.

- It's so high that it can be compared with a car

Nope, this is still the problem. It's just not that high, you have to really stretch the numbers and miss some important factors in a biased manner to reach that conclusion, just as the article has. As I said, the only reason it'd be so high it'd be compared with a car is through human stupidity but then we have this fundamental issue where it's not actually the pet that's at fault for waste- it's really the owner being wasteful in the name of the pet.

To feed a dog, to get it it's vet checkups, to look after it, does not even come close to a car. Again, I have two dogs, I know what they consume including all the hidden costs and impact they have, and I also know what my car consumes, again, including all the hidden costs. There is just no comparison between the two without severely distorting numbers and figures in favour of a specific argument (like ignoring the cost of manufacturing and replacement components as TFA did), but biased conclusions like that are worthless.

Re:Good grief..

[hosecoat]

save the planet, eat your kids.

Re:Good grief..

[Dare nMc]

Except for horses. There won't be any meaningful limits on horse owners.

No doubt, which if their is any truth to this article they are likely the cause. IE because (pleasure) horse owners were so turned off with the thought, when they no longer wanted these pets and sold them, they could be bought for slaughter. That they passed laws forbidding them from being purchased at auction (or otherwise) for the purpose. Therefore the availability for slaughter (for dog food) became to un-predictable and thus these places have largely shutdown in the US. The bottom fell out of the horse markets, so now horses are just being set free (to starve) in the country. And (I assume) all of our dog food now has to be imported (using fuel, etc) from our neighbors to the north and south to make up for this "PETA" movement.

Re:Good grief..

[eh2o]

Pets are associated with a multi-billion dollar economy, their products take up measurable floorspace in any grocery store, and those products have to be manufactured and transported in trucks and customers' cars, all of which has a measurable impact. There are obviously some variables depending on pet-owner lifestyle, some of which are pretty significant--such as cat litter which is a terrible method of waste disposal. Pets living in rural environments will tend to have much less impact than pets living in cities as this saves you the need to drive them to the dog park every day, or use cat litter for house cats, etc.

Re:Good grief..

[sconeu]

Obviously the author is a Monty Python fan...

"I can't! I'm eating dog!"

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Vegetarians don't need any supplements. I've never used them and I don't know of any other vegetarian that regularily takes them. I do know a bunch of ominvores who take multivitamin pills every day, though.

Re:Good grief..

[Shotgun]

Reminds me of one of those wife-swap shows I watched while stuck somewhere.

Crazy woman from Florida was just flabbergasted that the mid-west farming family she was bunking with had never had chicken marsala(sp?). She was later outdone when one of the farm chickens is found dead. Goes through all sorts of histrionics to 'revive' the chicken, and finally settles for giving it a Christian burial, as the farm children looking on in bemused confusion.

Is is companionship, or is it food? It is just hilarious to watch the less thoughtful among us struggle with this question.

Re:Good grief..

[Philip K Dickhead]

Well, Albert. I say we eat the girl, instead.
http://www.badmovies.org/movies/boyanddog/boyanddog2.wav

Re:Good grief..

[eh2o]

RTFA, they measure the cost to "build and fuel" a 4.6 litre SUV at 55 gigajoules, and feeding a medium sized dog 259kg food yearly at 135 Gj.

This leaves several costs still unaccounted for on both sides: namely, maintenance: both of the car and the dog in terms of driving to the doggy park, vet services, etc. Presumably those are less significant... anyways the point is to get a rough idea of the magnitude of pet impact, not to make an exact accounting relative to SUVs.

Re:Good grief..

[LurkerXD]

Interestingly I observed this in one of my sister's friends. The first pig he raised was named Elmo; subsequent pigs received names such as Porker, Bacon, and T-Bone.

Re:Good grief..

[barry_allen]

the elephant in the room - population control

What do you think wars, and drugs are for?

War kills thousands to millions of men, women and even children. From both sides even people around war areas that aren't threats(victims).

With drugs people could overdose and most likely die.

I believe this is population control.

The world's population shouldn't be any ones concern. Yes as people are born everyday by the seconds. Keep in mind that people will always die everyday by the seconds.

Anyways ideas like population control were probably the bases for The Final Solution.

Re:Good grief..

[bussdriver]

I know people who treat their cars more like pets than some people treat their actual pets.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

but I don't think anything realistic has been proposed here

So little imagination. The "proposal" is implied.

This gem of enviro-wennie research will rattle around among the cocktail parties of the jet-set ruling class until one of them becomes convinced they can make a big splash by regulating pet ownership in the name of the "environment." Expect this to appear first in San Francisco in the next few years in the form punitive pet taxes. Thereafter limits and outright bans will be created.

Except for horses. There won't be any meaningful limits on horse owners.

Some cities already do regulate the number of pets a person can keep in their house. Where I'm from (a certain city in Ontario, Canada that shall remain nameless) the city has a bylaw that limits the number of cats or dogs a person can keep to three. Although this is probably done more for sanitary/health/animal welfare reasons than environmental reasons.

When I was a university student I had a summer job reading electric meters for the local power utility. In many older houses the meters were indoors, usually in the basement. There were a few 'cat houses' that I had to go into to read. You wouldn't believe the fucking stench, especially on a hot, humid, summer day. There was this one old woman, she must have had about 30 cats, and you could smell the cat shit emanating from her house as you walked up the driveway. I was afraid to touch anything when I was downstairs looking for the meter, everything was caked in shit.

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

I think you missed the (somewhat facetious) point. The GP is pointing out that the "circle" of life is decays, so it's more like a spiral. Of course it is: otherwise it would be a perpetual motion machine.

New energy from the sun compensates for the decay, but the sun won't last forever (that's what the GP meant by "nuclear decay").

And he rightly points out that on human timescales, the cyclical elements dominate.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Soylent Green is Fluffy!"

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

oh the irony

Re:Good grief..

[Will.Woodhull]

Uh, no. Dogs in the wild rarely eat cereals a veggies. Very rarely.

Gee, how can I convey the fact that the dog is an entirely domesticated species that does not exist in the wild? There does not seem to be a car analogy for this situation, so perhaps it is beyond the limits of what some slashdot readers can possibly comprehend.

Too bad.

Re:Good grief..

[Z1NG]

Actually it's quite true. IAAV and will readily admit that not all nutrients are naturally there in the diet, most notably B12. Now if you consume eggs or dairy it might not be a problem at all for you, but vegans should supplement their diet. I'm kinda bad about taking multivitamins myself, but luckily lots of meat-like products add b12. Vegans that say they have the perfect diet are kidding themselves. Small amounts of meat probably aren't negative for your health and likely make it a little easier to be healthy. Personally, I don't think the vegan diet has been particularly good or bad for me, though I do wonder about some of my vitamin levels.

Re:Good grief..

[kheldan]

but I don't think anything realistic has been proposed here

It seems like every time I hear something from one of these enviromental groups, it's some sort of fantastic garbage like this. We do not live in an agrarian-dominated culture anymore, and nobody wants that! If that whack-job wants to raise and slaughter his own livestock, fine, but most people don't want anything to do with that!

Re:Good grief..

[Culture20]

People worldwide eat lots of meat that's "grown" on land that used to be rainforest.

Technically, going back to Pangaea maybe. Reindeer meat is not grown on recent rainforest land despite the homophone.

Um... what? http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=deforestation+cattle.

You have narrow definitions of both "worldwide" and "meat". In northern climates, reindeer meat is a staple, and rainforests are only on postcards. Buffalo/Bison meat is becoming popular again in the USA now that people are raising them like cattle. Again, very little rainforest (percentage-wise) in the USA.

Re:Good grief..

[insertwackynamehere]

roo bar sounds like some sort of australian programming joke

Re:Good grief..

[fiannaFailMan]

That article makes no sense : an animal doesn't consume more natural resources than a car.
If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources . And after digestion , a dog fertilizes the soil , so the resources are giving back the ground . That the cycle of life , and it works much better than how a car works.

And when your pet dies , you burry it , or maybe burn it , etc , but it's remains also come back to the ground.
Which will be the same of you eat your pet , but then it takes until you die to be completely returned to the soil.

My car consumes no resources either. I put gas in at the pump, and then burn it and return it to the atmosphere, thus recycling it. When its old it will eventually go to scrap and most of its parts will be directly recycled aswell. The rest will be buried in land fill, thus returning it to the ground from where it came.

It's a clever argument, but a pet's food intake and carbon output is part of the natural carbon cycle and is hence carbon neutral. During the life of your SUV, on the other hand, your vehicle is burning fossil fuels and putting carbon back into the atmosphere that had been taken out of it over a much longer period of time.

Re:Good grief..

[Z1NG]

I used to make soy milk and delicious okara fried with rice, salt and pepper, now I have a full-time job and buy soy milk at the supermarket like everyone else (of the people who consume soy milk, anyway).

Battered fried okra is awesome. How much of a pain was it to make your own soy milk, and how did it taste?

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't mean "junk yard" you meant garbage dump. Junk yards recycle, garbage isn't recycled, yet.

Re:Good grief..

[Will.Woodhull]

Modern farming methods turn large quantities of natural gas into food via fertilizer.

Oh yes! And in America for many common crops there are more calories of petrochemicals expended in fertilizer, pesticide, and the needed diesel to apply them than are harvested.

But note that these abusive practices will continue whether or not that portion of the harvest that cannot be profitably cleaned for human consumption goes into pet food or goes into the waste stream. It is inappropriate to attribute any portion of the cost of these absurd practices to a pet's environmental impact, since the same amounts of petrochemicals would be used whether or not the pet food was made.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for horses. There won't be any meaningful limits on horse owners.

You've never been to Enumclaw.

Re:Good grief..

[DinDaddy]

Not in California:

http://www.animallaw.info/statutes/stuscacalpencode598d.htm

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

New Scientist's coverage goes into more detail:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.600-how-green-is-your-pet.html?page=1

To measure the ecological 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 90 grams of meat and 156 grams of cereals daily in its recommended 300-gram portion of dried dog food. At its pre-dried weight, that equates to 450 grams of fresh meat and 260 grams of cereal. That means that over the course of a year, Fido wolfs down about 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereals.

Re:Good grief..

[The Archon V2.0]

So little imagination. The "proposal" is implied.

This gem of enviro-wennie research will rattle around among the cocktail parties of the jet-set ruling class until one of them becomes convinced they can make a big splash by regulating pet ownership in the name of the "environment."

As if we needed to give PETA another excuse to call people who have pets an abomination....

Re:Good grief..

[h4rm0ny]

Sorry, but there's much to disagree with in your post.

What do you think wars, and drugs are for?

I don't think wars are done for purposes of population control. They're done primarily for money and control of resources, with sometime side-benefits of political gain. You've had over four-thousand US and UK soldiers killed in that bloody war which is a horrible tragedy, but not going to have a demographic impact on a nation of millions. Not least because those killed are men. If you wanted to effect population reduction by means of violent death, you would need to kill women, for reasons of biology that I don't feel necessary to explain. If you're talking about the hundreds of thousands of native Iraqis killed, then that's a far larger number, but it's (a) in a foreign country with limited trade so the population there has a far less direct impact on the invading countries meaning it makes little sense as a means of population control. And (b), population after a war, even the two World Wars, climbs back up rapidly, just as it does after a lethal pandemic. War is simply not a means of population control, either intended or as a side-effect. As regards drugs, the amount of deaths directly or indirectly due to "drugs" (I am assuming you mean the illegal kind) in the USA and the UK is again, horribly large for what it is, and a drop in the ocean compared to the populations of those countries. Even moreso than war, it's nonsensical to suppose it's a deliberate attempt to keep the population down.

War kills thousands to millions of men, women and even children. From both sides even people around war areas that aren't threats(victims).

And I am in no way diminishing that, but with a world population of billions and a capability of a single woman to comfortably have four children, it's not a big factor in population control.

The world's population shouldn't be any ones concern. Yes as people are born everyday by the seconds. Keep in mind that people will always die everyday by the seconds.

It seems to be bad logic day on Slashdot, today. You seem to imply that the birth and death rates of the human population is in balance. Demonstrably this need not be so or the population of the world would not have grown to the billions there are today. And if it need not be so, then why should it suddenly be so just now?

The World population is everyone's concern. It can only support so many at a given lifestyle. If the population grows large enough, things break down.

Anyways ideas like population control were probably the bases for The Final Solution.

It may have been used as one of the justifications, but I seriously doubt it was a reason. The Holocaust was a result of horrible prejudice in one portion of the population and disgusting passivity, unwillingness to see and complicity on the part of the greater portion. In any case, it made no sense as a means of total population control. It was about ethnic cleansing.

We have a safe, voluntary method of population control. It's called Education and sexual equality. The more educated a populace and the more opportunities women have for a life other than wifehood and childbirth, the more the birthrate drops. At least so far. I would imagine it reaches a drop-off point if it hasn't already. Happily education is cheaper than both wars and massive drug control programs. If the governments were as deliberate as you think they are in mercilessly culling the populations, then mass education and promotion of women's rights would be the logical strategy. Sadly, this doesn't appear to be happening.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't agree more about the phone books. Add junk mail to the list and now your getting somewhere.

Re:Good grief..

[tomhudson]

A few years ago we got around to banning the practice of rendering euthanized dog carcasses and turning them into doggie biscuits. It's interesting because one of the articles (in Protegez-vous - a french-language consumer protection magazine) specifically mentioned dog cookies that were pretty doggy ... (it's a pun that doesn't translate too well).

The biggest supplier of dog carcases was the local SPCA (which has a much less than stellar reputation - actually, quite a scandalous one. It would have been better for the animals if the board of directors and the head administrator had been euthanized and the place closed down).

Re:Good grief..

[kevinNCSU]

I'm not sure feeding your dog all the leftovers from your meals counts as zero waste when you consider the other crazy options like cooking portions you can actually eat or eating leftovers every now and then. Yea, often the leftovers won't add up to a full meal but you can have one night towards the end of the week where you have a buffet style of leftover options.

Granted you'll probably still have some waste, but if you have enough leftovers to regularly feed a large dog properly your definitely cooking incorrect portions.

Re:Good grief..

[hairyfeet]

Actually like most of the bad things in this world you can blame the lawmakers for that. You see most places use what is called the "point system" to decide whether or not your kill is legal or not, and killing an animal that doesn't measure up in the point system (here I believe it is 4 point, that is the deer has to have 4 points on its antlers) then you will get heavily fined. But as you pointed out that leaves the scrawny because guess what? They tend to not develop the big healthy antlers the healthy ones get. And the hunters here ain't looking for trophies, they are looking for dinner. Being one of the poorest states in the nation means many hunters are looking to put food on the table, not a trophy on the wall.

So yet again this is something that some lawyer working in the state capital that probably hadn't shot a gun in their entire spoiled lives, much less hunted to put food on a table, made a bad law that turns out to be not the brightest thing ever written. Big surprise there. We need to work out another way to choose animals than the point system, which as your article points out tends to remove the exact animals we want to keep. But hey, laws written by a lawyer that doesn't understand the situation stink, news at 11.

Re:Good grief..

[kimvette]

Ah yes, "the I don't have this and thus nobody else should have this green peace tree hugging idiot" crowd. I get annoyed by these people because they are hypocrites. They will be all nice, green and free love, UNTIL you touch something they happen to like.

You mean the NIMBY and BANANA types who mindlessly preach "green! Renewable!" chants but when some conservative comes along and wants to build a greener refinery, a greener natural gas depot, a solar farm, or even a wind farm, they cry foul and complain about the unsightliness of a facility, or the negative environmental impact it will have on the habitat of black mold or some lichen or algae or mice, or that some less-stupid birds might actually substantiate survival of the fitness by actually avoiding flying into windmills, resulting in the breeding of more intelligent birds than the ones who were not smart enough to avoid the moving objects?

I hate treehuggers. I'm into conservation; that is, using resources wisely. It is a self-serving mentality. If I use CFLs, I offset some energy use so I can turn the thermostat up a bit more without raising my utility bill. I like fuel-efficient cars with turbochargers so I can drive economically when I want so I can drive more miles without spending more $$$, but still have performance on demand when I do feel like having fun. I like having a dog because as someone else mentioned, happiness IS a warm puppy. Conserving benefits ME because I save money, letting me spend it where I want.

The whole "green" thing is nothing more than a humanist religion. I don't force messianic judaism/christianity on others. I don't try to force you to do what I believe is right. I don't try to force bills through that would infringe on others' rights (in fact, I think government should have NO say in marriage whatsoever). Why should treehuggers try to force me to live in an Islamist-ideal society, that is. give up creature comforts like heat and electricity. give up eating meat (actually I literally can't survive without cholesterol sources, so I can't do a vegan diet - and in addition, I LIKE eating meat. It's natural to eat meat. I'll stop eating meat when treehuggers teach lions and tigers and polar bears and such to not eat other animals. Amimals are made of meat, therefore I eat them since I'm at the top of the food chain.).

Why should treehuggers like John Kerry or Al Gore criticize me for driving sportscars when they own SUVs they don't need. live in sprawling, wasteful mansions, and waste a lot of fuel in private jets? Where do they get off on trying to tell me I should change MY way of life? All those hypocrites do is purchase "carbon offsets" to be "green" and they sacrifice nothing. And here is the kicker: it's all about money. The whole "global warming" (now "global climate change") crap is purely propoganda to get carbon offset-trading markets into effect, where Al Gore & Co. will make a cut on every trade that goes through those markets. That is why they are pushing for strict regulation, and having businesses track their carbon usage and buy and sell carbon surpluses or deficits. It's all about the almighty dollar. I've been saying this from the beginning. Greed craves power, and money is power.

Unfortunately, brainless pot-smoking college students swallow it all hook, line, and sinker, not thinking for themselves, and not thinking logically. All you need to tell those morons is that it's "for the children" and they'll buy into it. Did you catch Obama's speech last week, basically saying that people who don't follow him are sheep and just do what they're told, but his disciples think for themselves? That was an extreme case of Orwellian doublespeak and doublethink. It's the mindless who cow down to him and obey and worship his every word. I think for myself and I saw through all of his bullshit from day 1.

Think for yourselves. Look at the facts, and don't mindlessly swallow the whole "green" bit. Be a conservationist because it suits your bottom l

Re:Good grief..

[slim]

It's just not that high, you have to really stretch the numbers and miss some important factors in a biased manner to reach that conclusion, just as the article has.

Here's the problem with that: they've actually obtained some figures and done some maths, and come up with an interesting and unexpected conclusion.

You're contradicting them based entirely on figures plucked from the air, and gut feel.

The New Scientist write up gives more detail: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.600-how-green-is-your-pet.html?page=1

Now, perhaps there is bias in their assumptions, but even if they're wrong by a factor of 4, then a dog uses as much resource as half a Land Cruiser.

ignoring the cost of manufacturing and replacement components as TFA did

The more detailed New Scientist coverage explicitly states that manufacturing is included. Replacement components is not mentioned - but to know for sure you'd have to look at the book itself.

Again, I have two dogs, I know what they consume including all the hidden costs and impact they have

There's a discrepancy somewhere that has to be explained. My guess is that you don't actually know the impact of meat production (even the low grade meat used for pet food). I'm a meat eater, and whenever I read about the resource that goes into meat, it shocks me. I have to work quite hard to ignore it!

Re:Good grief..

[tomhudson]

Cities are experimenting with turning dog wastes into both biofuel and electricity. Give me back my carbon tax credit, you ignorant clod!

The dog is a 100% organic heater, and applies its warmth in a more efficient, directed fashion than space heaters (warming my bed or my lap, rather than the walls and ceiling). Give me back my carbon tax credit, you ignorant clod!

In Soviet Russia, carbon taxes YOU!

Re:Good grief..

[kevinNCSU]

I can't say for sure, but with the popularity of large dog breeds such as Golden and Labrador Retrievers, German Shepherds and Dalmatians it's possible that your 25-pound dogs are a bit below the average.

Re:Good grief..

[tomhudson]

Would you kindly stop leaving your environmentally useful high-grade fertilizer all over the sidewalk?

I stoop and scoop. I would be in favour of converting dog owners who don't pick up after their dogs into soylent green. Or fining them a minimum of $3,000 per incident.

Or finding out where they live, putting it in a paper bag on their doorstep, setting it on fire and ringing the doorbell.

I'd also like to see a ban on those overly-long retractable dog leashes - too many times, the "rat on a rope" at the other end takes a dump while the owner is pointedly looking the other way, attempting plausible deniability. Our lease laws say a maximum lead length of 2 meters - 6 feet, but the fine, at a maximum of $300, isn't worth enforcing. At $3k a pop, it gets worthwhile.

Re:Good grief..

[xaxa]

You have narrow definitions of both "worldwide" and "meat"

Not everything I eat is grown in Britain, or even Europe. Given the choice between meat produced in the UK, EU or elsewhere I'll take the UK or EU meat, but I usually only have a choice in a supermarket. I usually have no idea where restaurants get their meat from.

Some places say, for instance McDonalds (UK) clearly say their meat is British or Irish, and not from ex-rainforest land.

Re:Good grief..

[bill_mcgonigle]

Why even bother looking at this stuff.. there's all kinds of other areas that could realistically be addressed.

I'm still trying to find just one self-titled environmentalist who has switched to cold showers. (And no, hippies don't count).

Re:Good grief..

[outsider007]

If this is true then it turns the argument for walking or riding a bike on its ear.
I imagine food calories cost more per mile than gas does

Re:Good grief..

[outsider007]

Yeah they say it about hummers and suv's too. Basically anybody who has something you want must have a small penis.

Re:Good grief..

[CorporateSuit]

You're telling me that carnivores are bad for the planet... If animals are bad for the planet, what planet, exactly, are you trying to save? The rocks? I can assure you that they don't care about carbon footprints. Plants? They'd be overjoyed if we had 6x the amounts of carbon in the atmosphere than we do now. What's the next release from these idiots? "Internal combustion BAD FOR CARS!"

Re:Good grief..

[triffid_98]

I'm not sure why people keep bringing up how much farm production is "wasted" on raising beef and other meats. The food shortages of the world are caused by politics and poor national economies, not a lack of food or food production capabilities in the world at large.

That's funny, I thought food shortages of the world were mostly caused by large populations of humans living in places where it doesn't rain terribly often. When we do provide food aid it has the effect of wiping out the local farmers (providing essentially the opposite of a subsidy) and in the end it makes things even worse than they were before, if that's possible.

Re:Good grief..

[krnpimpsta]

You know what they say about men and their sportscars, right?

No, nobody has the slightest clue what you're talking about.

They say men who buy flashy impressive cars do it to make up for a lack of self esteem caused by having a small penis.

It's a shame they say that. Many men buy flashy impressive cars for the flashy impressive technology under the hood. Maybe "they" - who say that - are explaining away their jealousy or ignorance of the hobby by trying to bring car lovers down a notch. (Disclaimer: I do not own a flashy impressive car - I own a common Mustang in the unflashy color of dark grey - but can see a million other reasons than low self esteem to spend money on one)

Re:Good grief..

[CastrTroy]

Just like in the book, Never Cry Wolf (Farley Mowat). The wolves can live off mostly mice, because they eat the entire mouse. If you try to live off only the meat on the mouse, you will surely suffer from malnutrition. But, if you puree the whole thing in a blender, you can get all the nutrients you need.

Re:Good grief..

[aaandre]

Raising animals for meat *does* produce more natural resources than a car.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9184.cfm

Re:Good grief..

[GargamelSpaceman]

You are right that ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT is not directly reflected in price. The environment, being priceless is treated as if it were worthless. ( at least worth less than your paycheck ) A forest for instance will be exploited destructively until someone can make it produce more intact. Once forest becomes rare enough, it's value for tourism could exceed it's value as lumber/palm plantation land.

At least under democracy ( which is not everywhere ) people who are not directly interested in destructive exploitation whose other economic activity is negatively impacted by the environmental destruction can vote to have that destruction prevented or at least curtailed. Then the destructive activity will move to where ability to exploit the environment destructively still exists for an affordable price. ( under democracy, this is where destructive exploitation of the environment pays enough that most will be directly or indirectly interested in it's furtherance ). As the place develops and it's environment is destroyed, opinion changes, and the destruction moves elsewhere. At some point, prices rise, (mostly environmentally worse) alternatives are used and of course some demand is destroyed.

Under systems other than democracy, likely much the same thing happens as wise generallisimos take into account profitablity and interests. Within an order of magnitude.

Re:Good grief..

[icylucifer]

I know ... a discussion that has dog poop at one extreme and other dark matter at the other extreme ... only on slashdot ...

Well, Slashdot and Futurama.

Although, that's technically *Nibblonian* poop...

Re:Good grief..

[omfgnosis]

So if I pay 20% more for the same product, is the environmental impact of all the workers who built the car (and their dogs) included in the 20% increase? 9_9

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet they're only measuring "fuel usage" too -- the environmental cost of making the Prius, and delivering/selling it, and building/maintaining the vast road/parking/etc infrastructure to drive it on, and eventually disposing of it, is probably far, far, far higher than anything related to the dog. We all use the same roads and infrastructure, and most common cars are made out of the same stuff.

Re:Good grief..

[Have Brain Will Rent]

You must live somewhere like my neighborhood. In the local urban wilderness area (100's of acres of forest with trails) you are required to pick up your dog's poop. Horse owners can let their animals crap wherever they please, including the middle of trails, and don't have to do a damn thing about it.

As for the environmental impact of having pets... let's compare it to the environmental impact of having children. Then regulate the one with the most impact.

Re:Good grief..

[tomhudson]

Rice paddies have a huge negative carbon footprint, due to their high methane production. Even sheep make less of an impact.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah when they delivered a stack to my apartments they all sat in the entry for a couple weeks before they got thrown in the trash. Who is still paying to have ads in the phone book?

Re:Good grief..

[walterbyrd]

Don't forget the health of the animals themselves. Most of the anti-hunting nuts haven't seen what rampant overpopulation does to a herd, but living in AR I've seen it first hand. You get sickly and diseased animals breeding among the healthy and bringing the health of the entire herd down.

But don't human hunters (unlike animal hunters) take out the best of the herd? So would that not just contribute to bringing down the overall health of the heard?

Re:Good grief..

[dkleinsc]

Well, poop and dark matter do in fact have something in common: Nibblonians.

Re:Good grief..

[h4rm0ny]

In the U.S., most states ban the sale of horse meat for human consumption.

I'm vegetarian so it's not like it troubles me, but I'd be fascinated to know the reason for this if true. What reasoning would support the eating of deer, cow, sheep, chicken, turkey and other things, but rule out horses?

Re:Good grief..

[amplt1337]

environmentally useful high-grade fertilizer.

So long as you pick it up and put it where it's environmentally useful. Entirely too many people break their bones every year slipping on Fido's scat.

Re:Good grief..

[amplt1337]

I know what you mean! I'd give anything to have a small penis!

Re:Good grief..

[spitzak]

The article pretty clearly states that the global warming is due to the energy needed to grow the food needed to feed the dog, which actually can exceed the energy needed to both build and fuel a car. Do you really completely support your dog with food that you would otherwise have thrown away if you did not have a dog?

I think it was interesting. However the right-wing nutjobs have already started claiming this is an actual attempt to ban pets, rather than the more interesting observation that reducing global warming is much more complex and difficult than anybody thinks. That is combined with the total clueless idea that it is exhaled CO2 that is causing global warming, espoused in some of the letters to that article and amazingly enough not refuted by a single one!

Re:Good grief..

[NotBornYesterday]

No doubt they used dirty, energy-swilling computers (loaded with nasty heavy metals and non-biodegradable plastics) in authoring their book, rather than a more environmentally friendly writing method, like a pointy stick and a clay tablet. I wonder what the environmental footprint of their book is?

I prefer to minimize my dogs' environmental impact by feeding them a mixture of pure beef, and ground-up smartass University professors. The way I figure it, by eliminating the hot air and other noxious gasses produced by the professors, (not to mention freeing up resources they would have used, and using them for better purposes) I more than offset the harm done by the fact that my dogs exist.

Plus, an environmentally friendly, fair-trade, hand-woven, all-organic hemp-and-soy welcome mat doesn't deter burglars nearly as well as my Rottie and my German Shepherd.

Re:Good grief..

[myrdos2]

Processing (rolling, milling or crushing) will improve the digestibility of all grains by cattle. However, processing does make grain a little more likely to cause acidosis. Coarse-rolling the grain using a roller mill is far preferable to fine-milling with a hammermill. The order of improvement in digestibility of grain by cattle that can be obtained from processing varies considerably, but the following is a guide for the commonly fed grains:

Digestibility of grain (for cattle)

Wheat, Triticale Whole: 63% Processed: 88%
Barley Whole: 53% Processed: 85%
Oats Whole: 77% Processed: 81%
Lupins, Peas Whole: 76% Processed: 86%

source: http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/nreninf.nsf/childdocs/-49A21C225110DAB74A2568B30004DB83-9DB564B1D158B03BCA256BC700835FFC-B6A5AF15611DE41E4A256DEA002743DB-63A19FDF43B043CCCA256C380016B5F8?open

Did you really think farmers are going to endlessly pour grain down their cattle's throats, never noticing that it's a waste of money? When we say cattle are inefficient, we mean inefficient compared to growing human-edible plants in the same area. It takes much more land to provide the same amount of food. *Of course* there's always going to be land that's unable to support crops, the waste is from potential cropland that's currently used for pasture.

/I eat beef.
//I just can't stand sloppy reasoning.

Re:Good grief..

[Attila Dimedici]

In the U.S., most states ban the sale of horse meat for human consumption.

I'm vegetarian so it's not like it troubles me, but I'd be fascinated to know the reason for this if true. What reasoning would support the eating of deer, cow, sheep, chicken, turkey and other things, but rule out horses?

Sentiment, people like horses and think of them as pets in similar fashion to dogs and cats. Personally, I have no interest in eating horse meat, but I, also, see no reason it should be illegal.

Re:Good grief..

[ultramk]

Well yes, the domestic dog does not live in the wild very often, outside of feral packs (which do exist). However, we do have examples of a number of species of wild dogs, from whom we can make some extrapolations regarding diet. In addition, there are edge cases such as dingos. Quoth the wiki: "The Dingo (Canis familiaris dingo) is a domestic dog which has reverted to a wild state for thousands of years and today lives largely independent from humans in the majority of its distribution."

So it's at best a half-truth to say that dogs don't exist in the wild. Specific breeds most certainly don't live wild (in any appreciable number) but to say that wild dogs don't exist at all is, well, wrong. All in all, it's probably better to use the phrase "canids" when making generalizations regarding multiple species.

Diet-wise, Australian dingos seem to be near-exclusive carnivores, although this quote is interesting: "In Asia, only a few dingoes live completely independent from humans, and their main food consists of carbohydrates (rice, fruits, and other leftovers) provided by humans."

Curious.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

This argument mostly only applies to pigs - because they'll eat all the same stuff as humans.

Cows, sheep, goats, and poultry are raised not just for what we get from them dead, but also for what we get from them alive - milk, wool, eggs, fertilizer, and in some societies blood. Since they can eat things we can't, things which grow in places we can't farm well, it's a net win, and we use their crap as fertilizer in places we CAN grow food, and then when they die we still get the meat and feathers and leather. Many of their byproducts also store well, including during seasons that plants don't grow well, so it's also a net win in that respect. All of these are good reasons why there are a whole lot of successful omnivore human societies and no pure vegan human societies. In places where we can't grow plants, we grow meat.

Re:Good grief..

[jonbryce]

I don't have any left overs on my table because I only cook what I can actually eat.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

They only say that if they have small penises and crappy cars.

Re:Good grief..

[DuckDodgers]

It is true that some sheep and cattle are grazed on lands that can never grow major food crops for human consumption.

But millions of acres of land that could grow food crops for people are devoted to foodstuffs for farm animals.

Re:Good grief..

[Will.Woodhull]

Judging by their scat, the coyotes and foxes of western Oregon subsist mostly on fruit when the wild cherries, blackberries and wild plums are in season. None of the canids seem to be obligate carnivores, and the optimum diet for any of them probably varies according to environmental conditions.

So back to the original point: pet dogs do best on diets of 30 - 35% meat and meat byproducts, with the rest of their caloric needs met by cereals and vegetables.

Re:Good grief..

[Gordonjcp]

Of course, this argument is actually fairly silly because it has a huge flaw. It assumes that it's equally practical to farm sheep as it is to farm soy on a given area of land.

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. It would be *massively* more ecologically-damaging for me to attempt to grow soy beans here, because the soil type is all wrong and so is the climate - not to mention the technical difficulties of ploughing steep rocky hill farm fields.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, then you would have to get into the economic costs of supporting the vet industry, vet professionals, the percentage of human waste disposal utilities that is used by pets instead, etc; and, on the other hand, compare the economic utility of having an SUV to perform errands vs. that of having a dog for the same purpose ...
The issue is very simple: EVERYTHING costs, that is, every life style has a cost. SUV? Cost. Prius? Yup, cost too. Pets, wife and kids? Cost, cost, cost. When you attack the lifestyles of people with SUVs because of "the costs to the environment" you are susceptible to a counter-attack, on the same basis, for the life choices you made. At the core, however, this entire broo-ha-ha is not about "the environment" but about providing a rationale to legislate against the life styles some people find objectionable. A witch hunt, by any other name, is still a witch hunt.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean.. it's an interesting report.. but I don't think anything realistic has been proposed here. They may as well have proposed we treat our cars as pets..

Why even bother looking at this stuff.. there's all kinds of other areas that could realistically be addressed.

Fine. You keep your pet and I won't bring this up again. I'll keep my truck, but stay off my back about it.

Funny how we are all about saving the planet until someone suggests YOU might have to sacrifice something important to you.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I would call them hypocrites if they *DID* own dogs but told you not to own them. Usually the "green peace tree hugging idiot" crowd will be promoting a lifestyle they are currently living, like promoting vegetarianism while at the same time being vegetarians.

Second, I'm not sure where you got the idea that jogging, being outside, having a watchdog or not dying in a house fire is good for the environment. Exercise burns calories which you then need to replenish by eating more food, especially proteins. Dying in a house fire would save the world the rest of your life of consuming / throwing out trash.

The topic was a comparison about the environmental cost of different things that we choose to own/have in our life, NOT what things in our life bring us happiness.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

That article makes no sense : an animal doesn't consume more natural resources than a car.
If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources . And after digestion , a dog fertilizes the soil , so the resources are giving back the ground . That the cycle of life , and it works much better than how a car works.

And when your pet dies , you burry it , or maybe burn it , etc , but it's remains also come back to the ground.
Which will be the same of you eat your pet , but then it takes until you die to be completely returned to the soil.

The CARBON doesn't go back into the ground... RTFA

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

You are applying logic to the rambling of a completely illogical creature. The college professor.

You know on an album there are 2 good tracks and 10 hopeless thrown together rubbish tracks?

This is one of Professor Blinker's 10.

Re:Good grief..

[cmdr_tofu]

Meat, as a whole, is incredibly inefficient. The most inefficient is beef...

That is pretty much entirely untrue outside the US, where people seem to think that cows can eat grain.

Are you maintaining that factory farming is unknown outside of the US and that in the rest of the world animals graze? You disagree with the Wikipedia article on Factory Farming: "According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef, and 68 percent of eggs are produced "[in factory farms]

Factory farming is worldwide and it is growing. If you want to save the planet, eat vegetables. Raise your dog to eat vegetables too. My dog eats potatoes out of my garden and wild blueberries and rasberries

Re:Good grief..

[psithurism]

I hit a chicken on the road earlier this week. I dedicate the environmental impact I saved the world from to you're parrot, equilibrium is maintained.

Re:Good grief..

[Xest]

No, the issue is simply that they'll be ignoring hidden costs. You talk about meat production but you're looking at creation of product from raw materials. Creating the car is one thing but did they factor in mining the raw materials, transport of raw materials to facility to purify them for use or turn them into a material like say plastic for use, creation of basic components from plastic, transport of basic components to assembly.

Or did they just go with assembly?

Of course then there's the issue of the fact their figures simply don't make sense:

"It takes 43.3 square metres of land to generate 1 kilogram of chicken per year"

Sorry but what? What a load of utter bullshit. In 43.3 square metres you'll get far, far more than 1kg of chicken per year.

TFA also spouts shit like this:

"Then there are the other environmental impacts of pets. Every year, for example, the UK's 7.7 million cats kill over 188 million wild animals (Mammal Review, vol 33, p 174). That works out at about 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat. Similar figures have emerged from surveys in the US and Australia. There is also a knock-on effect because cats feasting on wildlife can leave wild predators such as hawks and weasels short of food."

Because of course, cars are never responsible for road kill are they? Let alone factoring in human road deaths which seem to go completely ignored.

But then, you assume that I'm just plucking figures from the air whilst suggesting that because they've done some math their figures are somehow more valid- I can do some random sums on some figures I've plucked from thin air to give an equal level of validity if you'd like? The biggest issue though with the numbers is not that they initially seem out, but also the conversions- suggesting a dog requires 1.1 hectares whilst ignoring those 1.1 hectares also feed multiple other dogs because chicken farming or whatever is sustainable, whilst suggesting an SUV requires only 0.41 hectares whilst ignoring that's 0.41 hectares of land stripped of natural resources, fossil fuels and so forth will be gone for good is a false comparison that arises out of a unit mismatch. Take the same comparison for the lifetime of a dog in relation to an SUV- say 15 years which is reasonable and you still only have 1.1 hectares for the dog yet you have 6.15 hectares for the SUV. Of course that's even with their figures and as I say, their figures are clearly out to start with. This is a fine example of cherry picking statistics to provide a desired outcome even if it does not paint the full picture and it's something people fall for every single day.

The fact is, this article is just another attempt at raking in book sales- statistics are useless if they're not actually based on reality. The article is biased from the outset, very clearly so- the fact they mention pets killing wildlife but ignore the amount of wildlife killed by cars is damn good evidence that the author had an agenda, if it was an objective look at the idea then a) he would account for these things, and b) he wouldn't have had anything to write a book about because he wouldn't have got the sensationalist story he wanted to get, again, balance his numbers across the life of the animal in comparison and you get a completely different story, even with his figures the SUV has just short of 6 times the impact.

Re:Good grief..

[epine]

High material prices would have slowed economic activity easing environmental burden, but recycling has lubricated the plundering of the earth with recycled crap.

Brought to you by the colour brown. This kind of language doesn't end well.

In any case, it reminded me of people who say similar things quite earnestly.

I was listening to a interview last night on EconTalk with Dan Pink while I updated my FreeBSD package tree. He was talking about a different mix of skillsets will be required to compete in the workforce of the developed world with so much routine-oriented white collar work heading to India.

He's clearly a smart guy, but he's trying to sell books, so he couches this in left brain/right brain terminology, but we can overlook this. In the spirit of his right brain metaphor he applies some new-age labels to the skillsets most likely to resist deportation to India. More overlooking required. Nevertheless, his points are valid.

One of the skillsets he promotes for the strip-mined jobscape is symphony. This is the ability to see the big picture, how everything fits together, how things are evolving, where it all ends up. Stuff like that.

In my experience the question "what do you think of recycling programs" is a good litmus test for the presence of symphony. If the response is, "well, it's not cost effective, so it's a waste of time" you can only hope the person you're talking to is strong in the other five job retention talents, or they are not long for the job market of the 21st century.

If the answer is "well, it's completely idiotic not to practice closed-cycle resource management, so the sooner we promote this as a cultural value, and learn how to orchestrate this in a cost effective manner, the better off we'll all be" then you're talking to someone with a little more staying power in the sliding jobscape.

And this from a podcast whose host views minimum wage as a form of dire economic distortion, and who often lays on a heaping dose of manlove for first-person price signal narratives.

Returning briefly to the essential but no longer sufficient skills of the past century, such as specialization, insight, and rationality, there's not a lot of upside to conducting this analysis without discussion of the nitrogen cycle, which is used to cost protein, versus the carbon cycle, which is used to price the SUV. One of these problems is not like the other.

Re:Good grief..

[Burning1]

Imagine a world where you had to have sex every day before going to work, and sex every day as soon as you returned. The sex would invariably be slow. You get to move a little bit, and then you have to stop. And then you can move a little bit more. Every so often, someone would inspect you to make sure your sex license is in order, that you're strictly engaging in sex in the missionary position, and that you aren't trying any unusual techniques.

Invariably, the experience might get to be a little annoying, especially because you paid $3000 for the bed, $15 a day for the condoms, $50 for a bottle of lube every 3 months. Never mind the occasional bed-frame replacement when the damn thing falls apart.

When you find some good curves, learn some technique, and really get into the mood, driving can be a very pleasurable experience.

I personally take one of my motorcycles to the race track. You might not believe me, but I think it's better than sex.

Re:Good grief..

[philip_mach]

New Scientist has weighed in: it seems there's some support for their numbers. However, note that the car's footprint was calculated on 10,000km a year. If you use a car this little, you'd be better off using public transport and renting the few times a year that you need your own car.

Re:Good grief..

[jamesh]

Depends on where in the world you are - in parts of Europe horse meat is readily available. It's a little bit like venison, and less fatty than beef steak.

Well... i learned something new today!

Re:Good grief..

[HornWumpus]

Not the GP.

Into driving, had a few track days with fast cars.

I think your doing the sex thing wrong.

Hint: it's better with a partner.

Re:Good grief..

[Meski]

Phone-book dating. Why is my mind thinking something rather dirty here?

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

The best dog food is high in meat, which is more often than nothing more than a corn (or other grain) byproduct.

Re:Good grief..

[Lunzo]

What's a "phone book?"

It's this big yellow square thing which you get for free once a year. I use mine as a monitor stand.

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

Know what amuses me? Whenever someone points out the stupidity of harvesting animals, people are quick to point out how laws are at fault. Earlier it was fishing boats who are "required by law" to throw back salable and half-dead fish back into the water to avoid fines. Now it's you complaining that "bad laws" make you hunt the bigger and stronger animals. Well, that kind of goes against your previous post about how hunting helps the herd, don't it?

I am assuming hunters like you respect the law enough to follow it, I guess. From your characterization of lawmakers in the southern united states primarily as "lawyer[s] working in the state capital that probably hadn't shot a gun in their entire spoiled lives, much less hunted to put food on a table" I'm going to go out on a limb and say that respect for the law shouldn't be so easily assumed.

If you seriously believe one purpose for hunting is to improve the herd, then go get your laws changed. Go campaign. Bragging about how hunting helps the herd then throwing up your hands when laws made by those nasty gub'mint types do exactly the opposite shows a level of intellectual dishonesty.

Re:Good grief..

[Gordonjcp]

If you want to save the planet, eat vegetables

I can't grow vegetables. I *can* raise animals for meat. Without livestock farming you cannot have arable farming because you do not have enough manure - unless you want to dump masses of petrochemical-based fertiliser into the soil.

Re:Good grief..

[GargamelSpaceman]

Gag me with a spoon.

it's completely idiotic not to practice closed-cycle resource management, so the sooner we promote this as a cultural value, and learn how to orchestrate this in a cost effective manner, the better off we'll all be

We'll all be? Hmm... Either this stuff that is being recycled is important enough to be valuable enough to be WORTH recycling, or it doesn't matter that much to those who have the money to pay the prevailing price. Recycling when it doesn't pay financially artificially lowers the price of the resulting recycled product. In a first world country EVERYONE has the ability to pay the prevailing price so the losers in a rich country are: Everyone. In a poor country, the cost of labor may be so low that it makes FINANCIAL sense to recycle. When/if the stuff not currently being recycled is worth people's time to recycle, it will be retrived from the trash (landfill) and recycled. There's your closed system.

Or it won't. Maybe the stuff will never be worth anyone's time/effort to retrieve. If something is never worthwhile to do, then it should not be done. That's what not worthwhile means. Oil sat underground for millions of years. When the dead plankton fell, nothing recycled it's carbon. It wasn't worthwhile. It was buried, and nothing was able to get down there to recycle it later until people came along and decided to drill for it. We are recycling that carbon, mining nature's landfill for it's resources. Coal is the same thing. Nothing found it worthwhile to extract the carbon that went into making coal for millions of years until now it's being recycled by people.

Being efficient is good. One would think that a closed system would be the best since there is less waste, but that's not always the case. Time value of money says you should use the cheapest resources first then as those become scarce, things like recycling become relatively more attractive. Of course this makes your resulting product more expensive and destroys some demand. The destruction of demand is why it may never be worthwhile to recycle some resources and why it may never be worthwhile to extract every last bit of raw natural resources.

Re:Good grief..

[al3]

I think the lesson to take away from this is to kill all animals, everywhere you find them. Only then can the environment be saved from their eco-footprints.

Re:Good grief..

[delire]

The final point is that it's not really useful to talk about turning the world's farmland over to arable farming. It works where you've got hundreds of acres of gently-rolling countryside and you can actually plough it without your tractor rolling sideways down a hill or disappearing into a hundred-metre-deep bog. It does not work where the vast majority of farms are hill farms, which are more suited to grazing animals. I know this might be hard for people in the US to comprehend, but not all farms are rolling Iowa cornfields.

And how many trees are cut down so this seemingly benevolent and indigenous pastoral scene can be enacted? Many of the world's cows are in continents that never even had bovines until a few hundred years ago. I think you've mixed your chickens with your eggs..

Eating cow meat as a part of your diet, from wherever it comes, has an undisputedly negative impact on the environment. Another cow is reared to replace it, another tree felled for the next born human reared as a carnivore.

Recommended reading regarding our wondrously pastoral European meat-industry.

Re:Good grief..

[Burning1]

Perhaps it's different on a motorcycle, or perhaps my experience is different than yours. A typical track day is tiring, stressful, but very fun and very rewarding. But when you really relax and get into the zone, it's a zen like experience. It's like making that first kiss last for 20 minutes.

And, it's not always better with a partner.

Re:Good grief..

[Bryansix]

Two things. One is I seriously would like to propose to any Senator or Congress person listening that we need to mandate a way to OPT-OUT of receiving phone books. Basically the local phone company (which I am not a customer) is using phone books as an excuse to dump refuse on my porch. Mine is still there after three months. My plan is to leave it there a year and when the next douchebag comes to drop off a new one maybe he/she will take a hint.

The second is that people eat bunny rabbits all the time. In fact you can gift a trio of bunnies through Heifer International. They have a catalog of all kinds of animals you can gift. Most get eaten. Some produce materials like wool or milk. People in undeveloped countries live off of these things.

Re:Good grief..

[Whorhay]

That is correct. But most of those places were previously obtaining the food they needed. The underlying reasons they can not obtain that food now is usually economic, political or both. Zimbabwe is a good example, they were at one point in recent history considered the "Bread Basket" of affrica. The combination of political changes and a few years of draught has left the country unable to feed it's own people let alone export food.

Re:Good grief..

[Whorhay]

I'm going to have to agree with you that sex is indeed a lot of fun and can go on for hours. But in all honesty there is a limit to ones stamina. And that's why I love video games, movies, books and TV. Between sex and all those things there is never an excuse to be bored... when I am not at work. Driving in a tight cornering car with some decent acceleration is one of those things I've always loved, but it's too expensive for me to partake of currently.

Re:Good grief..

[notonthegrid]

Goats are great for hillside munching. And then, you can eat them. But you have to share with the mountain lion. Until the mountain lion makes more mountain lions. Then, there are no more goats to eat. If there are no more goats to eat, then I'll have to turn to spamming hacked email accounts on the internet to get food. Or maybe I should just try smoking the grass on the hillside, instead of letting the goats eat it. I won't live too long, but I'll die happier.

Re:Good grief..

[Gordonjcp]

And how many trees are cut down so this seemingly benevolent and indigenous pastoral scene can be enacted?

Erm, none. There are no trees. You can't grow trees in six inches of rocky peaty soil. Until you actually *have* a hill farm and are at least a little aware of what goes on with running one, keep your misguided opinions to yourself.

Re:Good grief..

[delire]

I wasn't talking about 'hill-farms'. I was referring to your gross generalisation that the meat industry in Europe is so vastly different from that of the U.S

You did say:

That is pretty much entirely untrue outside the US, where people seem to think that cows can eat grain. They can't eat grain, and most of it gets shat out largely undigested. Cows eat grass.

Which is not entirely correct. Had you read the article I posted you would have understood that the European meat industry is deeply dependent on import Soya Beans (largely from South America) to feed European Cattle. What was growing on the soil before soya crops?

The European meat industry is increasingly similar to that of the U.S, short of the health-hazardous (practically de-regulated) hormonal alteration of livestock that Americans employ.

Peat sodden hill-farms are not at all representative, geographically or industrially, of the means for raising livestock that Europeans actually eat.

Re:Good grief..

[Gordonjcp]

Okay, yes, you're right, fine. And evolution is a lie, we were all made by an intelligent being, and your SUV isn't contributing to global warming. Great. Live in your happy wee bubble, and let the rest of us get on with reality.

Re:Good grief..

[delire]

I'm not defending the meat industry in either continent, quite the opposite. Rather I'm drawing attention to a broader romance we Europeans have with our meat industry, imagining all meat is somehow grown here more or less as it always has been, of free roaming, grazing cows. This is simply not the case. Much of the meat in Europe may be grown locally but is in fact fed soya grain from elsewhere. As a vegetarian I think I'll take the soy beans before they become steaks.

Re:Good grief..

[Reziac]

The conclusion is claptrap, designed to support the notion that "animals should never be owned by humans".

Most of the ingredients in pet food are waste products from manufacturing food for humans. Or do you really want to eat intestines and tripe and brewers' rice (the junk left over after rice has been made into beer)?? Or would you rather they went into the landfills?

Re:Good grief..

[Anonymous Coward]

You're taking pleasure from somebody elses suffering. Like raping, stealing etc.

Re:Good grief..

[Wonko the Sane]

You know what, plants are alive too. There is no way for me to survive without killing other forms of life. In fact almost every living organisms on the planet eats other living organisms in order to survive. If you can't handle this simple truth then feel free to stop eating.

Sorry that your mind can't handle life. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Re:Good grief..

[Anrego]

Not claiming you can't eat rabbit.. just saying you wouldn't (or at least I wouldn't) want to make it a member of the family first..

Another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like the time for a modest proposal ;-)

Re:Another solution

[javaman235]

Lol! You may as well...I mean I feel like the article is missing some fundamental things: "eco-pawprint" equivalent to SUVs? Dogs are natural creatures, part of the environment. If they have a big impact its from the fuel burned to produce and move their artificial food around. Don't blame the dogs for that...

Re:Another solution

[conureman]

Local-grown does probably make a difference. I am not an engineer, and don't want to do any of the math, but the "average" figures TFA uses may be a YMMV kind of thing. My Dad has a cow-calf operation on ten acres. A bull, three cows, and usually three calves. Homegrown feed, scraps from a local bakery, a lot of handcart action; Beef on a first-name basis, with a low "carbon-footprint". A German Shepherd may be pretty resource-intensive, but dogs are coprophagous FCOL! Table scraps are a big step up.

Re:Another solution

[Rei]

I just don't get how these numbers make any sense. I mean, a goldfish, that small a fraction the footprint of a hamster? Hamsters don't have air stones (and sometimes lights and heaters) running for hour after hour.

Re:Another solution

[benjamindees]

My first reaction was that I'll believe this article when I see bands of stray SUV's roaming the neighborhood.

Of course that may not be as far off as we think.

Re:Another solution

[conureman]

Packing and shipping. Bags of shavings for the habitrail, &c. are a lot bulkier and less efficient than tiny gold fish food tubs. Those little air stones have a pretty shallow draught if you ask me.

Re:Another solution

[roguetrick]

Great deal of goldfish don't either. I'd imagine this is the classic goldfish in a round bowl scenario.

Re:Another solution

[drinkypoo]

Dogs are natural creatures, part of the environment.

That's a bunch of shit. There is no dog living in captivity that was not bred by humans, and we even hunted the last remnants of the Dire Wolves to extinction because we were scared as fuck of them... with good reason! A five meter long, dumber-than-average wolf is a very scary thing. Dogs are as unnatural as Cows, which we bred from Oxen. Fuck, Boxers often can't even give birth any more, and puppies have to be delivered by C-section because of the size of their big ugly heads.

If they have a big impact its from the fuel burned to produce and move their artificial food around. Don't blame the dogs for that...

Who cares whose fault it is? It should change just as surely as the big stupid SUV factor should change.

OMG

[symbolset]

My offspring and their offspring probably have the eco-footprint of a coal-fired electric plant.

What to do...

Re:OMG

[brad3378]

My offspring and their offspring probably have the eco-footprint of a coal-fired electric plant.

What to do...

Well......
They say that it's a dog eat dog world.

Re:OMG

[wizardforce]

Teach them to be frugal individuals. Reduce what you buy, re-use what you have and recycle any cans and bottles that you can. REcycling your cans can make you a decent amount of change that you can save for later. Bottles often have a few cents that can be recovered by recycling them. Turn off your lights when you're not using them, replace incandescent bulbs for high efficiency bulbs to save money on your electric bill. It won't eliminate your carbon footprint by any stretch but every last bit helps both environmentally and in monetary terms.

Re:OMG

[ozmanjusri]

What to do...

Keep feeding them spicy food.

They'll be all the more appetising when civilisation collapses and we resort to cannibalism.

Re:OMG

[kdemetter]

I agree. I'll kill and eat anyone who wants to eat my dog then.
That should strike enough fear into would be dog eaters to leave my dog alone. (sarcasm)

Re:OMG

[oldhack]

We all have to do our bit for the planet. I have a gas bbq. You wanna borrow?

Re:OMG

[aws4y]

For those of you who don't read good he is referring to A Modest Proposal

Re:OMG

[panthroman]

Seriously, why is overpopulation rarely mentioned by environmentalists? Total human footprint = footprint per person x number of people. Why is all the focus on the first part?

In grade school, we learned that 'tribal peoples' were super environmentalist. Now, in a backlash against the cultural relativism (and historically-based guilt) I grew up in, folks like Dawkins argue that tribal people weren't environmentalists at all - they were just incapable of making such an impact due to their low population densities. But intentional or not, isn't that a killer way to lessen your impact?

It's high time folks stopped applauding huge families (I'm looking at you, religion...).

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

My offspring and their offspring probably have the eco-footprint of a coal-fired electric plant.

What to do...

Forcibly sterilizing them and their offspring springs to mind.

Re:OMG

[fractoid]

I agree. I'll kill and eat anyone who wants to eat my dog then. That should strike enough fear into would be dog eaters to leave my dog alone. (sarcasm)

Not only that, but you're most likely creating a bigger overall carbon footprint saving... ;)

Re:OMG

[dougisfunny]

Soylent green is Poodles!

Re:OMG

[sortius_nod]

Don't get me started on that retarded shit. Huge families are NOT NEEDED ANYMORE. Too many of you survive through science (medicine).

Either drop the science and go pure religion, or wake up, worship your god, and drop the huge families.

Population control is definitely something that the world needs to take seriously. Sure, lessening our eco footprint is a good thing (I don't agree with you on that one), however the main thing we should be doing is keeping the population under control. Once we hit critical mass there's no return from there.

Re:OMG

[omfgnosis]

While all of this is good enough advice for your pocketbook, you'd be remiss to think it has any impact on environmental destruction. The vast majority of environmental harm originates from industry, and happens regardless of disorganized consumer choice. In no case can atomized individual behavioral decisions offset organized systems with massive power and investment behind them.

Re:OMG

[shentino]

News flash: There are PLENTY of resources for everyone, if only we weren't wasteful and/or greedy.

Consider that when you eat a tasty pricey steak, you're eating about 3 loaves of bread worth of grain that went into growing that beef. Grain that could have fed a lot more had it been made into that bread instead of fed to a cow.

This is just one example of how resources are being misdirected. Just because people of the upper crust would rather have a resource intensive meal, they get it because they're rich and willing to pay for it. Sucks for the poor folks that HAVE to use grain, which is now going to be more expensive because some of it got taken for beef production. The meat eater is crowding the plant eater out of the market.

Re:OMG

[noidentity]

My offspring and their offspring probably have the eco-footprint of a coal-fired electric plant.

What to do...

Slashdot is a good start. Pretty soon, offspring will come to mean programs you've written, which have a very small carbon footprint.

Re:OMG

[wizardforce]

During a recession, what I am suggesting is exactly what occurs. The problem more than anything, is that our government believes that industry has a right to exist at any cost. If consumers as they are so lovingly called reduce their spending habits, the idiots in D.C. call it a "crisis" that supposedly needs more government spending to fix.

Re:OMG

[omfgnosis]

Total population and per capita impact are both important, but it's important to understand that different populations have different impacts, and that these differences can be traced to social systems (corporate, state, cultural) which are not rooted in population or individual impact.

Family size is a product of more than just value systems. And it's also a product of more than just education. It's astonishing to me that family size and poverty (and other forms of oppression) can so clearly be linked, but that those analyzing these links rarely draw meaningful conclusions as to why.

From an outside perspective, it's easy to say that it's "unwise" for a poor family to increase their burden by raising more and more children, but the fact of the matter is that there is an absolutely practical motivation for a family with limited means to increase its size: more bodies provide more labor. It's the same rationale that businesses use when hiring employees.

And poor families with many children (which account for the vast majority of what's called "overpopulation", despite being an entirely separate issue), in most conditions, do not produce a proportionately greater impact on the environment. This is because poor people do not create the same impact that wealthy people do.

I'm *not* arguing that population isn't an issue. Indeed, in a finite system, there is always a maximum population which can be sustained. What I'm arguing is that it's simplistic and wrong to blame population for the excesses of excess, and to heap responsibility on those who are not only unable to curb excess but unable to indulge in it as well.

In a sense though, all of these can be tied together around the system which produces them all, which is (to oversimplify, myself) global capitalism. A system which promotes and rewards "growth" and swallows the whole world into it... will inevitably produce gluttons and paupers, all of whom are victims in a sense, and all of whom can conveniently blame one another and their personal choices while ignoring the threads that bind them together.

Re:OMG

[omfgnosis]

Agreed, again. Still doesn't have anything to do with the environment.

Re:OMG

[1s44c]

News flash: There are PLENTY of resources for everyone, if only we weren't wasteful and/or greedy.

Assuming that's true now it won't be true for long as population keeps growing exponentially.

At best your plant eating solution will keep humanity from facing the real problem for another few years.

Re:OMG

[HRbnjR]

Dude, we have cut down half the rain forests, paved over, through, and around half the planet, sprawled our cities and homes through the habitat of countless animal species, destroyed the ozone layer, polluted the oceans... and you think _steak_ is the problem? How about we quit having babies until we reduce the worlds population from 7 billion to 1 billion, and eat all the steak we want! I think a billion people would probably be more than enough (and we can engineer them all to be smarter while we are at it).

Re:OMG

[shentino]

Maybe you missed the part, also repeated elsewhere, that going vegetarian will multiply our food supply, not just add to it.

It takes about 12 pounds of grain to make one pound of meat. Those who eat grain instead of meat stretch the world food supply twelve-fold.

As far as the rainforests go...if we stop eating meat, we can stop slashing fields for grazing space.

Re:OMG

[shentino]

Put another way, 1 billion people eating steak is just as taxing on the environment as 12 billion people eating grain.

Re:OMG

[tomhudson]

What to do...

Keep feeding them spicy food.

They'll be all the more appetising when civilisation collapses and we resort to cannibalism.

You'll drown in explosive doggie diarrhea long before then; in comparison, the collapse of civilization would be a blessed relief.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you missed the point that the whole idea is stupid. I don't want to sacrifice anything and neither does anyone else. And most importantly, NONE OF US HAVE TO. Hell, everyone should be able to have MORE steak/food/SUV/electricity/greed/footprint/etc - all we have to do is quit making so damn many babies overall. If we trim down to well under a billion people, there will be heaps of grazing space for all the steak we can dream of.

Re:OMG

[shentino]

Tragedy of the Commons

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, why is overpopulation rarely mentioned by environmentalists?

What do you mean? The environmentalist I know talk about it all the time. I know one who you can't shut up once they start talking about population. Ask yourself why you think they don't mention it? I suspect it's because you get your facts about environmentalists from a limited news source.

Re:OMG

[xaxa]

While all of this is good enough advice for your pocketbook, you'd be remiss to think it has any impact on environmental destruction.

What about e.g. "we can turn off a power plant if you, the 60M people, would turn your TV off rather than leaving it on standby"? Many things, multiplied by a large population, would have a significant effect. I wonder how many more power plants we'd need if we swapped every CFL bulb for incandescents, or removed all the extra insulation people have put in their houses?

My electricity company sent me two good-quality CFLs. I'm sure they're not doing it to be "green". Presumably, if people have used them, then it's reduced their peak and base load.

Re:OMG

[LizardKing]

Where's the protein we need in all that grain? And don't bother mentioning soya - that's what much of the South American rainforest is being razed to grow, and it's a very inefficient source of protein.

Re:OMG

[slim]

It's almost a truism that every human has a carbon footprint. That every animal does too isn't much of a leap.

Me, when I'm challenged about my admittedly extravagant number of international flights, I point out the ways I offset it. Very low car usage. No kids. No pets.

Re:OMG

[s4ltyd0g]

And I'm wearing milk bone underware....

Re:OMG

[RocketJeff]

I agree. I'll kill and eat anyone who wants to eat my dog then.
That should strike enough fear into would be dog eaters to leave my dog alone. (sarcasm)

Don't eat them, that would be cannibalism!

It's not cannibalism if you feed them to your dog, however. And your dog will enjoy chewing on the bones, too!

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

soylent green is people

soylent pink is poodles.

Re:OMG

[QuasiEvil]

I agree. I'll kill and eat anyone who wants to eat my dog then.
That should strike enough fear into would be dog eaters to leave my dog alone. (sarcasm)

Likewise for those who want my cats. I like them far more than I've ever liked 99.99999% of humanity. No sarcasm intended.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 gross

Re:OMG

[smoker2]

Are you intentionally stupid ? You just said 12 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of meat. How much do you weigh ? Are you composed of meat ? How then do you multiply the food supply 12 fold ?

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Save the environment, kill non-vegetarians!

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

so what you're saying is we should eat rich babies!

Re:OMG

[shentino]

Not according to the FDA. According to the FDA, soy beans are as high quality a protein as steak itself. But I digress.

And don't forget, that the cows are still getting their protein from the grain...and in the process using it themselves, leaving us with a hefty "food chain tax". If plants were such a poor source of protein then why is it the staple of the cattle we slaughter for food?

Maybe people just like meat so much they don't give a shit how much grain it sucks up in the form of cattle feed.

Re:OMG

[MartinSchou]

Why am I reminded of the new vegetarian pot noodles they're selling in Korea?

Not Poodles.

Re:OMG

[omfgnosis]

What about e.g. "we can turn off a power plant if you, the 60M people, would turn your TV off rather than leaving it on standby"? Many things, multiplied by a large population, would have a significant effect.

Well, I was talking about atomized personal decisions. Organized public decisions are another matter entirely, and getting 60 million people dedicated to consistent action is a tactic wholly apart from getting a single person to alter their habits. I don't know enough about the details to say whether your claim is true, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you're already at the point of organizing 60 million people, it'd be worthwhile to set your sights higher than turning off electronics standby. At that point, my project goals would be something more along the lines of simultaneously making electricity production publicly available, removing dependence on electricity to a much more drastic degree, and educating about the consequences of each technology for electricity production (because even the "green" alternatives have great environmental cost).

I wonder how many more power plants we'd need if we swapped every CFL bulb for incandescents, or removed all the extra insulation people have put in their houses?

My guess is that it would result in greater cost externalization for corporations/public sector (that is, higher cost for "consumers" but little difference in consumption overall). I don't know all of the details, again, but I do know that production of those resources does consume energy and that they pose other environmental problems besides energy consumption.

My electricity company sent me two good-quality CFLs. I'm sure they're not doing it to be "green". Presumably, if people have used them, then it's reduced their peak and base load.

I think your reasoning is on the right track here, toward understanding the real priorities of greenwashing campaigns. It's actually astonishing, if you think about it, that capitalists didn't get on board with "environmentalism" much earlier—after all, preserving "your" resources means greater longevity of profit. Preservation of property is a basic feature of true (free market) capitalism anyway.

That said, again, take your CFLs to the bank (so to speak) and be glad of it, but don't be under any illusion that it's going to stop the sea from rising (even if everybody switches).

Re:OMG

[scot4875]

And 1 billion people eating roughly the same foods in the same proportion as the current 7 billion we have will be 1/7th as taxing on the environment as what we have now. And quite probably sustainable to boot.

Personally, I can't imagine the planet with 12 billion people living on it. It's already crowded enough as is.

--Jeremy

Re:OMG

[TheRaven64]

And then he can eat the dog, and it's still not cannibalism, instead it's the beautiful cycle of life!

Re:OMG

[ultramk]

Population won't continue to grow exponentially, as third world countries become more urbanized. There's a big correlation between education of the female population and low birth rates.

Even soap operas on TV have an effect. A young woman watches these glamorous characters, with few or no children, and she begins to realize that she has other options than becoming a baby-factory. It's happening all over the world, and nothing can stop it.

The reason for the current population explosion is that there's been a lag between the implementation of intensive farming techniques that can feed more people and the social reforms that happen when women can decide how many children they are having.

Re:OMG

[symbolset]

Seriously, why is overpopulation rarely mentioned by environmentalists?

I know... hypothetical question. I'll answer it anyway. To say there are too many people, and too many being born implies that some are excess. It's too easy to defeat that logical answer by asking you to define which group is excess.

Also the only solution besides war, famine and plague involves the total cooperation of everyone at once.

Re:OMG

[LizardKing]

If plants were such a poor source of protein then why is it the staple of the cattle we slaughter for food?

Because they have completely different digestive systems than humans.

Cavies

[conureman]

MMmmm... Good eatin'.

Environmentalist nonsense

[Maimun]

This new environmentalist religion is going too far!

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[pete6677]

Many of the far-left environmental whackos seem more interested in destroying quality of life for humans than they do in meaningful environmental improvements.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

no kidding. I saw compost the oxygen thieves that buy into this shit.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[BikeHelmet]

And many far-right free-market wackos seem more interested in preventing all government regulation of industry, even if that regulation would stop corporations from destroying the environment for short term profits.

I suggest meeting somewhere in the middle. I have two cats. :)

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[wizardforce]

You know, I consider myself to be somewhat of an environmentalist and sadly I'd have to agree with you. The left environmental movement seems to be using environmental concerns as a means to bash Capitalism rather than meaningfully protect the environment. I remember back in college talking to the local environmental group on campus and there was frankly, very little talk of actually protecting the environment and more talk about subsidies for "green jobs" and such. I left with a sense that the environmental movement as a whole was going down the wrong road. Instead of embracing the frugality of the economic right as a means to discourage waste, the movement has encouraged subsidies and general corporate welfare as the means. I don't believe that their strategy will improve environmental or economic conditions.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[wizardforce]

A free market requires that everyone's property and individual rights be respected. Pollution and environmental damage are forms of rights violation so these "far-right free-market wackos" aren't so much free market as corporatist. To them environmental protection is not a priority but many such as myself argue that environmental protection is necessary for individual and property rights to be protected which is a requirement for any capitalist/free market to function properly.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[techno-vampire]

I have two cats.

So do I. And our four cats combined have a smaller carbon footprint than one environmentalist. If we're really serious about reducing CO2 by getting rid of redundant organisms, I know what I'd be getting rid of...

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I would be intrigued to see some more evidence of this "frugal economic right" in U.S. politics. I mean, presumably we're not talking about the Republicans who actually get elected to office and then consistently create record-breaking deficits.

The fact of the matter is that industries like agriculture, energy, and automobiles are so neck-deep in government money already that what we're really talking about here is redirecting the flow of that cash. Take some agricultural subsidies away from factory farms and redirect towards more sustainable farming methods. Make the GM our government now owns 60% of develop Earth-friendly vehicles. Encourage development of wind, solar, and nuclear power rather than subsidizing oil and coal.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[dbIII]

First, let me say that campus politics is a cesspool and is rarely a model for what happens outside so don't abandon hope.
In my neck of the woods "Resistance" turned directly into "Green Left" with nothing but a name change. They were upper or upper middle class anarchists with a membership that drifted back and forth into the local equivalent of the Republican party depending upon whether they suddenly became aware of a social issue or suddenly became aware that they needed connected friends if they wanted to get that BMW with minimum work. They weren't all like that but I'm summed up the ones making the most noise and with the most overt policial ambition.
Some people of this sort infected a few of the established environmental groups, but most get bored, give up and pass through without having much impact. Think of it like free software, gnome was a mess when it was only activists that just wanted an MS Windows of their own, but after they got bored and left a core of dedicated people actually got something to work.
You need to look at what an environmental group has actually done and how long it has lasted instead of just the ones making the most noise.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[benjamindees]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWOoqmrOCH8

Your post reminds me of this guy.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[wizardforce]

The republicans haven't been frugal for years. What needs to happen to protect both the environment and remain frugal is:
*the military budget needs to be slashed.
subsidies for all industry must be eliminated.
*make corporations completely accountable for environmental damage from the stockholders to the CEO.
*shift taxation to consumption to both clean up the tax system and discourage waste.
*encourage the creation of a market for the trade of CO2 as a resource for use in materials synthesis and biofuel production. This creates an economic incentive to capture CO2 and use it as a resource just like ancient microbes used the former cell toxin Oxygen as an electron acceptor.
*set aside military funding for research into military applications of alternative fuels and waste reduction. The synthesis of aviation fuel from CO2 on board nuclear aircraft carriers as an example. The tech significantly reduces the nuclear aircraft carrier's vulnerability to attack on supply ships since it would produce its own aviation fuel.
*strengthen property rights to include general pollution as trespass thus allowing property owners to legally force polluters to clean up their act.
 
there are a lot of ways to improve our environment that do not involve massive spending. Unfortunately, I doubt very much of it will actually come to pass. It's too popular to just throw money at a problem and hope it gets fixed or worse, pretend there isn't one.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[wizardforce]

ok here are a few examples:
*MTBE an ingredient in much older oxygenated gasoline was found to leak into the water supply. Oxygenated fuel was supposed to address smog issues and reduce carbon monoxide.
*Ethanol a common oxygenate and alternative biofuel is made chiefly from fermented Corn which is both inefficient, consumes significant quantities of Corn and uses large quantities of fertillizer which is now causing problems with eutrophication of bodies of water.
*demonisation of nuclear power resulted in a further increase of the building of coal plants which emit large quantities of CO2 which exasperates global warming as well as copious quantities of radioactive Thorium and Uranium rich flue ash as well as Mercury and several known carcinogens.
 
The mainstream movement has resulted in a few success stories such as the NOx/SOx cap and trade emission reductions, stronger controls on known pollutants and an overall greater concern of the public for environmental issues over the years however, there is an aweful lot of policies in the movement that have been harmful and need to be changed, the negative stance on nuclear power being one of them.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Bazar]

A free market requires that everyone's property and individual rights be respected.

A free market has nothing to do with personal rights. Its about having minimal goverment intervention allowing the ecnomony to find the path of least resistance. The most efficent way to produce goods and services.

Its based on the theory that the ecnomony can regulate itself better then the goverment can. Some regulation is needed, but preferably minimial. The more the goverement controls the system, the less of a free market and more of communist system we step towards.

You don't want to take either side to an extreme, as there is a balaning act involved. Too little oversight will result in companys becoming reckless in the serch for profits; too little freedom will smother companies, minimzing the jobs and profits they provide to the region.

Pollution and environmental damage are forms of rights violation

This is the key pivot of your arguement, and i have no idea how you can so cleanly equate pollution to rights violation.

Lets take for example a farming community.
Cows produce greenhouse gases just by their digestive system. Eating, craping, farting, it adds up.

How does me owning 10 cows affect your human/legal rights
How about 100, 1000, 10,000 cows?

Lets take it a step futher.
Lets say their waste goes down stream of some sort that is nice to fish from.

1 cow, not a problem.
10 cows, still isn't a problem.
100 cows, getting an issue.
1000 cows, the river is unhealthy to fish from

Explain at which point your individual rights get violated. (Its not your property so its only your personal rights).

The point of this post is simple.
Free markets will make companies pollute more when they aren't accountable.
You can't make companies accountable just by human rights. If a company damages your properity/rights by a mesuable amount i'm sure you already have legal recourse. For everything else that is unmesurable, you need regulation, to prevent polution from getting out of hand.

I'll also add that too much regulation will result in companys moving to more agreeable countries and taking their jobs with them.(See China and the Kyoto treaty).

Free market leads to a dangerious but profitable market, where as a regulated leads to a less profitable (read: higher poverty) market.
A balancing act is needed. Human rights have little to do with the pros and cons of the free market with regards to polution.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[indiechild]

You've got it the wrong way around. The problem isn't environmentalism bashing capitalism. It's actually capitalism taking over environmentalism, e.g. the whole "carbon offset" business where it's OK to fly in your private jet all around the world as long as you "offset" it.

It's pure capitalism, disguised as a fluffy, environmentally-and-humanity-friendly new responsible business movement.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Provocateur]

In a twist on what may be an essentially twisted article:

What, an article spread out over (insert insane number of web pages here) pages and NOT ONE for popular recipes??

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[wizardforce]

Technically if you did find a way to actually offset your emissions there wouldn't be any problem.
Who cares if you fly your jet around if you take the appropriate measures to remove an equivalent amount of CO2 from the air that was released by the jet? You are acting like cap and trade is evil solely because it is a merket based solution to the problem. That isn't environmentalism, that's anti-capitalism. True environmentalism requires that we utilize all tools available to us to protect the environment and that includes "evil capitalist market based solutions."

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[wizardforce]

nonsense. If your rights are not protected there can be no market. There'd be no recourse for someone stealing your property without compensation and zero reason to cooperate.

This is the key pivot of your arguement, and i have no idea how you can so cleanly equate pollution to rights violation.

You don't see any act of violence against me if you poison my water, air, food etc? isn't that pollution? isn't that a violation of individual rights? I suggest you read up on Milton Friedman's work on the subject.

1000 cows, the river is unhealthy to fish from

it's also unsafe to drink from and thus this pollution is illegal trespass. You can't dump your trash on your neighbor's yard for this reason nor can you pollute the water of someone down stream. That would be a violation of their water and fishing rights in addition to trespass. A free market does not exist if no one is held accountable for their actions. This is something that very few people are willing to understand. A very simple test can be applied to any action regarding pollution: did you cause anyone else harm by your actions? If your cows pollute the river that's too far. If your cows did not then no problem. It's as simple as that. If you are regulating people to death then there is a good chance that you have regulations on the books that don't actually fulfil the role of restricting one individual from harming another. Anything less than total rights protection is an immoral hidden subsidy to industry. Anything more restrictive is counter-productive.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[jcr]

I left with a sense that the environmental movement as a whole was going down the wrong road.

Fortunately, Greenpeace isn't the entirety of the environmental movement, just the loudest part. There are other organizations like the Nature Conservancy or Ducks Unlimited that do very fine work.

-jcr

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Phase 1: Reduce Carbon Emissions
Phase 2: ??
Phase 3: Profit

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[dbIII]

The negative stance on nuclear power is very well earned from five decades of outright lies, but newer designs that ACTUALLY WORK as things to provide electricity for purely civilian uses are changing that, as well as some good solutions to deal with waste.
The "coal makes nuclear waste too" bullshit mostly comes from a nuclear engineer at Oak Ridge that also suggested in the same newsletter article that terrorists could get stuff from ash heaps and make nuclear bombs - all emotive scare tactics designed to hit those that have never heard of background radiation and entirely pointless since coal has a weekly death toll from other reasons anyway. The purpose was to try to make the old nuclear dinosaurs look better by pretending that nuclear waste was not an issue, but it backfired somewhat. Mercury is not an issue if the plant has scrubbers (since it solidifies in contact with water), or if the coal isn't from one of the rare places that has mercury That said there are many real reasons not to build more coal fired power plants.
With coal, NOx and SOx are a different story as is CO2, all the people that die mining the stuff and in places with poor pollution controls particulate pollution and even mercury in some places. We should be scared of the real stuff and not the imaginary bogey, ensure the existing plants have decent pollution controls and try to avoid building new ones.
The corn ethanol thing is a drastic perversion of a good idea where the entire point of the idea is missed so that some people can make money. Carbon trading looks like it may become that as well and IMHO will mostly become a way to launder money in the third world with no benefit to the residents. Environmentalism was much simpler before economists decided someone should make a buck out of it. The abject failure of economic models in this area (something of great value that lasts forever is worth nothing) has resulted in attempted tweaks to the models to try to put values on natural resources and still resulted in failures - I think the answer is to give up on trading and use things other than economic philosophies to deal with the issue.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Often, they are called 'melons' in France, green on the outside, red on the inside. Actually since left, right and centre live in what we call (makes stupid quoting gesture) the 'environment', it's a transcending issue.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[zotz]

Why do we accept as a given that a market can be free when corporations and humans rather than just humans take part in the market? Corporations are creatures of state action and because they are artificial are not subject to the same penalties for violation of state laws that humans are.

all the best,

drew

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.

A few years ago I went to a website (I've since long forgotten the URL) where you could measure your environmental impact by answering some questions on a survey form. For example, "How many miles do you drive per day? How many people are in your house?". So I filled it out honestly; and the website reported that I had a big environmental footprint, and that I needed to cut back.

Just out of curiosity...I closed my browser, went back to the website; and redid the survey where every answer had the least impact (0 miles, 0 people in the house)...and despite that, the website reported I was still making too big of an environmental footprint!

My cynicism against environmental groups went up a couple points that day.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

The free market has no requirement for individual rights; that is granted by government (through regulation).

Even property rights - as they currently exist - require government regulation to grant and enforce them.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[MtViewGuy]

I agree 100%. Why do you think many describe a number of environmental groups as watermelons--green on the outside (they want to save the environment) but red on the inside (it's an excuse to destroy capitalism).

Mind you, the history of environmentalism in Leftist countries is a sordid one, as noted by the innumerable toxic waste sites in the former Soviet Union and the huge pollution problems in China now....

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Picard_1701]

They haven't even done anything yet you douche.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Wonko the Sane]

If you think that property rights can't exist without government I suggest that you travel to some part of the world that has no functioning government and try to steal the property of one of the natives just to see what happens.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[drinkypoo]

The "coal makes nuclear waste too" bullshit mostly comes from a nuclear engineer at Oak Ridge that also suggested in the same newsletter article that terrorists could get stuff from ash heaps and make nuclear bombs

Uh, what? Coal burning for power in the USA alone releases over 2,000 tons of nuclear waste directly into the atmosphere every year. This is about 50% of our coal consumption, and actually the best-regulated use of coal in the USA.

Mercury is not an issue if the plant has scrubbers

We can find coal plants putting out excessive (as in, illegal) emissions as fast as we can hire people to climb the stacks to put a probe in them. It's a terribly toxic job, I know someone who used to do it and it made him sick all the time, even after they added respirators into the job equipment (they didn't always use them! fucking mind boggling.) The simple truth is that it's cheaper to pollute, since all you get is a bullshit fine that doesn't even cover your profits.

The corn ethanol thing is a drastic perversion of a good idea where the entire point of the idea is missed so that some people can make money.

NO part of the corn ethanol idea is a good one. Corn depletes the soil, so it's just stupid and wrongheaded. Soy has the same problem. In fact, there is no current fuel technology which makes sense other than biodiesel from algae. Even that has negative repercussions, since diesels product high NOx output, the primary constituent of acid rain (after water, anyway.) But at least the fuel comes from a carbon-neutral source, and does not deplete any soil.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[roguetrick]

I think environmentalism is a third axis, with the first two being authoritarianism and planned vs free market economy. Environmentalism can both be seen as protecting property rights and protecting the country regardless of property rights. It also can be achieved within a perfectly liberal society, as I don't find many people who argue the right to pollute is a basic human right. In addition, countries with historically planned economies, such as China and the USSR were notoriously anti-environmentalist/pro-industry.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[locallyunscene]

A free market requires that everyone's property and individual rights be respected.

A free market has nothing to do with personal rights. Its about having minimal goverment intervention allowing the ecnomony to find the path of least resistance. The most efficent way to produce goods and services.

Its based on the theory that the ecnomony can regulate itself better then the goverment can. Some regulation is needed, but preferably minimial. The more the goverement controls the system, the less of a free market and more of communist system we step towards.

You don't want to take either side to an extreme, as there is a balaning act involved. Too little oversight will result in companys becoming reckless in the serch for profits; too little freedom will smother companies, minimzing the jobs and profits they provide to the region.

This. This is the problem with many people who think they're touting the free market, especially as political policy. (a)A free market != (b)a market - (g)all gov't. regulation . (a)A free market = (b)a market + (c)no externalized costs + (d)an informed consumer - (g)all gov't regulation not required to enforce (b) + (c). Trampling rights and destroying common resources are definitely costs that are currently "external".

With respect to externalized costs a gov't can either regulate the industry through direct legislation, or subsidize businesses that don't externalize costs and rely on consumer ignorance(even if that ignorance is somewhat willful). The push to regulate has met a lot of resistance here which is why you've seen a push in the other direction recently.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[jgtg32a]

He said there was no mention of Republicans he said Economic Right.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[MrKaos]

Instead of embracing the frugality of the economic right as a means to discourage waste, the movement has encouraged subsidies and general corporate welfare as the means.

I think, unintentionally, you have highlighted the problem. These aren't left or right political issues and as environmental policy get more politicised the less emphasis there is on actually doing something and 'environmental' issues become a political football.

Lets be realistic about what is occurring here, the issue is not about the environmental impact of a cat or a dog, it's actually a distraction from the real issue of our entire fucked-up economic system that models infinite economic growth on finite resources. CO2 emmissions is yet another externality of this economic system. Dogs have been with us since we were barely human and this economic system 50-100 years. Yet we have to fix everything other than the economic system?

Fuck that, I'd rather own a dog.

In the meantime lets see the carbon footprint of little things like coffee cups, plastic shopping bags, a big mac or cling wrap. Invisible things like a cargo ship full of goods produced somewhere else around the world, maintaining a military presence somewhere so we can all have the privilege of getting caught up in a motherfucking traffic jam every fucking day. What about a traffic jams carbon footprint?

It's so fucking stupid I want to scream, so lets not politicise this anymore. Both sides of politics have failed us by being on cruise control for the last 20 years and DOING NOTHING. These are structural issues indicative of these failures.

How big should the economy be? When will sustainability be an economic indicator instead of some trendy feel good 'paint it green thing'?

Let's cut the bullshit huh? Stop corporate lobbying of *both* sides of politics and the we can start to make the type of legal changes we need to make to company law so that we can actually move forward and save the fucking stupid humans.

Who have the biggest carbon footprint of all.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[drinkypoo]

How does me owning 10 cows affect your human/legal rights

I have a right to life and anyone who puts out more CO2 than they fix is interfering with that. Of course, that goes for me, too, he said, sitting at his dual-monitor PC. We should all seek ways to minimize our consumption.

Human rights have little to do with the pros and cons of the free market with regards to polution.

Just keep telling yourself that. They do very much want you to believe it. What's it going to take to bring you around, the right to breathe being written into the constitution? It was never meant to contain an exhaustive list of natural rights.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

A free market has nothing to do with personal rights. Its about having minimal goverment intervention allowing the ecnomony to find the path of least resistance. The most efficent way to produce goods and services.

LOL

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[NiteShaed]

I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be here, 'cause what I'm getting there is that property ownership rights in that case belong to whoever has the most firepower. I personally wouldn't be inclined to think of that as a good thing....

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Libertarian001]

FYI, your "Cow" example is what's known as a "Brightline falacy." What you've said is that since one can't point to the exact moment that one's individual rights were violated that it must mean that said violation never happened. This is incorrect.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[MartinSchou]

I don't quite understand why being an environmental supporter/nutcase makes you left wing.

What if you're an environmental nutcase who is firmly against abortions? Does that make you centre? Center left if you're also for gun control? Centre right if you're against gun control and gay marriage?

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Wonko the Sane]

Individuals have always had the ability to enforce their property rights with or without government backing.

Outsourcing this function to the government may have certain advantages, but those right won't automatically go away if the government does.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I remember back in undergrad days, the student environmental group was going to plant some trees. I was into this hippy chick in the group so I went along for the ride. Turns out I was the only one who actually knew how to plant ANYTHING (having worked at a local landscaping co. and nursery, stocked with Ortho chemical, vermiculite....yippie!)

But I loved the look on their faces when I told them you have to put your actual hands in the manure, but it was ok, it would wash off...

That is unfortunately how a lot of "green" activists feel - can talk the talk but don't want to put their hands in the environmentally correct cow poop to get anything done.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[kimvette]

You don't see any act of violence against me if you poison my water, air, food etc? isn't that pollution? isn't that a violation of individual rights? I suggest you read up on Milton Friedman's work on the subject.

Please stop breathing; you are polluting our air with CO2

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[amplt1337]

Who are you talking about?

No, really. What mainstream environmentalist (and there's a ton out there) are you referring to? Everybody knows the Greenpeace folks are nutty. But they're also not the ones sitting at the climate-change negotiating table.

And what about the double standard here -- that environmentalists who have no interest whatsoever in destroying quality of life get raked over the coals for being "hypocrites" because they enjoy that quality of life (see people criticizing Al Gore for the size of his house). It's all just a way of discrediting people with an uncomfortable message; either you're as pure-as-the-driven snow (and therefore a wacko who's not worth talking to) or you aren't (and therefore you're a hypocrite).

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[amplt1337]

You think you're joking, but the most environmentally destructive industry out there is the pharmaceutical industry.

If it weren't for modern medicine, we wouldn't have the overpopulation that's the root of ALL our environmental problems.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[NiteShaed]

Okay, so, you have your house, and a pump shotgun, so you can enforce your rights when your neighbors encroach on them, and it works pretty well. Then I move in across the street with my two brothers and our collection of AK-47s and take your land. Your choice is run, or die. How are you going to enforce your property rights in this situation? This is what you end up with in paradise locations without functional governments.

Individuals have always had the ability to enforce their property rights with or without government backing.

No. Individuals have always had the ability to *try* to enforce their property rights. If someone else comes along with more swords or bigger guns they won't last long.

Outsourcing this function to the government may have certain advantages, but those right won't automatically go away if the government does.

It has the advantage of setting a level playing field, rather than having an anarchist free-for-all where the right of way goes to the biggest guns.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[benjamindees]

*encourage the creation of a market for the trade of CO2 as a resource for use in materials synthesis and biofuel production. This creates an economic incentive to capture CO2 and use it as a resource just like ancient microbes used the former cell toxin Oxygen as an electron acceptor.

Unless you are proposing transmutating CO2 into iron, there is absolutely no economical way to make this work. CO2 has been free for the taking (in large quantities) for several decades now, and the only economic use yet to be found involves massive greenhouses.

*set aside military funding for research into military applications of alternative fuels and waste reduction. The synthesis of aviation fuel from CO2 on board nuclear aircraft carriers as an example. The tech significantly reduces the nuclear aircraft carrier's vulnerability to attack on supply ships since it would produce its own aviation fuel.

Any scheme involving atmospheric CO2 would be several orders of magnitude less effective than synthesizing aviation fuel from a small, onboard supply of coal instead. In fact, I would be almost willing to bet that it would be more efficient to capture CO2 on land, sequester the carbon, put that on aircraft carriers and reverse the process than to try to capture CO2 at sea.

It's too popular to just throw money at a problem

Believe me, anything involving the US military will absolutely consist of just throwing money at the problem. Well, money and dead bodies, actually.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Wonko the Sane]

No. Individuals have always had the ability to *try* to enforce their property rights. If someone else comes along with more swords or bigger guns they won't last long.

It has the advantage of setting a level playing field, rather than having an anarchist free-for-all where the right of way goes to the biggest guns.

Guess what - the right of way goes to the biggest guns no matter if you have a government or not. Even with governments we still have robbery, and in some cases the government itself commits the crime.

In the end property owners are the only ones that can be trusted to defend their property rights. A government can supplement this but if you try to centralize the primary responsibility in a central authority then the authority will either be too small to be effective or large enough that it becomes a target for corruption.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[NiteShaed]

Guess what - the right of way goes to the biggest guns no matter if you have a government or not.

If that's true, then there are *no* property rights. There's only the rule of force, rather than the rule of law. Here, we're lucky enough to live under the rule of law. I live in a pretty nice house, I have some pretty nice stuff, and I do not have any fears of an armed band riding into town and running me off my land and into a refugee camp. It's not because I'm armed to the teeth and able to repel invaders, it's because if they tried I'd call 911 and the police would stop by and arrest them. In places where there is no functional government, there is the rule of force, where a local warlord can send his men to your house and chase you off, with no recourse. I know which one I prefer.

When in your life have you ever been confronted with a choice of "abandon your home or die". I'm gonna guess never. You rely on the government to enforce your property rights just as much as anyone else here (assuming you're not posting from Somalia), regardless of your rugged-individualist fantasies.

Even with governments we still have robbery, and in some cases the government itself commits the crime.

Of course there are, I'm not claiming that having a government is the path to Utopia. As long as there are people there will be crimes. But there's a problem here: Without a functional government, there are no crimes. How could there be, if there are no laws? To have laws, you need a consensus between you and your neighbors on what is lawful, and then a way to enforce them. Once you've involved other people in that way, you have a government, albeit a pretty rudimentary one, but a government nonetheless.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Wonko the Sane]

In places where there is no functional government, there is the rule of force, where a local warlord can send his men to your house and chase you off, with no recourse.

In some places with a functional government in accordance with the rule of law a large company can lobby local officials to force the sale of your house to them and chase you off, with no recourse.

The only difference is that the government version is more subtle about applying force and they give you a token recompense.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[NiteShaed]

In some places with a functional government in accordance with the rule of law a large company can lobby local officials to force the sale of your house to them and chase you off, with no recourse.

What? I thought you, as an individual, have "the ability to enforce [your] property rights", right? That's the assertion you've been making after all....It seems all we've found so far is that that statement really isn't very true without a functional government, and sometimes isn't true with one.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[lennier]

"The left environmental movement seems to be using environmental concerns as a means to bash Capitalism"

You say that like it's a bad thing. :)

Last I checked, Capitalism (tm) seemed to be doing its best to bash the rest of the world.

mmm, bailout bonuses. Yum yum.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Macgrrl]

I also have 2 cats.

Given the choice between getting cuddles from 6 cats or an envirnomentalist, I know which I'd choose.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[Wonko the Sane]

My original point was that the only property rights you can rely on are those that you can personally enforce, independent of whatever government exists. It might be easier to protect your property with the assistance of a government but relying solely on them doesn't work.

The fact that an armed gang with more guns can steal from you is true regardless. Even if that gang happens to be the government itself.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[dbIII]

Coal burning for power in the USA alone releases over 2,000 tons of nuclear waste directly into the atmosphere every year

That's a nice big round number that sounds like it could be possible if you don't wonder where it comes from and the words "nuclear waste" provoke an instant emotional response. The problem is to avoid being conned you need to think about it and consider where that number comes from. We've had the technology for over a century to determine what elements are found in flue gasses with spectroscopy and the instruments could be mounted on stacks - but that is not where this number comes from. It doesn't come from real measurements of anything that comes from any stack or even burning a lump of coal anywhere. We get it from newspapers that get it from press releases and it all tracks back to a nuclear engineer at Oak Ridge that made a lot of guesses in the 1970s- you can see the stuff on the ORNL website (most of the stuff we get isn't even from a reviewed paper but from a newletter article). Not a chemist, not a geologist, not even a coal plant engineer but a nuclear engineer that picked the most radioactive coal he could find, pretended that all isotopes are equal and modeled pollution controls as a simple device that throws a percentage of everything up into the air. Now, we've had thirty years for a follow up like someone putting spectroscopy gear on stacks to specificly look for this stuff and more than thirty years of data from other tests which should include this radioactive material if it is there. Nobody has found anything. We've got nothing but the word of a nuclear engineer stepping outside his field, but we all know from Jimmy Carter that nuclear engineers are always right :)
So that's pointing at the emotional claim, now lets think about the coal and how it could be radioactive since if the stuff doesn't make it into the air it will get into the ash heaps. Coal is mostly carbon from living materials, but the radioactive isotopes decay relatively quickly so the carbon is going to be far less radioactive than your lunch so we have to look elsewhere. Generally it's sand that gets mixed in but if there is more than a few percent of stuff that doesn't burn then nobody bothers mining the coal, so there's not much of it. Some sand has traces of radioactive material, but it's fairly rare and is usually only a problem if you concentrate it by gravity seperation. These traces are far, far less than the toxic heavy metals that we should be worried about instead if there wasn't this silly "coal is nuclear waste too so ignore nuclear waste" agenda. So we have a very small percentage of the coal with very small traces of radioactive material. Sometimes it's real and that does happen, but it's far, far less common than radioactive sand. The problem here is the PR bullshit has taken the rarest of the rare and said it's all like that, then made up big numbers and taken the above bullshit about putting the stuff into the air to create an enormous pile of bullshit.
Now do you see how the "spewing nuclear waste into the air" thing is all elegantly crafted bullshit that has suckered a lot of people in? Coal has many real problems, including spewing very toxic waste if there are poor pollution controls and having some very nasty stuff in the ash dam when there are good pollution controls. As I said above, coal has a weekly death toll, so nobody has to make up stupid lies just to try to make the nuclear industry look good.
As for the ethanol thing, it's only a good idea if it's stuff like stalks etc that would be burned or otherwise disposed of, but even then it's probably better digging back into the soil. Instead we've got the corn thing which is a perversion on several levels, especially since you'd get less energy from the ethanol than you could get if you burned the material used to make the fertilizer.

Re:Environmentalist nonsense

[NiteShaed]

It might be easier to protect your property with the assistance of a government but relying solely on them doesn't work.

Name one example of how in a modern, western nation you can protect your property rights without the government. Keep in mind, the courts are a function of the government, so fighting a legal battle is not a good example.
There are somewhere around 300 million people in the U.S.. Let's be really conservative and say only 100 million of them are property owners. All of them, in some way, rely on the government to assert their property rights. Do some of them get a raw deal? Sure, any system that involves actual people is going to produce some unfair or unwelcome outcomes, but to say that it doesn't work is just silly.

The fact that an armed gang with more guns can steal from you is true regardless. Even if that gang happens to be the government itself.

So does that mean you are okay with "might makes right", making "property rights" a polite euphemism for "I have a bigger gun"? The presence of a stable government can't guarantee that everyone gets a fair shake every single time, no system can do that. But without a stable government, you can talk about your rights until your blue in the face, it's pointless if your "rights" can be revoked by any yahoo on the street who has a club.
As for an armed gang stealing from me, if an armed gang goes to my house and takes over, deciding that they'd like to live there and they chase me off, I have plenty of recourse. Even if the government itself tries to do that, I still have recourse, which is to take them to court. No guarantees that I'll win, but I might. If there was no government, and no justice system, and no courts, what recourse do you propose that I have, other than to find a new place to hang my hat?

Pet food - mostly waste?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I buy the methodology. If you look at the ingredients in pet food, the first one is usually "meat byproducts" or something to that effect. Would the ingredients still be used if they weren't put into pet food?

And also, having pet animals to eat them is still worse for the environment than just growing plants for food instead.

Re:Pet food - mostly waste?

[jbengt]

If you look at the ingredients in pet food, the first one is usually "meat byproducts" or something to that effect. Would the ingredients still be used if they weren't put into pet food?

Two words: Hot Dogs

Another suggestion

[davmoo]

My suggestion is they can fuck off. I care more about my dogs (and cats, cockatiel, and tank of fish) than I do the rest of humanity.

And no, this isn't sarcasm.

Re:Another suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

My suggestion is they can fuck off. I care more about my dogs (and cats, cockatiel, and tank of fish) than I do the rest of humanity.

And no, this isn't sarcasm.

My thoughts exactly!

Re:Another suggestion

[dafing]

I'll know who to blame when the icecaps have melted :)

Re:Another suggestion

[adeydas]

Amen!!!

Re:Another suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you wouldn't hate humanity so much if you didn't take such articles so seriously.

Re:Another suggestion

[slim]

Unfortunately for you, you're vastly outnumbered.

Re:Another suggestion

[drinkypoo]

My suggestion is they can fuck off. I care more about my dogs (and cats, cockatiel, and tank of fish) than I do the rest of humanity. And no, this isn't sarcasm.

No, of course it isn't. You're just a sociopath who was probably abused (emotionally or physically) as a child, and never learned to associate with other humans due to fear. Of course, this is a good description for much of the world's population, and it explains why we are so poorly off as a species, around the world, and why we need to have dogs and/or cats for companionship: because so many of us cannot relate to humans. You might possibly term it as "don't see it as worth while" but that is, of course, the very same thing.

It's obvious that most of us don't care about other humans. Just take a look around.

Re:Another suggestion

[roguetrick]

Well, let me tell you, the rest of humanity doesn't give a damn about you and your pets.

Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how ridiculous do these "sustainable" efforts have to get before real scientists can start denying this CO2 deal again?

Right now we are treated as holocaust deniers if we dare question if CO2 is really what we should focus on. Is the microscopic amount of CO2 release actually created by humans compared to the Oceans, Volcanoes, and Bacteria really significant enough to warm the globe? If a dog produces as much CO2 as a hummer? Come on people there is clearly more to climate change than CO2, can we change our focus already?

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[The Wooden Badger]

But the Hummer is the good guy, remember? The Prius is worse for the environment.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Cassius Corodes]

I don't get why this is such a difficult concept. Imagine a tank of water that is slowly leaking and getting refilled at the same rate. Now increase the refill rate slightly - and presto - the tank will eventually overflow even though the increased refill rate is "inconsequentially" larger to the normal rate. The CO2 ecosystem works in a similar way. If this has not blown your mind you should read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_dynamics and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Devout_IPUite]

I find each blanket I put on in winter makes me extra cozy. One blanket, okay. Two blankets, yay. Three blankets, toasty. Four blankets, warm snuggly bliss. Five blankets, okay, that's too hot.

We have the right number of blankets on the bed, we don't need to add any more.

The numbers of CO2 increase we're talking about is not something like 2%. It's something like 33%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[machine_boy]

F that, I want to sleep naked like Dog intended!

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[fractoid]

Read up on the Earth's temperature over geological time scales. It's fascinating - the world we live on is far more than a passive ball of rock.

For your example, the tank of water has an axolotl in it which blocks the leak when the water gets low enough. It's also situated next to a thirsty giraffe which can only drink water out of it when it's nearly full.

I guess what I'm getting at is that there are so many factors affecting the climate on a scale we couldn't dream of doing with present-day technology that while we may perturb it slightly, whether or not the global climate messes up to a degree which threatens life on the planet is way out of our control. (Obligatory blog whoring link, read it if you agree with me so we can engage in a round of "hear hear"ing and drinking port and smoking cigars in the drawing room.)

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[wizardforce]

It's possible for CO2 to be both the cause of climate change and for the proposed solutions to be very very wrong. The problem is that both sides have polarized to the point where a sensible solution is out of the question. The left is completely convinced that heavy government control is the only way to solve the problem and the right is convinced there is no problem. It's not hard to see that situation as being insane.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The question isn't whether climate change will destroy all life. It won't. The question is "Will humans be able to sustain the complex civilization we have built in the face of rapid changes in the natural systems that presently support it?"

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your simple tank model is exactly why laymen should never try and argue this issue. What a laughable joke, the problem my dear is the hole in the tank will get bigger and smaller. In any case the ice core data shows that the temperature drives CO2 -- You know what, its just not worth it, you're not going to listen anyway.

A pissed off anonymous physicists.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[bitrex]

Do you believe in the theory of evolution? If so, why? The theory is quite incomplete and there could be many other factors that influenced/influence the development of different species. Do you believe in Big Bang cosmology? If so, why? The theory is quite incomplete and there are many other factors that certainly could have made the universe turn out the way that it has. Unless you happen to be a cosmologist or an evolutionary scientist, all (sane) people really have to go on to form your opinion about these things is what you learn the general consensus among those researching in the fields in question is. I don't think that many members of the Slashdot community question the theory of evolution or the Big Bang theory of cosmology. I certainly don't think many educated people would accuse these scientists in engaging in a conspiracy to tilt the evidence in favor of these theories.

Now, along come climatologists with their data pointing to anthropogenic global warming, and some in the Slashdot community, which ordinarily seems to have great respect for scientists and the scientific method, suddenly not only knows more about the subject than those doing the research but also makes thinly veiled accusations of hidden agendas and scientific malpractice. I'll tell you why this is so - it's all political. It is because if anthropogenic global warming is real than the medicine is obvious - massive government intervention on a scale unprecedented in human history. It's tough medicine to swallow for any freethinking person, but for some it's such an anathema that it's better to try to ignore or discredit the messengers than listen to the message. Because if the message is successfully ignored, and the models of climate scientists are correct, the real horror show for Libertarian types begins 25-50 years from now when governments start to act in a panic; never a good frame of mind for governments to be in when it come to the rights of citizens. At that stage civil liberties will be the last thing on the minds of governments as they try to deal with city-killing hurricanes, severe droughts, crop failures, coastal flooding, resource wars, refugees everywhere, and generally trying to salvage something from a world literally going to hell.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[kayoshiii]

Yes and no.... Quite frankly if you want to deny carbon dioxide is what we should focus on then you should perhaps take it to the scientific community and come up with a model for climate that doesn't take human CO2 emissions into account and can explain temperature patterns since ~1975.

Since about 1970 the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 300ppm its now up around 370-380 ppm. In that time there hasn't been a significant increase in natural production of CO2 and an overall increase of CO2 by about 33%. That is a no minuscule amount. While your assertion that the natural world produces a lot more carbon dioxide than humans do is correct you are not taking into account that the natural world in general also sinks that carbon dioxide. The amount that humans produce doesn't need to be that big it just has to be big enough to unbalance the system.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[MrMr]

Well, given that many owners of Hummers cannot afford the fuel anymore that is no surprise.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[kayoshiii]

Sorry I did get my figures wrong
the figures are 280 ppm - 380pmm in the last 150 years
so about 35% for the last 150 years...

the 300ppm figure I was out on - The figure I can find is 323ppm
which is an increase of
~17% in the last 40 years.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

CO2 is a mild thing. Do you think there's a significant source of CFC's and such from natural sources?

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

120 years ago, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 280 ppmv. It has since increased to 380 ppmv. To put this into perspective, during the last ice age the concentration was about 200 ppmv. China and the USA alone emit almost 12 billion tons of CO2 per year, at atmospheric pressure and temperature that's more than 2000 cubic miles.

The oceans and soil currently are not net emitters of CO2 either, on the contrary, they absorb about 50% of the CO2 released by mankind's activities. Without them, we would be in a world of hurt already.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Gulthek]

Thanks for that, seriously. Well written, decisive, and it obviated an imminent *headdesk* from me after reading these crazy anti-science rants coming from geeks.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Cassius Corodes]

Thanx chief - thousands and thousands of scientists failed to notice the link between temperature and CO2, but now that you have pointed it out, there were red faces all around - False alarm people... Get a grip on reality.

As for the simple model, it illustrates why linear comparison is not always valid. That was quite obviously the point, not to be a complete climate model. As a "physicists" you should know all about the usefulness of simple models to help understand phenomena so quit being a idiot.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[blueg3]

Right now we are treated as holocaust deniers if we dare question if CO2 is really what we should focus on.

Evolution-deniers is a more apt comparison.

Is the microscopic amount of CO2 release actually created by humans compared to the Oceans, Volcanoes, and Bacteria really significant enough to warm the globe?

It's not microscopic at all, and yes.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[slim]

You're exactly right.

It's because neither the Big Bang nor evolution suggest that anyone should dramatically change their lifestyle, or feel guilty about some aspect of their lifestyle.

Otherwise rational people love their carbon-positive lifestyles, so when someone says it's harmful they *really* want it to be untrue. Hence the conspiracy theories.

This pet issue really demonstrates that. However much people love owning cars (etc.), it can't compare to the love people develop for their pets. So anyone bearing news that pets use up resources (which shouldn't come as a surprise) is an enemy to be fought.

A much more honest approach, for those who want to continue their carbon-positive lifestyle, is to admit to not caring about the future climate of the earth.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution and the Big Bang theory describe events that must have occurred: the existence of the universe and the existence of man. Global warming makes a prediction for something that may or may not occur as a result of human activity. Geological history tells us global disasters will happen. The question is this: will mankind cause the next one? Perhaps in 10,000 years, neohumans will debate whether iceball earth was causes by the old human race or whether it was inevitable. At that point, your condescending fucking smug attitutde might be appropriate.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Shotgun]

Do you believe in the theory of evolution?

That species evolve due to external influences. Yes.
That men have a common ancestor with monkeys. I haven't a clue.
-I wasn't there
-there currently isn't conclusive evidence to prove a point either way
-and, (most important) it doesn't make a difference until we start giving chimps the right to vote based on this theory.

Do you believe in Big Bang cosmology?

Pfft! Who cares? There are some interesting things going on in the field of quantum physics, but I have zero interest in trying to prove that God doesn't exist so that I can thumb my nose at those "stupid religious fundamentalist." Again, whether the universe went bang, or God said, "Let there be light!" real loud has no effect on my job.

Now, along come climatologists with their data pointing to anthropogenic global warming,

Some climatologists come along with a lot of political baggage, asking to destroy major cultural institutions, with only tenuous indications that the global warming is anthropogenic. Data sets and computer models are destroyed or held in secret. The political entities that want to see major cultural changes grab hold of these climatologist, and conflate global warming with anthropogenic global warming. Strong evidence of the first does not translate to strong evidence of the second.

If Slashdotters haven't drunk your anthropogenic global warming kool-aid, maybe it is because they actually have done some thinking for themselves.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Shotgun]

In that time there hasn't been a significant increase in natural production of CO2 and an overall increase of CO2 by about 33%.

If as the ice-core data shows, CO2 lags warming, then there would be significant increases of CO2 from increased solar output.

You did modify your numbers in a later post. But the actual numbers are less significant that the fact that you're claiming the warmth follows the rise in CO2, where evidence indicates the CO2 follows the warmth. The natural CO2 is easily explained by warming tundras and less CO2 consumers in the warming oceans.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[mcsynk]

Please take a look at the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)

On page 4 of the 'summary for policy makers', the graph shows that CO2 is the most significant human produced contributor to radiative forcing.

I am no expert but I find this report trustworthy and therefore think that CO2 is a pretty good thing to focus on. Dog ownership is another question!

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[kayoshiii]

I did modify my numbers in the later post - the initial post was off the top of my head. I went back and checked the data and I was wrong first time around. It really doesn't change my point though.

You are correct - CO2 does generally lag warming in historical terms (But you are missing the point - we already know how much the greenhouse effect warms the planet (about 33 degrees). The contribution of CO2 to that warming is fairly established (between 8 and 9 degrees)... for the record the greenhouse effect is a good thing, too much is bad. We also have a good idea of how much extra heat energy should be trapped by the increase in CO2 and this lines up with the collected data.

So the fact that CO2 lags behind climate change tells us that CO2 is not what *usually* causes climate change. It does show that as the climate changes trapped CO2 (and more CH4) is released into the atmosphere. This would indicate a positive feedback system comes into play at a certain point. We know at some point other factors kick in and temperatures dive again however I don't know if most of us especially those in the lower areas of the world really want to reach particularly if it is the end result of our own greed. It's the positive feedback system that scientists are generally worried about.

I gather that you are asserting that the increase in CO2 could be from natural causes the two things you mentioned would be things that happen as a result of warming - part of the feedback system that happens as a result of temperature change and although they contribute to the situation they would not be the route cause. Now you could claim that the initial cause to be global cosmic radiation or some such - but then you would have to explain why there has been no overall trend in global cosmic radiation in the 60 years we have been measuring it. You might also want to explain why we see a marked increase in CO2 in the atmosphere coinciding with the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[TheSync]

It is because if anthropogenic global warming is real than the medicine is obvious - massive government intervention on a scale unprecedented in human history.

I don't think it is so obvious. There is little evidence that we can achieve the massive global government intervention required to achieve dramatic CO2 and Methane limitation. The threat of global violence required would be immense, especially outside of Europe / US.

On the other hand, it is likely that advanced economies can survive climate change (air conditioners, dikes, genetic engineering of food crops, etc.). I have a feeling that the world will simply try to deal with climate change, and those societies that are unwilling to become modern economies will fail.

The other possibility is that non-CO2 tech will come along. In truth, nuclear fission is here today ready to go to provide 80-90% of fixed-location power requirements. The problem is that we can't trust all countries with nuclear fission, and that the transportation industry is left out until battery technology becomes significantly advanced.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[TheRaven64]

Do you believe in the theory of evolution?

No, of course not. I use it when I want to create genetic algorithm and when I want to model how reproducing populations will respond to external stimuli, but believe in it? No. If you believe in a theory then you're not doing science.

Fortunately, it doesn't stop working just because I stop believing in it. Convenient that.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get why this is such a difficult concept. Imagine a tank of water that is slowly leaking and getting refilled at the same rate. Now increase the refill rate slightly - and presto - the tank will eventually overflow even though the increased refill rate is "inconsequentially" larger to the normal rate. The CO2 ecosystem works in a similar way. If this has not blown your mind you should read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_dynamics [wikipedia.org] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems [wikipedia.org].

Crap. Total and utter garbage. Your tank of water is a linear system, wereas climate is very non-linear.If the climate system was that unstable we would have fried or frozen a long time ago. Furthermore, from past climate proxies we know that even the last couple of thousand years the average temperature has swung a couple of degrees (C) over the course of centuries.

Systems are not stable because input and output are somehow magically exactly balanced, but because non-linearities create stable points. In case of climate; assuming we somehow manage to add 1W/m2 to the energy input, the temperature will rise a little, and then Stephan-Boltzman's law dictates the the radiant energy flux will increase with T**4, so it will find a new equilibrium somewhere.

The consensus between believers and skeptics is that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to something like 0.5C increase in average global temperatures directly. All the higher and lower guesstimates that you will see are because of in my opinion very poorly understood amplification/damping mechanism. Please feel free to read the latest IPCC report, or google around.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

May I suggest it's the other way around?
Theory of evolution - theory of Big Bang: far less incomplete than you imply, there are NOT MANY other "factors" that could have mad the universe turn out the way it has, in fact almost all other "factors" have been eliminated by experimentation/observation, and both theories have made predictions that have been later spectacularly confirmed (say the CMB or the existence and probable location of tiktaalik).
On the other hand, FUD around global warming provides an otherwise inexistent support for "massive government intervention on a scale unprecedented in human history", which is something many of us definitely DO NOT WANT, simply because it is a BAD IDEA (TM). Your own post is an excellent example of the things we fear: in a heartbeat you move from "anthropogenic global warming", which is something for which we have reasonably good data to conclude it is in fact happening, to city-killing hurricanes, severe droughts, crop failures, etc., for which there are NO RELIABLE MODELS OF PREDICTION. Look at any report on climate change, they all seem very precise on recounting the observed warming, as they should be, giving you numbers and precise rates of change with a few decimal positions, but are a lot more vague when issuing predictions, often with a range of variability of 100% (an "eyeball" guesstimate of "2 to 4 feet" for a lay person might be OK, but the same thing from a scientist is absolutely unacceptable; can you imagine a scientist saying that water boils at "100 or 200 degrees centigrade"??) and citing NO LEVELS OF CONFIDENCE (you know, the second number in a scientific prediction, as in "water will raise between 1.8 and 2.2 feet in the next 10 to 12 years WITH A CONFIDENCE OF 95%" ...)
So here is the problem global warming FUDDERS face: one Katrina doesn't prove "city-killing" hurricanes, while all the hurricanes that are NOT Katrina and all the cities that have not been killed by an hurricane DO DISPROVE THEM (it's just the way science works: counter-examples kill theories, while consistent events only lend them some support but don't "prove" them); severe droughts are not happening, crops are not failing, coasts are not flooding and the resource wars and refugees predate climate change for a few milennia.
So nope, we don't need to deny "it", what "we" need to do is refine the models so that predictions can be observed and confirmed or disproved, BEFORE we grant the state so much power that absolutist empires of the past look like democracies in comparison!

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Terwin]

Apparently not everyone is up to date.
It is no longer called Global Warming.(or even anthropogenic global warming)
Since the global average temperatures have been going down for the last 10 years(or was that 11, I forget), it is now called Climate Change.
(Just like what happened with 'Global Cooling' becoming 'Global Warming')

All these name changes seem to be fairly similar to how the creationists renamed their issue to be 'Intelligent Design' when people were no longer swallowing it...

I personally would consider anthropogenic climate change to be much more believable if they stopped needing to completely re-work their theories every time we have collected enough new climate data to demonstrate that their models are more assumption and fear-mongering than fact.

There are three things that any credible researcher in any other field would need to provide for peer review before any 'earth shattering' discoveries will be believed:
* Present your source data in an easily examined fashion so that everyone can see if you did cherry picking.
* Publish your models/analysis technique so that others can examine your assumptions and how you reached your conclusions.
* Have some other lab(s) produce reinforcing results when they test your models/data along with any new data that has become available since you presented it in a completed form.

This was needed to confirm Element 114 was produced, so why require less when talking about something that requires economic changes on a global scale?

This year we were supposed to have the worst season of hurricanes on record. Instead it was one of the lightest.

Just give me SOME form of proof that this is not just a bunch of political BS.
And no, a consensus is not science. The consensus was that the speed of light was variable until Einstein showed differently. Before that the consensus was that light traveled through the Ether between the planets.

Give me repeatable experiments and models that continue to work for more than 6 months.
Anything less is politics and scaremongering.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Right now we are treated as holocaust deniers if we dare question if CO2 is really what we should focus on.
> Evolution-deniers is a more apt comparison.

I dunno. Holocaust deniers generally want Jews to die, and CO2-warming deniers want to burn more fossil fuels.

Evolution deniers don't secretly want to evolve, though.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do we know that the rate the tank leaks does not increase with the volume of water in the tank?

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[fractoid]

No. If you believe in a theory then you're not doing science.

Well spoken.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[fractoid]

A much more honest approach, for those who want to continue their carbon-positive lifestyle, is to admit to not caring about the future climate of the earth.

I think my sig sums up my attitude appropriately, although 'not caring' isn't quite accurate. From the research I've done, I'm firmly of the opinion that the Earth will be quite alright, and in fact be just as habitable after we burn every last drop of fossil fuel. I'm not saying the climate will be the same, and sure, there may be changes in sea level and weather, but quite frankly, that sounds like it'll be interesting. Humanity needs new challenges to keep us keen. Selfish? Maybe, but the world changes, and we have to change with it. That's just how life is.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[fractoid]

Do you believe in the theory of evolution? If so, why?

Evolution is the obvious consequence of reproduction coupled with imperfect trait heritability. I don't 'believe' in it dogmatically, I accept it as a self-evident description of what occurs due to these traits.

The theory is quite incomplete and there could be many other factors that influenced/influence the development of different species.

I think your understanding of evolution is flawed. There aren't "other factors that influence the development of species", because any possible factor that affects survival in any way is part of the fitness function. If you accept that traits are heritable between parent and offspring, and that small changes in the set of inherited traits occur, then you must accept evolution as a description of what happens when any organism interacts with the environment over long time periods.

Do you believe in Big Bang cosmology? If so, why?

I believe it's our current best guess as to what happened. I don't believe it any more or less than the religious view of "a wizard did it" but if a wizard DID do it, I'd like to know how. It may amuse you to know that when I first heard of the Big Bang theory, I took it as scientific evidence of Genesis. Not many things fit the phrase "let there be light" better than an entire universe exploding out of nothing.

Now, along come climatologists and [...] the Slashdot community [...] makes thinly veiled accusations of hidden agendas and scientific malpractice. I'll tell you why this is so - it's all political.

Actually, it's because we have long empirical evidence of our total inability to predict whether it'll be rain or sunshine next Tuesday, much less in 50 years' time. Meteorology is incredibly imprecise and we know thanks to chaos theory that it will NEVER be much more precise than it is. Fairly or not, climatology gets lumped in with meteorology as being next to useless over time spans of more than a week.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

> if they stopped needing to completely re-work their theories every time we have collected enough new climate data

Yes! Scientists need to stop rethinking their hypotheses every time data comes out that challenges their theories. That way we can simplify science and not have to worry about things changing when we learn new details.

I still think we should bring back the classical four elements that Greek scientists proposed a while ago. Much simpler and without all this scary, "Oooh, Uranium and Plutonium and Radon and other nerdy-sounding words are so bad for you!" bullshit political conspiracy that scientists came up with to scare us into accepting their radical agendas.

Preach on!

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Cassius Corodes]

I'm glad you read my wiki links! I wish you had read the context of the post as well :D

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: Does the theory of evolution affect the cost of goods consumed in daily life?
A: Not in my part of the world.
Q: Does Big Bang cosmology affect the cost of goods consumed in daily life?
A: Not in my part of the world.
Q. Does anthropogenic global warming affect the cost of goods consumed in daily life?
A: Definitely, even in my part of the world. Especially so if stuff like Cap and Trade become required by law. It would hit my wallet so I want to be sure that the claims are true.

Re:Can we finally start denying it again?

[bitrex]

Evolution is the obvious consequence of reproduction coupled with imperfect trait heritability. I don't 'believe' in it dogmatically, I accept it as a self-evident description of what occurs due to these traits.

In what way is evolution self-evident? Perhaps in hindsight, but it was after all only 150 years ago that the theory was first proposed. The theory doesn't require belief to exist, but unless you work directly with it and can conduct your own analysis on whether it is an accurate model of reality you're always relying on second hand information. A television program, a teacher, a textbook, in the end you have to believe that someone is giving you correct information to the best of their ability.

I think your understanding of evolution is flawed. There aren't "other factors that influence the development of species", because any possible factor that affects survival in any way is part of the fitness function. If you accept that traits are heritable between parent and offspring, and that small changes in the set of inherited traits occur, then you must accept evolution as a description of what happens when any organism interacts with the environment over long time periods.

Guided evolution by "Intelligent Design" is a variable outside any fitness function we would be able to objectively measure - an argument which is used by ID adherents to reject the theory of evolution. That's the idea I was going for.

Actually, it's because we have long empirical evidence of our total inability to predict whether it'll be rain or sunshine next Tuesday, much less in 50 years' time. Meteorology is incredibly imprecise and we know thanks to chaos theory that it will NEVER be much more precise than it is. Fairly or not, climatology gets lumped in with meteorology as being next to useless over time spans of more than a week.

You admit that it may be unfair to make the comparison between climatology and meteorology for long timescales, but you're willing to take that position anyhow. One might ask oneself "What level of evidence do I need to see to convince myself that climatologists aren't completely mistaken?" If the answer is "It doesn't matter how much" then you've found yourself to be not a skeptic, but a zealot.

Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

you have a bird in a cage.

Re:Except that

[aldld]

Well, if you're having a bird as a pet, you sure as hell shouldn't be giving it freedom!

Re:Except that

[davmoo]

Normally, I don't respond to people who have to hide behind being anonymous, but in this case I'll make an exception.

Actually, my tiel is fully flighted (no clipped feathers) and has the run of half the house or more. And while I'm sure you're going to give me some half-assed uninformed PETA sponsored song and dance about how they live better in the wild, I'll merely point out that cockatiels well cared for in captivity live *FAR* longer than they do in the wild.

Re:Except that

[Coward Anonymous]

"I'll merely point out that cockatiels well cared for in captivity live *FAR* longer than they do in the wild."

But are they happier?

Re:Except that

[TheLink]

Unless they're badly treated in captivity, they're probably about as happy as they would be in the wild.

See: Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTO_dZUvbJA

I'm sure it applies to most animals.

I can't escape the confines of the Earth, but I don't let it bother me all the time.

There's also this:

Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally, I don't respond to people who have to hide behind being anonymous, but in this case I'll make an exception.

Your email is hidden and I did not see a real name. What makes you not anonymous?

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

Birds are not like a dog or cat. Put them outside and they ain't coming back.

We have birds. A few African Grays, a Quaker, Parakeets, Doves, etc but all the food you want, safety from predators if not "freedom". It may be happiness but they will never know now will they? I personally would rather live for 20 years and die unexpectedly than do 40 years in jail with some fee time in the yard once or twice a day. How about you? Don't kid yourself, you are imprisoning an animal. I can live with it as they make -ME- happy.

Re:Except that

[omfgnosis]

We can ask a 95 year old human who, thanks to pills or physical deterioration, is "alive" but no longer participating in life in any way that's meaningful to them.

Or we can conclude that we can't "know" what birds feel and go on treating longevity as an indicator of quality of life.

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

A longer life doesn't equate to better quality of life.

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

But are they happier?

They're birds you fuckwit. For most animals at that level, survival and health = happiness. It seems like you can't empathize with animals without anthropomorphizing them, which isn't horrible per se because it at least keeps you from microwaving frogs or pulling legs off spiders, but it does mean that you're basing your values on flawed, childish principles, which makes you do stupid shit like apply Maslow's hierarchy of needs to a creature with a walnut-sized brain that evolved from dinosaurs. Hate to disappoint you, but cockatiels don't give a shit about "self-actualization," unless you define it as lots of yogurt-covered raisins and other birds to fuck.

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

you should keep your bird in the kitchen that is what it is for

Re:Except that

[imakemusic]

Like a pig in a cage on antibiotics.

Re:Except that

[dkf]

Your email is hidden and I did not see a real name. What makes you not anonymous?

They've got an identity (the slashdot login "davmoo") which you know maps to a particular person, and you can reasonably address remarks to that person (e.g., through the use of this forum). You just can't (easily) discover the map from the identity you have to the person. If they were truly anonymous, you would have no identity at all instead of one with a hidden map.

For example, you're anonymous. That means I have no idea at all which of the billions of people on the planet made the comment. But if davmoo makes another comment, I can see that and correlate it with the others that he's made.

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

To be frank, he's actually using a pseudonym. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonymity for the nuances.

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, the only time our bird is in cage is when we're asleep or not at home - i.e. not able to supervise it, just like kids (think crib).

Re:Except that

[evanbd]

He's pseudonymous, not anonymous.

Re:Except that

[skeeto]

In meatspace, putting your name behind something can involve a risk (popularity, safety, legality, etc.) but doing so usually make the statement stronger than doing the same thing anonymously, without that risk. To quote Jack Beauregard, "If the risk is little, the reward is little."

Similarly in Slashdot he took a risk by putting his karma on the line to back up his statement. His pseudonym may not be linked to his physical identity, but it's still an identity that has value. Posting AC doesn't have that risk, and so it's less likely to be read or taken as seriously.

Re:Except that

[Ant P.]

What makes you not anonymous?

Google.

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally would rather live for 20 years and die unexpectedly than do 40 years in jail with some fee time in the yard once or twice a day.

Expect that it wouldn't be an unexpected death. Instead, it would be living 20 years with the knowledge that someone might attack you at any moment. You would probably see at least once a month someone who fully intends to attack and kill you if given the slightest change. Whenever you went to sleep you wouldn't know if you woke up the next morning.

Yeah, nice living, that one.

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

A longer life doesn't equate to better quality of life.

They're birds you fuckwit. For most animals at that level, survival and health = happiness. It seems like you can't empathize with animals without anthropomorphizing them, which isn't horrible per se because it at least keeps you from microwaving frogs or pulling legs off spiders, but it does mean that you're basing your values on flawed, childish principles, which makes you do stupid shit like apply Maslow's hierarchy of needs to a creature with a walnut-sized brain that evolved from dinosaurs. Hate to disappoint you, but cockatiels don't give a shit about "self-actualization," unless you define it as lots of yogurt-covered raisins and other birds to fuck.

p.s. I just reposted a response to one of your sibling posts because neither of you merit individualized replies. Just remember that if you aren't one of those fucked-up, sexually confused pieces of shit that have sex in fur suits, then you have no excuse for anthropomorphizing animals. Please refrain from posting anything online until you get out of junior college, so as not to make us suffer the embarrassing gaps in your education.

Re:Except that

[Coward Anonymous]

I'm on your side in this respect. I'm not an "animal lover" by most standards. However, I've seen caged animals in a zoo circle their enclosures like they were being chased by demons. I've also seen geese being stuffed for fois gras on a farm and I know what happens on commercial farms in general. There are definite "quality of life" issues for these animals.
I don't lose sleep over it (like I don't lose sleep over my yummy burger meat) but many other people do, especially pet owners who very often yank theirs pets out of their environments, stuff them in a small house and invent what is best for the animal without any basis for their inventions. Hence the question to a pet owner.

Re:Except that

[pbhj]

So you have a bird in a large cage. Longevity does not equal happiness.

Re:Except that

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. Big difference. Perhaps everyone should be labeled as Pseudonymous Bastards until they pay up. The anti-anonymity meme is nothing more than a way to increase the dollar value of slashdot. They mask this with labels like "coward" yet are afraid to stand up to their corporate overlords.

Sounds like you have a lot of pets...

[rtilghman]

I think I know where I'm having dinner tonight! :)

-A Committed Environmentalist

Re:Sounds like you have a lot of pets...

[wizardforce]

Hannibal Lecter is that you?

Re:Sounds like you have a lot of pets...

[khallow]

"Having dinner" or "being dinner"? These subtle distinctions can make a difference.

Re:Sounds like you have a lot of pets...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Hell ?

Re:Sounds like you have a lot of pets...

[tomhudson]

"Having dinner" or "being dinner"? These subtle distinctions can make a difference.

To Serve Man

Re:Sounds like you have a lot of pets...

[A_Non_Moose]

I think I know where I'm having dinner tonight! :)

-A Committed Environmentalist

Going to the dogs, eh?

Sounds like a plan, feed these wingnuts to the dogs...way to go!

"No Dog On Board" sign Makes SUV's Safe From ELF!

[thinktech]

Excellent. Now I just have to put a "No Dog on Board" sign on my SUV and The ELF won't hate me anymore!

Well, they do

[dUN82]

How come this is a new idea, they have been doing this for years in Guang Dong Province,China, first dogs, rats, and now cats... I think i am gonna be sick picturing it!

Take away the pets and see its effect

[linumax]

Take away the pets and see if energy consumption in fact goes down.

With no pets, instead of spending time playing with them, I'll turn on the TV, get in the car and drive around mostly to waste time, etc.

These results might be sound on paper, but I highly doubt real world would approve of them.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[QuantumG]

that's the entire point.. it's right there in the report.. your SUV uses half as much as your pet, your plasma uses under a tenth. Even if you did both at the same time it would be better. I think the point is: stop being an eco-nazi.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Jerry Smith]

Well, you cán keep animals, just eat them :)

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[wizardforce]

Agreed. Energy consumption is an economics problem not strictly a pet problem.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Devout_IPUite]

Did anyone notice that 10km per year is pretty tame for driving? At my old job I commuted less than 30 minutes and was still putting on a lot more than that per year, by about 2-4 times as much actually.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed, the New Zealand government says that the national average is 14,000km/year, and I know many people that easily do 30,000km/year. The report wouldn't be anywhere near as impressive if it read "Dog as bad as two thirds of a full-sized SUV"

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone notice that 10km per year is pretty tame for driving?

I agree, 10 kilometres is really next to nothing.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were only driving 40km per _year_ then you should have just walked. That's about 150 meters per week day with nothing on weekends. I walk several times that to get to class every weekday. Even if that's a typo and you meant 400 km per year, well that's still just a kilometer and a half a day. Biking that should be easy.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Anonymous Coward]

14,000 km/year in New Zealand is likely using as much petrol as 20,000 km/year in Australia, Canada or the USA, though.

You can count the number of straight, multi-lane inter city highways on one hand. Most of it is twisty, windy, hilly single lane road.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Moridin42]

Actually, it isn't the entire point. The SUV uses half as much as the pet, when making certain assumptions about the expenditures on the pet, which is on until it isn't, and certain assumptions about the usage of the SUV.

If eliminating pets causes an increase in TV, SUV, or other activities (and the resources consumed), then the numbers in the article are no longer valid. Even for satirical purposes.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say you worked 250 days a year. With a 30 minute commute, this makes 125 hours of driving. During these hours, you drove 20 to 40 km. This makes your average driving speed 0.16 to 0.32 km/h, or 0.6 to 1.2 m/s. If by commute, you mean one way trip, then double the result.

I'd say that 'pretty tame' does not even begin to describe your daily crawl!

PS. If by km you meant a thousand miles, then going at 160 mph (257 km/h) for an hour every day is not the average driving pattern either.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[QuantumG]

Sigh. It's a standard part of critical thinking. Assume the values are correct.. assume there's somebody, somewhere, who has those values. They care about the environment and they have an SUV and a dog, which should they get rid of? If the logical, scientific, quantitative answer is their beloved pet, then maybe there's something wrong with the question. Maybe the rest of us should rethink laying blame at the feet of the SUV owners of the world.. maybe we should stop being fucking facists about it and admit that different people have different values and we don't have the right to tell them what they can and cannot buy on the free market.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Philip_the_physicist]

At that sort of annual distance, you probably wouldn't even bother driving that unless the weather was foul. Someone who is only driving that far per year wouldn't be using their car for commuting, just for shopping and holidays.
I suspect they actually meant 40Mm, and got confused.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[serveto]

Did anyone notice that 10km per year is pretty tame for driving?

6.2 miles a year! I do that going to work.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd seriously "get in the car and drive around" just to "waste time"? Jesus man, read a book or something.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the rest of us should rethink laying blame at the feet of the SUV owners of the world.. maybe we should stop being fucking facists about it and admit that different people have different values and we don't have the right to tell them what they can and cannot buy on the free market.

The minute the market counts the externalities of their purchase I would fully support this. Until that day I can hate SUV owners all I want as my own personal right.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Nick0000000]

I agree, 257 thousand miles per hour is pretty insane.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Anonymous Coward]

And, if you can't learn to love animals, what good is this world for anyways? Ultimately, protection of the environment is about protecting it for life to live on. These environmental scientists have sort of missed the point.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[pbhj]

So we shouldn't try and save resources because you personally haven't the self control not to go out and waste resources elsewhere? Couldn't you read a library book, do some gardening, organise some local fruit harvesting or something instead - it's not obligatory to drive your car around when you've some spare time.

Re:Take away the pets and see its effect

[Devout_IPUite]

Nah, just got scrambled due to the double thousand units. They really should have just used metric like it's suppose to roll: 10Mm.

What about emissions ?

[MisterBuggie]

Okay, they compare them by how much land/energy it takes to produce the food/fuel. I would be interested how they came upon their figures for fossil fuels. But my main concern is that they never mention emissions. The main concern with cars isn't so much how much fuel they use, but how much pollution they put out...
Also, it seems they didn't factor in producing the vehicles, which also uses a lot of energy and puts out a lot of pollution. Factor those in and I'm sure pets will turn out much cleaner by orders of magnitude...
Oh, and did I mention pets are "biodegradable", unlike cars ?

Re:What about emissions ?

[MichaelSmith]

I guess your comparison would work better if it was Cars vs Horses.

Re:What about emissions ?

[Devout_IPUite]

Also, I don't drive 10km per year. I drive like 30-40km per year.

Re:What about emissions ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about all the dog poop in public areas where my child has to watch out for when he plays? This runs off into the storm drains and in to the ocean which means temporary closure of our beaches? I think this is called pollution.

Re:What about emissions ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I strongly doubt that.
There's a thousand meters to a kilometer.

Are you seriously saying you drive ~110 meters/360 ft. per day?

Re:What about emissions ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then don't forget to factor in the carbon emissions of the pets as well. They're constantly spewing CO2, just like your SUV.

Re:What about emissions ?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

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).

My guess is that building and producing the vehicle are synonymous.

Yes, it would be good to see how they arrived at the figures - my guess is you could get those calculations if you bought the book.

Re:What about emissions ?

[maglor_83]

Why have a car if you only drive 40km per year?

Re:What about emissions ?

[amRadioHed]

Then don't forget that the carbon emissions from pets are largely carbon neutral.

Re:What about emissions ?

[carbon116]

I first read this article in New Scientist.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.600-how-green-is-your-pet.html

When they talk about the eco footprint of something, they include *everything* relating to that item. So with these cars, it includes the original manufacture, use of fuel during the car lifetime and subsequent emissions.

For SUVs, they are talking about 4.6l Toyota Land cruisers.

I do agree that environmentalists seem to be nit picking, but I think the general idea is that the Human species in general is using using far too many resources in every part of our lives for us to be around much longer!

Re:What about emissions ?

[tomhudson]

What about all the dog poop in public areas where my child has to watch out for when he plays? This runs off into the storm drains and in to the ocean which means temporary closure of our beaches? I think this is called pollution.

RE: people not scooping after their pets - demand higher fines. As a dog owner, I would welcome a fine of $3,000 plus temporary confiscation of the dog, along with boarding fees for one month for people who don't poop-and-scoop. Offer the dog up for adoption, and if someone else adopts the dog during that month, too bad, sucks 2 be U, maybe you'll pick up next time.

RE: runoff - pig farms and crop fertilizer are much bigger culprits.

Re:What about emissions ?

[robi5]

Why? Just to go to the local landfill and leave the antiquated Imperial system there. Wikipedia: "Only three nations have not officially adopted the International System of Units as their primary or sole system of measurement: Burma, Liberia, and the United States."

Re:What about emissions ?

[drinkypoo]

The main concern with cars isn't so much how much fuel they use, but how much pollution they put out...

No, the main concern with cars is their lifetime energy consumption which implies their lifetime emissions. Up to a third of the lifetime energy cost of a typical car is spent in production; a Hybrid vehicle is significantly higher since it has another power plant and an electricity storage system added. (The battery used for operating the alternator and starting an ordinary car doesn't count, because it's not like they just wired more batteries in parallel.)

Basically every food crop in the USA not labeled as "Organic" was fertilized with petroleum. This is kind of hard to wrap your head around, but just chew on it for a while. That's why the energy balance on corn ethanol is so shitty; not only do we harvest and process it using energy from fossil fuels, but we actually fertilize the corn with oil in the first place. Consequently, ethanol is only about 15% energy-positive; it turns out to be a worse energy-storage medium than hydrogen, with only the benefit that it can be handled with the existing fueling infrastructure with nothing more than replacement seals. (Even a high ethanol percentage in gasoline is deadly to natural seals, and fuel mixing is responsible for the destruction of many older vehicles. Shit, I have to use additive with the new low-sulfur diesel in my old MBZ and International IDIs, although I don't grudge it.)

The same is true of pet food; that's not a wild grass, that's a grain. It was fertilized with petroleum and then it was shipped to a plant where it was ground up with a bunch of lousy meat typically produced in feedlot conditions, and cooked into pellets which are then packed into bags and shipped some more. In fact, the materials are a lot more likely to be shipped a long distance than in the case of auto fuels, which are produced as close to the point of consumption as possible.

I haven't run the numbers, and I don't care; only realize that there is no logical reason pets can't have a significant impact.

Re:What about emissions ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit.

Energy costs money.

If as much energy as you claim goes into hybrids as you say, then the total cost to the user would never be less than regular cars.

At this point, hybrids are at or lower than regular cars for total cost.

So, either the manufacturers are taking a huge (like 20k each huge) loss on them, or your numbers are wrong somewhere.

Go find out where and stop bothering us smart people with your lies.

Re:What about emissions ?

[kannibal_klown]

RE: people not scooping after their pets - demand higher fines. As a dog owner, I would welcome a fine of $3,000 plus temporary confiscation of the dog, along with boarding fees for one month for people who don't poop-and-scoop. Offer the dog up for adoption, and if someone else adopts the dog during that month, too bad, sucks 2 be U, maybe you'll pick up next time.

But how do you enforce it and/or prove the culprit?

I was walking my dog last year and we passed by a huge turd. The thing had obviously been out for quite a while since it was already drying. My dog sniffed it for a sec and kept on going, I didn't break a stride so it was obviously to anyone watching that it wasn't us; no time to even squat let alone do the deed.

We got a house further and a woman started yelling at us, I don't mean mild annoyance I mean YELLING like I'd just toilet-papered her house. She was DEMANDING I pick it up and went ape for about 30 seconds, I think even going so far as threatening to call the cops. My politely trying to tell her it wasn't ours went unheard.

Finally I just said f--- it and yelled back a bit that I wasn't touching another dog's mess and maybe she should pay more attention since it was obviously no longer fresh. She kept flipping out and calling me a liar but I didn't have the patience to put up with her.I

Under your proposed guidelines that busy-body might've had my dog taken away for a few days and cost me an arm and a leg.

I say, unless caught on tape or the accuser wants to go through the trouble of some sort of DNA test then it shouldn't be something so HUGE.

Re:What about emissions ?

[kannibal_klown]

P.S.

I should also mention that I always pick up after my dog and think it's the polite thing to do, let alone the legal thing. And I would get annoyed if a neighbor's dog kept pooping on our lawn or whatever though I'd be civil about it.

I should also mention that nearby we had a group of elderly gentlemen that tried to privately ban dogs from a public area even though it was legally allowed to have them there so long as we picked up after them. They tried to put up their own signs and hastle dog walkers. Said gentlemen didn't even live that close to the area, while I lived less than 100 meters away, they just used the public park-like space for their octogenarian Soccer.

Some people just can't be reasoned with.

Re:What about emissions ?

[tomhudson]

You can't buy a cell phone without a built-in camcorder nowadays. Give anyone who catches the person in the act a 50% "vigilante fee". $3,000 is a reasonable fine. One city had it at $2,000 over a decade ago, and their parks were the cleanest I've ever seen. Sure you can bring your dog there ... but at $2k a pop, EVERYONE picked up.

The maximum fine here hasn't been adjusted in several decades, and has gone from a major penalty to a minor one, thanks to inflation.

The cell phone video would also have solved your immediate problem - record her harassing you, then phone the police to report it. Amazingly enough, people tend to run away when you start videoing them acting 5t00p1d.

Re:What about emissions ?

[ceoyoyo]

From the article, it seems they did factor in the production of the vehicles.

However, they seem to be comparing the land use requirements to produce food for a pet against the amount of "energy" that land could produce, and equating that to the "energy" that the SUV used up.

I'm pretty suspicious that the pet food production numbers are liberally estimated while the land-energy-production and SUV-driving numbers are pretty conservatively estimated, in order to make a nice splash. 10000 km/year isn't much at all to drive. Besides, SUVs in general don't currently use energy produced on farms. Around here we also don't tend to use prime farmland (the kind you'd probably need to hit their energy production capacity target) as ranch land.

Re:What about emissions ?

[kannibal_klown]

You can't buy a cell phone without a built-in camcorder nowadays...

The cell phone video would also have solved your immediate problem - record her harassing you, then phone the police to report it. Amazingly enough, people tend to run away when you start videoing them acting 5t00p1d.

I guess the video recorder on the cellphone would solve the "100% proof" to ensure the right owner was punished. Though acting quick enough to record the actual act would be tough, and that jerk would've probably filmed me being near the scene and run to the actual doodie and said "See, HE's the one."

As far as further confrontation, it was escalating pretty heavily on her end and I could feel my blood boiling at her reaction and statements. The last thing I wanted to do was give her an excuse.

Considering her reaction and state of mind, even taking a step forward to try to talk rationally could've been seen as "OMG HES GONNA ATTACK ME WITH HIS DOG!"

At that point, it was best to curse her out and walk away. Had she started following me then I would've wipped out the phone and called the local police.

Re:What about emissions ?

[tomhudson]

Some people are just like that - busybodies who don't have a clue. I used to tie my old dog to my car bumper when I'd go into the restaurant for breakfast. He had his bowl of water, and he'd sit mostly in the shade, and people would pet him on their way in, and feed him scraps on their way out.

One day this crazy-looking woman (when you can see the whites of their eyes all around their iris, they're nuts - look at Sarah Palin when she gets cranked up as a good example of this physiological "tell" :-) and started cursing me out for being so mean to my dog, and how it was dangerous for the dog because someone might not see him (anyone driving in the parking lot who can't see one of these seriously needs their eyes examined), etc. She even had the nerve to call the cops. The cops came, and when they started with the same BS, I pointed out the parking lot was private property, and gave them a choice - kindly fuck off and we'll pretend this never happened or be reported for being out of uniform (they had removed their name tags, but I still had the unit number). Always travel with a mini tape recorder. It solves SO many problems when the police start acting like dicks (it's always the male cops ... must be a "mark my territory thing" - the female cops would stop by and feed the dog, and never gave any problems. I remember getting pulled over one time because he had his head sticking out the window - not illegal. The law requires the driver's side mirror and either an internal mirror or the passenger side mirror be visible, so it didn't matter that he was blocking the view of the passenger mirror, and there's no requirement that he wear a seatbelt - he's property, same as a bag of groceries - but give some people a uniform ...)

Re:What about emissions ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this is my concern too. Also, what about the environmental impacts from making the car, and then (at the end of its life) disposing of it? Surely we need a whole-of-lifecycle comparison for it to have any validity.

Re:What about emissions ?

[Devout_IPUite]

Nah, just off by a few powers. The thousand thousand (or thousand k) thing mixed me up.

Calm down guys

[Idiomatick]

Most ppl above me seem to be freaking out like hicks thinking the government is coming to take their guns. Its a joke guys. Its kind of interesting but they can't srsly suggest eating our pets.

Re:Calm down guys

[ScentCone]

Most ppl above me seem to be freaking out like hicks thinking the government is coming to take their guns. Its a joke guys. Its kind of interesting but they can't srsly suggest eating our pets.

Pretty easy talk from a guy that has obviously had the government come and take away many of your vowels.

Re:Calm down guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Most ppl above me seem to be freaking out like hicks thinking the government is coming to take their guns. Its a joke guys. Its kind of interesting but they can't srsly suggest eating our pets.

It isn't a joke... but it is hilarious. Hilarious in an outlandish, 'I drive my SUV three blocks to work everyday' kind of way.

Re:Calm down guys

[MichaelSmith]

Most ppl above me seem to be freaking out like hicks thinking the government is coming to take their guns. Its a joke guys. Its kind of interesting but they can't srsly suggest eating our pets.

Pretty easy talk from a guy that has obviously had the government come and take away many of your vowels.

He must have been to boingboing recently.

Re:Calm down guys

[wizardforce]

People keep chickens, turkeys and rabbits as "pets" all the time. Altough you shouldn't don't get too attached to the ones you're going to be having for dinner later. The type of pet someone gets is often influenced by economics. College students like me may opt for a cheaper gold fish or a hamster instead of a dog or a cat. If things get to the point where peoples' resources are strained, we'll probably see a major decrease in the popularity of larger, more costly pets in favor of smaller ones that are easier on the wallet.

Re:Calm down guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Genius! You are a class act. I hope you have a very nice day because you made mine.

Re:Calm down guys

[Anonymous Coward]

thy tk r vwls!

Re:Calm down guys

[jonadab]

> If things get to the point where peoples' resources are strained,
> we'll probably see a major decrease in the popularity of larger, more
> costly pets in favor of smaller ones that are easier on the wallet.

If things got really strained (like, third-world subsistence level), we'd do exactly as the article suggests and keep livestock (goats and chickens and whatnot), because you can eat them if the garden has a bad year, or sell them if someone gets sick and needs antibiotics.

But that won't happen on any kind of large scale unless we're facing the real possibility of a food shortage at the societal level. For all the whining about the terrible horrible no good very bad economy, Americans still throw away their body weight in surplus food every week. (We're talking averages here, but that's how macroeconomics works.) In other words, we can afford pets. Maybe we can't afford high-end medical care for our pets, so we might have to let them die if they get cancer or congestive heart failure, but that won't stop people from having pets. If fluffy dies for want of a triple heart bypass, you mourn for a month or so and then you get a new pet. You swear that the new pet is not a replacement for the old one, and you'll never forget the one that died, and it'll never be the same... but you get a new pet all the same, because you can, and because you know cats and dogs don't live as long as humans anyway, and because the reason you had a pet in the first place is because you like having one around.

We can certainly afford to *feed* a pet per household on average, and that's the issue really. People switch from dogs to goats when food is scarce. (Look at rural sub-Saharan Africa if you have any questions about this.) As of October 2009, at least in North America, food is not scarce. Good jobs are scarce, but food is still plentiful. Nom nom nom.

Hello neighbour!

[not_surt]

I'm sure the average neighbor consumes far more resources than most pets do. Also, I expect most people have a much larger supply of neighbors than they do pets, making neighbors the more sustainable alternative.

Stupid comparisons

[Jeeeb]

From TFA: "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."

Isn't most of the food we give to dogs .etc. the remains of stuff that we produce but don't eat? Chicken necks, .etc. Seems like a very shallow method of calculation. Also I do hope in their book they go into a lot more detail about where they got those statistics!

hey 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.

What a load of bullshit. We fuel SUVs using fossil fuels which adds to the carbon cycle, hence contributing to global warming. Now, if we were powering our pets of fossil fuels as well then we could easily compare them.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[benjamindees]

The grains fed to farm animals and dogs are most certainly fertilized with fossil fuels.

Grass-fed beef and organic chicken are far too expensive for pet food.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[Techman83]

I did near on drive off the road when I heard this on the Radio early today. I have to agree that my initial thought was that it was a load of bollocks and it's really pissing me off, the simple one line statements that are spouted in generic media. My second thought was to ask, can you back that up? What about including factors such as, I'm more liable to walk my dog to the shops, than drive my car, but if I didn't have a dog I probably couldn't be assed.

These studies make a lot of brash assumptions!

Re:Stupid comparisons

[ScentCone]

Now, if we were powering our pets of fossil fuels as well then we could easily compare them.

The food the pets eat (including the entire production cycle involving plant and animal ingredients, the transporation to your store, your transporting of it home, the packaging it's in, all of the overhead involved, and so on), the vet care they receive, the products you buy to make them clean, healthy, comfortable - all of those activities burn fuel. Lots of it. Unless your pet eats only stuff that you kill out in the back yard, your servicing of them is a huge resource burner.

Of course, it's not as bad as the combined effects of Soccer, Kayaking, and Rock Climbing. If people would just stop doing those things, we'd avoid all sorts of carbon emissions. Oh, and going to bars to drink. Seriously. What a waste of resources.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[Sir_Sri]

Probably not true anymore in the 'west' that we give animals leftovers. Or at least not all of them. Though it might actually be better for them than what we actually feed them. The 'best' part of meat is hardly the most diverse, and packaged vegetables processed together aren't the greatest for all pets either. It may not be 'grade A' beef, but people, like one of the above posters who loves his dog more than most of humanity, will pay a premium to get fluffy and fido what marketing has told them is the best.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[Jeeeb]

The grains fed to farm animals and dogs are most certainly fertilized with fossil fuels.

Vast majority of the energy still comes from the sun. Good old photosynthesis. I'm sure if you were interested though you could compare the amount of fossil fuels used to power a car for a year vs the amount used to grow a years worth of food for a dog or whatever.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[phantomfive]

Don't know, sounds like a really useful statistic to quote to Prius-driving dog owners. Mainly to confuse them. "You think you're saving the environment....Bwahaha"

Re:Stupid comparisons

[Anonymous Coward]

So what is he basis for this comparison of pet food and fossil fuel? e=mc2? What a load of bullshit.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[jrumney]

I guess, since they're talking about land area, they're comparing with cars run on biofuels, the most efficient (kJ/hectare-wise) of which is palm oil - explosive growth in demand for which is largely single-handedly responsible for recent large-scale deforestation of Indonesia, and the impending extinction of several rare species, including the Orangutan, the cuteness factor of which is causing people to sit up and take notice, unfortunately probably too late for the Sumatran Rhino and Tiger.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[benjamindees]

It's lower than I assumed, but not insignificant. 13.8% of the land's "theoretical" (according to the article) energy production, for modern corn farming at least, is provided by fossil fuels. For the sake of simplicity, I guess we can say the rest is photosynthesis.

A corn-fed (or corn-fed-chicken-fed) dog would then require 15.7 gigajoules of fossil fuels, compared with the SUV's 55.1 gigajoules.

Of course, the SUV could be powered by renewable biofuels instead of fossil fuels.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[value_added]

Isn't most of the food we give to dogs .etc. the remains of stuff that we produce but don't eat? Chicken necks, .etc.

Pet food is made from animal by-products (some of which could be charitably described as meat), but certainly not from chicken necks. Ask a chef or anyone that cooks and they'll tell you chicken necks and those parts of the animal that most people don't associate with food or otherwise serve up on their dinner plates are both valuable and expensive (well, cheaper than meat, but hardly cheap).

Next time you find a recipe that calls for, say, chicken stock, make a trip to your local butcher to get a deal on the cheap bits used for stock. No local butcher? Try the grocery store. You might find chicken necks or even wings, but everything else (the head, legs, feet, giblets, heart, and ribs have already been sold off to someone else before the store gets their shipment.

The same applies to a "whole" chicken. Unless, of course, you're fortunate to live near a Chinatown where "whole" means just that.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[indiechild]

It sounds to me like the study is being sponsored by the oil and car industries.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[drinkypoo]

Next time you find a recipe that calls for, say, chicken stock, make a trip to your local butcher to get a deal on the cheap bits used for stock. No local butcher? Try the grocery store. You might find chicken necks or even wings, but everything else (the head, legs, feet, giblets, heart, and ribs have already been sold off to someone else before the store gets their shipment.

This is false. It might be true at Safeway (I haven't checked in years, though they certainly USED to sell small tubs of giblets in the meat department) but at every local [super]market (we have several, and I include small chains like Ray's) they receive whole chickens in-store and cut them up on the premises. They will re-cut them if you like, and they sell the livers et cetera in little tubs. They're not as cheap as you might like for animal feed, but that's because there is indeed a market.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[poofmeisterp]

What a load of bullshit. We fuel SUVs using fossil fuels which adds to the carbon cycle, hence contributing to global warming. Now, if we were powering our pets of fossil fuels as well then we could easily compare them.

Just curious what your viewpoint is; I'm not agreeing or disagreeing (for the record).

In terms of millions of years before Humans existed on this planet, what do you believe caused the global warming events of the past? Global cooling periods follow the warming events, hence "cycle."

I wonder what would be happening today if we didn't have and Human affect or intervention.

What are your thoughts?

Re:Stupid comparisons

[Jeeeb]

It sounds to me like the study is being sponsored by the oil and car industries.

Now now, I doubt it had anything to do with them. More likely two professors realised they could make a lot of money by saying something extremely controversial and having the worlds media promote their shitty book.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[Jeeeb]

Since you asked. As a non-climate scientist, although I don't place blind faith in climate scientists, I do think that when the vast majority of people who are dedicating their lives to studying the climate and are consequently vastly more knowledgeable about it than I am are saying that we're contributing to global warming, then there is probably a good case that we are.

I especially don't buy the crap about scientists speaking out against global warming being shut out of the dialogue. Global warming is the trillion dollar question of our age. If there was serious doubts then governments around the world would be all over it, trumpeting it everywhere. It's much easier politically to do nothing than something.

Most importantly global warming or not it's obvious that we can't continue our current consumption patterns. We're using up our non-renewable resources and are going to need something to replace them and soon.

Anyway those are my thoughts. And for the record my part of doing something for the environment (and more importantly my wallet) is to walk and take the train/bus; not own a TV; and keep only a laptop (Rather than the typical desktop + laptop) and to avoid heating/air-con especially heating which at least in my part of the world can be solved nicely by wearing more clothes.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[poofmeisterp]

...Anyway those are my thoughts.

Thank you for sharing! It was nice to hear someone explaining their information and motives rather than just barking out definitive pointer words as many do.

Much appreciated.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[Anonymous Coward]

"We" don't eat is largely subjective. E.g., where I come from they are actually eaten by people ... Nope, we're not particularly poor, but our traditional diet does include things as chicken necks, chicken feet, cow entrails and cow tails as part of the regular food stuffs. If we didn't eat these things to, say, give them to our pets, then we'd have to produce more chicken breasts and top sirloin to keep our current levels of nutrition.
My point is: it's not that your pet has a zero cost, it might be that your culture is so tremendously wasteful already that the cost of your pet *seems* negligible in comparison. Think about that next time you order a 20 oz. steakhouse thinking you can give the left-overs to Fido ... If you had ordered the 16 oz. instead and were satisfied, could you still claim that Fido has zero cost?

Re:Stupid comparisons

[pbhj]

Oh, and going to bars to drink. Seriously. What a waste of resources.

I actually doubt that's true. If you are going to have a [alcoholic] drink anyway that is. There are lots of provisos and conditions of course. But, rather than every home having a distillery and all the requisite resources it has got to be better for one place to brew/distill the drinks and store them, yes? Economies of scale do work IMO.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[ScentCone]

I actually doubt that's true

I'm being a little sarcastic, here. My point is that human beings do all sorts of stuff that's just as non-productive as owning a pet. Not many people need to own a dog, and thereby consume all of the energy involved in breeding, vetting, and feeding them.

But people also don't have to drive somewhere that's being heated/cooled/lit, where they will drink alcohol and thus waste all of the energy that went into growing that barley (or potato, etc) that was fermented, processing all of the water that's used, smetling the cans or preparing the glass involved, and so on. Just don't drink at all. There! See? Think of the enormous amount of energy being saved. Those people could all be staying home, quietly, with one small light on, reading a book until their solar-charged reading light battery gives out for the night.

Or, we could all acknowledge that you'll always have one group of people lecturing another group, telling them that their activity (say, owning a dog) is the frivalous and energy-expensive thing that should be stopped ... even as the complaining group is enjoying their fresh salad in the middle of winter, or having a banana that was transported to them from another freakin' continent.

We'd save a ton of energy if people didn't do anything frivalous at all (like have extra babies, or play video games, etc). The question is: who gets to decide what's frivalous? Ah.

Re:Stupid comparisons

[owlstead]

Come to think of it, that may be a very small population. For some reason I don't think the Prius is a car that would be liked by dog owners. I've certainly never seen a dog in a Prius.

10,000km per year?

[whoever57]

How typical is an SUV that is driven for only 10000km per year? That's what, less than 7k miles? Average mileage (in the USA is 12k miles or more).

This is just another "study" where the numbers have been "stretched" to make a point.

Re:10,000km per year?

[MichaelSmith]

How typical is an SUV that is driven for only 10000km per year? That's what, less than 7k miles? Average mileage (in the USA is 12k miles or more).

This is just another "study" where the numbers have been "stretched" to make a point.

NZ is a lot smaller than the UK. The SUVs are smaller there too.

Re:10,000km per year?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great Britain: 209,331 sq km
New Zealand: 268,680 sq km

Just sayin'

Re:10,000km per year?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but more of NZ is uninhabitable due to the geography.

Re:10,000km per year?

[Anonymous Coward]

NZ is not smaller than the UK, it's larger. If you're talking total land road length however, you would be correct.

Re:10,000km per year?

[Coriolis]

A larger proportion of the population in New Zealand own 4x4s than in the UK. Admittedly, more of them use them for their intended purpose, not ferrying the kids to and from school. Of course, the population is a lot smaller...

Re:10,000km per year?

[ihavnoid]

Here in Korea, my mom's 14-year old Hyundai Sonata had something like 67,000km of mileage when she sent it to the junkyard. Although it is ridiculous even compared to other cars here, what I typically see from other cars around here is that the mileage is about 10,000 km per year, which is equivalent to about 30km per day.

And yes, due to the horrible traffic condition here, a 15km trip in the peak times take something like an hour.

Re:10,000km per year?

[crimperman]

NZ is a lot smaller than the UK. The SUVs are smaller there too.

Did you mean smaller than the USA (as that's what the GP referred to)? Isn't NZ slightly bigger than the UK. And while it has a smaller populace, they're likely spread out more. That said the UK will have more schools with thus more parents doing the school run in their MPV/SUV/4x4/whatever. Except right now which is half term and thus they're all at home and I get to ride into work on nice empty(ish) roads ;)

Re:10,000km per year?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quoting statistics that are applicable in the US to dismiss a survey based in New Zealand seems somewhat "stretched" to me...

Re:10,000km per year?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Especially when you compare the size of the US to the size of New Zealand...)

Re:10,000km per year?

[QuasiEvil]

Actually I only drive mine about 6,000mi per year. The rest of the miles are soaked up by what I deem "disposable" cars - used Civics and the like that I can buy for cheap, rack up a ton of commuter miles, and then either sell for close to what I bought them for or haul them down to the junkyard.

Re:10,000km per year?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ~6200 miles. I have an '03 with 110000 on it, and that's not atypical at all. That's 18,000 a year. And a dog's diet is 1/3 meat, not 2/3rds, and roughly half that amount total for a medium 50 lb dog. So their SUV example really ends up being wrong for me by about a factor of 12.

Re:10,000km per year?

[bugs2squash]

Shouldn't that be 10Mm ? This is /. after all, we'd be all bent out of shape if we were talking about ohms or watts here.

Re:10,000km per year?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much "miles per year" is determined by the size of the country you live in.

Most of my driving is done within 20 miles of home, and I'd be willing to bet that's typical of most drivers everywhere.

I hear their next release is a cook book

[hyades1]

"Two Hundred Interesting Ways to Wok Your Dog"

Re:I hear their next release is a cook book

[Anonymous Coward]

"Two Hundred Interesting Ways to Wok Your Dog"

(blows...) "How to cook FOR dogs"

Re:I hear their next release is a cook book

[owlstead]

New movie coming to a cinema near you: "Wok the Dog".

right, what's next?

[itedo]

This is ridiculous. Since I guess the human beings are the problem for the (broken) ecology, why not eat some to save the planet? There are over six billions of them, I guess China may start exporting some "human delicacy" (irony) :P

Theoretically they may be right, every higher developed creature has a thing called "basal metabolic rate" but that's the wrong model for determine effects of global warming. It's just stupid nonsense, although funny to read.

Re:right, what's next?

[qwertyatwork]

So you're saying instead of being on the look out for soylent green, I should look out for soylent red?

Cats

[FranTaylor]

They protect your food from vermin, and they decrease the demand for the poisons used to kill vermin.

I lived in an old rented house and cats were the only way to keep the mice out of our kitchen.

Re:Cats

[userw014]

And cats will supplement their diet too. Who says your neighborhood needs songbirds?

why carbon footprint for the living ?

[parallel_prankster]

I thought the whole idea behind calculating these carbon footprints was to show how humans have changed the environment and how living things that need it ( yes others too ) are going to have problems. Why calculate the carbon footprint for pets ? They are the ones that will get affected by any environmental changes too. Maybe the title should have been how pet food factories are not green or something. Otherwise I can start calculating the carbon footprint of my cute neighbor and...

How about NO

[Anonymous Coward]

My family's pets serves a variety of functions. They're a form of exercise for the their humans. They're a burglar alarm (saving the carbon footprint on that) system. They're an activity monitor, saving electricity. They're an anti-varmint system, keeping poisons off our plants. They're a form of interior pest control, one dog is a rodent killer along with the cat. Our pets share our food, well after dinner scraps for snacks along with specific pieces of meat and selections of grains / vegetables chosen for their food preparation. So how do I calculate all that into a carbon and toxin footprint?

Bite me enviro-whackjobs. I'll keep my pets / companions (depending on your PoV) because they work with us AND make our family happier / healthier.

Not my dog

[willoughby]

My dog could land the Space Shuttle. My neighbors dog, however, is worthless. That's a dog who should be sacrificed for the environment.

Re:Not my dog

[TubeSteak]

My dog could land the Space Shuttle. My neighbors dog, however, is worthless. That's a dog who should be sacrificed for the environment.

If humans hadn't spent the last 1000 or so years breeding dogs to look goofy they might be running the show by now.

Re:Not my dog

[weirdo557]

im not sure how useful my dog is, perhaps he could crash a probe into the moon.

Re:Not my dog

[Anonymous Coward]

David Willoughby, stop trying to kill my dog!
Not every dog gets to be an astronaut.

Re:Not my dog

[Macgrrl]

My cats can open doors and pick up tools. The scariest thing I can think of is cats with opposable thumbs.

in Soviet Russia

[FudRucker]

Dogs eat YOU!

Re:in Soviet Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Dogs eat YOU!

That's what happens when you train dogs to fly rockets in Soviet Russia.
In America, they trained monkeys to fly rockets. Now they produce shitty reality TV shows. Wanna swap?

Re:in Soviet Russia

[Burpmaster]

Dogs eat YOU!

And that's even more effective!

Respectfully disagree

[conureman]

I believe if you can't be giving your bird freedom, you shouldn't be keeping it as a pet. My old friend, Peppy, only went in the cage at night for protection from the cats. Any bird that won't climb down and jump on your finger ain't much fun anyhow.

Re:Respectfully disagree

[drinkypoo]

Our cat is an outside-only cat because she is a certified killer (if she doesn't kill SOMETHING every night, there must be something wrong with her) and I couldn't turn my back for one second... while my conure is of the Sun variety, and is very small. Ironic to be posting about my pets, but the cat lives outside and has only been to the vet once, for a fixin', which is an extremely simple and brief operation. She got her chest gashed open pretty bad once, but we put aloe on it and it came right around. No apparent worm problem, in spite of her wild rodent-heavy diet, but garlic works for that anyway. We feed her about 1/3 of a serving, and she makes up the rest in pests, which is the only reason we've even got a cat. It's that or a serious infestation, and we grow some of our own food (organically of course) so pest control is even more of a going concern for us than for most. Anyway, the cage door never closes. Sometimes you find a poop someplace weird, but that's a small price to pay for being able to keep your avian friend in relative freedom. A lot of bigger birds will chew up your house, but no birds really belong inside anyway. Someone else had no time for this bird and she ended up as mine, otherwise I wouldn't even have a pet. The cat doesn't count; she's an employee. Really more of a feline-american than a pet. I'd like to bring the bird's footprint down too, and we've already replaced some of her food with sunflowers in our own garden.

I'm writing a new book..

[greywire]

..its called "Save the planet, Eat your neighbor".

Do you have idea what the carbon footprint of a human is?

Re:I'm writing a new book..

[ProfM]

Do you have idea what the carbon footprint of a human is?

Depends on the human ... if it's Al Gore, with his mansion, or his private jet(s), I guess it would be a lot.

Wouldn't it make more sense

[Anonymous Coward]

to say "Save the Planet, eat more plants in place of meat?" In terms of efficiency, I bet cows have a larger carbon footprint than my dog, and I'm more likely to eat fewer burgers than take a bite out of Fido...

Re:Wouldn't it make more sense

[SmoothriderSean]

I know I'd be more interested in the carbon footprint and implications of a typical, modern vegetarian or vegan diet than in learning how guilty I should feel about a fish tank.

Re:Wouldn't it make more sense

[Norsefire]

So eat the oxygen producing plants and leave the methane producing cows?

Re:Wouldn't it make more sense

[shentino]

Actually there will be a net gain in the plant population.

Plants are already at the bottom of the food chain and the higher up your OWN meal is on the food chain, the more plant mass is required to grow your food. Those plants are going to get eaten no matter what.

Skip the trophic levels and go straight to the bottom, and you save on calorie taxes that are imposed on carnivores.

Eat a pound of beef, and you use up the 12 pounds of grain that were needed to grow the beef. Eat a pound of grain, and you preserve 11 pounds of grain that would otherwise have gone into ranching.

Besides, you can't get rid of cows by eating them. That's called demand, and demand increases price, and price increases boost supply. So the long and short of it is that attempting to exterminate methane farting cows by eating them will only encourage farmers to breed more of them. The only way to make someone stop selling a good is to stop buying it.

More Pollution is Better

[The_Quinn]

The process of life requires pollution. Not to be graphic, but life literally sustains itself by converting the environment (air, water, food) into pollution. On top of that, creating our comforts and pleasures require additional pollution.

The countries that pollute the least in the world are the countries with the shortest lifespans and the harshest living conditions.

The trick is not to eliminate pollution, but just remove it so it doesn't harm people. We are already quite effective at that. (And when we aren't it's usually due to a lack of property rights)

The longer and more comfortable a human life is, the more pollution is required.

The only way to eliminate pollution is to eliminate life itself.

Re:More Pollution is Better

[fractoid]

This is true, except for one facet - you have to remember that one life form's pollution is another life form's food. Us mammals eat plants and breath oxygen and emit carbon dioxide and manure. Plants take in manure and sunlight and carbon dioxide and grow and emit oxygen. Upping the atmosphere's CO2 content will just encourage plants and bacteria that thrive on CO2, and the system will pull itself back into line.

Re:More Pollution is Better

[floppycat]

That is already happening. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/09/050251

Re:More Pollution is Better

[dkf]

Upping the atmosphere's CO2 content will just encourage plants and bacteria that thrive on CO2, and the system will pull itself back into line.

Eventually, sure. No guarantee that humanity or our civilization will survive in the meantime. And to be fair, I'm not too bothered about the planet itself, but I do rather have a vested interest in human civilization continuing.

Re:More Pollution is Better

[drinkypoo]

Upping the atmosphere's CO2 content will just encourage plants and bacteria that thrive on CO2, and the system will pull itself back into line.

Note that animals don't thrive on CO2, and that fairly small shifts in the percentage of environmental CO2 cause nausea, confusion, and panic. The single largest mechanism for removing CO2 from the atmosphere is NOT respiration, but oceanic gas exchange leading to acidification, in turn moderated by exposed undersea limestone which scrubs the ocean as currents draw water past it. Unfortunately, this mechanism has already been pushed past its limits, so CO2 levels continue to rise. Even more unfortunately, the earth is losing vegetation daily, to human influences. The Amazon, for example, is on the verge of collapse (and may already be past the tipping point. Experts disagree.) So even the mechanism you suggest should compensate is being perverted and prevented by man.

Re:More Pollution is Better

[the plant doctor]

Perhaps for a bit, but eventually shifts in climate mean plants can't grow where they once did. They can't pick up and move like we can. Shifts in plant disease and insects due to changes in climate mean new pests. Overwintering of pests is likely to increase as well due to warmer winters. Water stress as rainfall shifts will stress plants too.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be. There's plenty of other factors that enter into this equation, you've only listed one, the one that you find helpful.

Re:More Pollution is Better

[evanbd]

The system will be just fine. It will continue operating at a higher CO2 level. Alongside that, it will have different weather patterns, average temperature, sea level, ocean acidity, rainfall patterns, and other changes. Many of those changes will be incompatible with the survival of some species. For us, though, they're merely incompatible with the way we're used to living -- where we have our major cities, our farmland, etc. Adapting to the changes would be neither easy nor pleasant.

The fact that the Earth will continue onward with a new balance does not mean we would much like that new balance.

Re:More Pollution is Better

[ebuck]

That's all fine a well, more CO2 is more food for plants, except you have it wrong. Sugar is food for plants, and it is produced from Sunlight, using CO2 as a temporary storage for the energy captured by sunlight. When the plants then burn that sugar, they too release CO2. It's just that the overall picture has plants storing a lot of that CO2 in its structural elements.

Also, expecting nature to pull the system back in line based on supply of CO2 is just silly. Did we also increase the supply of sunlight? What about suitable water sources? What about increased arable land? As far as I can tell, we are tearing up forests that have stood for a mere 30 years (possibly longer, but I'm not old enough to know) to build subdivisions. Then we plant "trees" which are so small (cost savings) that it will be 20 years before they can provide a usable amount of shade.

I would say that if we provided more of all of the necessary elements, then we would see things coming back in line. But as far as I can tell, we have less sunlight (smog), less suitable water (diverting surface water to feed cities), less fresh air (pollution), and less land (development), and somehow nature is to bring it all back because we have a bumper crop of CO2?

Re:More Pollution is Better

[Wonko the Sane]

Even more unfortunately, the earth is losing vegetation daily, to human influences. The Amazon, for example, is on the verge of collapse (and may already be past the tipping point. Experts disagree.)

Other than being completely opposite of true, you make a good point.

I don't know

[DSwitz]

This Proposal seems rather Modest.

Do your part

[Anonymous Coward]

Slaughter all your pets, you eco freak hypocrites.

Bullshit

[Rix]

Grass-fed beef and organic chicken still have bits that aren't worth using for human consumption. What do you think happens to that.

The grains would be grown and left to rot regardless; farming is ridiculously subsidized.

Re:Bullshit

[value_added]

Grass-fed beef and organic chicken still have bits that aren't worth using for human consumption. What do you think happens to that.

It ends up as hamburger? Well, not grass-fed or organic, but that's one place where the "meat" that no one would eat ends up.

Dogs are naturally scavengers and will happily eat most anything. It's presumptuous to think that there's a vast untapped market for the meat or animal byproducts that go into commercially-prepared pet food. And certainly not one as profitable as the pet food industry. Hell, the origin of of commerical pet food in the early 20th century probably grew out of some enterpreneur realising, "Hey, I can make money selling this garbage", and consumers trading their own leftovers (the traditional method of feeding pets) with the convenience of that packaged garbage.

Me, I feed my dog from the table. I cook, so there's no convenience in buying pre-packaged dog food, and there's certainly more than enough "extras" that would otherwise end up in the kitchen trash.

Re:Bullshit

[drinkypoo]

It ends up as hamburger? Well, not grass-fed or organic, but that's one place where the "meat" that no one would eat ends up.

There are plenty of organic prepared foods products. You can indeed buy organic chicken nuggets. You don't think they're really made out of 100% breast meat, do you?

Re:Bullshit

[Rix]

There's still plenty that's not fit even for hamburgers or "nuggets". Things like organs, and ground bone.

Interesting rhetoric - but a bit shortsighted

[Cochonou]

Actually, I'm surprised the authors stopped so early in their quest of comparing apples to oranges (with meaningless criteria, as it has been pointed out by others slashdot users). The next logical step would have been to put into perspective the energy footprint of children. Think of the children - and of how many 4WD vehicles you could drive for the same energetic price ! Well, they probably saved this metric for their next scientific article.

Re:Interesting rhetoric - but a bit shortsighted

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone loves children the way you do

Re:Interesting rhetoric - but a bit shortsighted

[drinkypoo]

The next logical step would have been to put into perspective the energy footprint of children.

The footprint of an average human is already well-known to be significant, and conservationists have been preaching a reduction or reversal of population growth for decades, thus this is not even inconsistent with that particular view. Nice karma whoring though.

P.S. Apples and Oranges are both tree fruit, so they are highly comparable. Just another stupid saying for stupid people. But as my friend Rodent says, "There's a fine line between sayings that make sense."

Re:Interesting rhetoric - but a bit shortsighted

[ceoyoyo]

Please don't describe a general audience book written by a pair of architects as a "scientific article" even if you're joking.

Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

I'm fucking fed up with people absolutely losing their minds whenever the word "environment" is mentioned. Suddenly they're willing to buy stupid shit that makes no sense. People lose all objectivity, all ability to add up total cost of ownership and conversion and turn into sock puppets for large corps who are selling them fairytales about being green.

Shit like this wouldn't fly with a sane rationed well educated public:

1) Compulsory replacement of lightbulbs with more expensive technology "for the environment" (no it's not just because there's a huge profit to be made selling new technology at 20x the price, honest it's not). Never mind that LED technology has much more potential.

2) Creation of flimsy plastic bags that fucking fall apart so that you need twice as many to carry the same groceries followed by the removal of plastic bags with studier but still flawed and breakable "green" "enviro" bags which are now sold at large profit instead of being given away. Lets nickel and dime our customers to death in the name of the environment - but we couldn't possibly stop filling their mailboxes with dead tree junk mail. Fucking hypocrites!

3) Solar hot water systems that cost more environmentally and financially to produce, install, run maintain than their conventional counterparts, often require that they be supplemented/boosted by a conventional heater (so net negative gain in terms of production). Honest it's not about selling shit people don't need!

4) Water conservation and rationing. What a fucking joke. It's got nothing to do with environmental impact of building more dams and desalination plants and everything to do with the dollars it takes to do so. Water is not scarce on this planet. It recycles well if you don't abuse it badly with extremely noxious chemicals. The system is build to deal with the shit and piss of every creature on the planet. Anything short of sewage and noxious chemicals often can be reused if we weren't so skitish about grey water. Water as a scarce resource, and kids no longer being able to play in their back yards with a hose has nothing to do with environment and everything to do with politicians lining their pockets with taxes that should be spent on infrastructure.

Want to know what you can do to stop fucking the environment? No you don't need to fucking eat Fido. Don't have more than 2 kids in your lifetime. Want to be really good? Have just one. Not into kids? Don't let your birth control regime slip. The one reason we're fucking up there environment is that there's about 6.5 BILLION people and growing. That many of a species that without modern technology and medicine should by rights number in the tens or hundreds of thousands just isn't going to be sustainable. Yet we breed like we're insects and look for ways to live longer and longer (even if it means our quality of life is ass in old age).

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[ProfM]

The one reason we're fucking up there environment is that there's about 6.5 BILLION people and growing. That many of a species that without modern technology and medicine should by rights number in the tens or hundreds of thousands just isn't going to be sustainable.

I was actually agreeing with what you were saying ... up until you started going all population control.

The main reason that population control goes all wacky, is when you run the numbers, EVERY man, woman and child could live in the state of Texas, with NOBODY else on the planet ... and that is with everyone having about 1200 sq ft around them. Start grouping people into families, and the size needed to hold everyone gets smaller. Now, just start going up ... you get the picture.

Also, how many insects are around? They don't have any "modern technology" and yet "at any time, it is estimated that there are some 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects alive." Your argument that humans are overpopulated just doesn't hold water.

However, if you continue to feel that humans are overpopulating the Earth, please lead the way in reducing the population instead of telling everyone else what they should do.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Melibeus]

In reply to your points,

1) On CFLs. You have this one right. It's a ery obvious case of greenwash.

2) Getting plastic bags out of our waste would be a very good thing. I've seen how many end up in the ocean and affect sea life. I agree though that the
supermarkets cynical approach is to sell us plastic bags that should be cheaper to make. Today I bought a 'biodegradeable' bag made from corn starch or some such thing for 15c. I can't see how cornstarch is more expensive than using oil to make plastic. Someone is profiteering, supermarkets or bag makers?

3) I don't see your point with solar hot water systems. My parents had one since the mid 1960's. It was replaced once and has given them hot water for four decades. They don't take much in the way of materials to make. Its only a metal and glass panel on the roof and a tank. The booster uses much less energy since on a cool day it's only usually having to heat the water from 30 or 40 degrees C. Most of the time the problem was that the water would come out TOO hot.

4) Water scarcity. You obviously don't live in marginal land. The current round of drought in Australia is getting critical. I do agree though that de-salination is not the way to go. Here in Australia we should be pouring less water into cattle, cotton and rice and growing more water efficient crops. Also it's mostly a distribution problem.

Your conclusion is spot on. Exponential growth in a finite world will lead to catastrophe. As far as I can see there's not a politician on the planet other than the Chinese communist government that have made any attempt to really address that issue.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Vovk]

Ranting man makes a good point. People suck.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[turing_m]

Want to know what you can do to stop fucking the environment? No you don't need to fucking eat Fido. Don't have more than 2 kids in your lifetime. Want to be really good? Have just one.

Choosing to be the lone martyr is as effective as being the lone yeast cell in the bottle of sugary water that doesn't reproduce. Individually deciding not to have kids won't work. Population control needs enforcement from government. No way I'm taking one for the team while the free riding asshole over the road has 17 kids because his god wills it, or if the government of the day decides to import someone new (through laws or lax border security) for every child I decide not to have.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[MosesJones]

Lets break down your "mentalism". I'm not going to argue global warming as I'm sure you think its an evil hoax, so lets just do basic science and economics

1) Compulsory replacement of lightbulbs with more expensive technology "for the environment" (no it's not just because there's a huge profit to be made selling new technology at 20x the price, honest it's not). Never mind that LED technology has much more potential.

Lots of parts of the US, California for instance, and parts of Europe (UK) have or will have issues with electricity supply. Light bulbs are quite a part of that consumption this makes electricity a scare resource (excluding its environmental impact) by having things like energy standards against TVs, cookers and indeed lightbulbs you ensure that this scarce resource isn't wasted. So yes LED technology might be better but the point is that the old technology was certainly worse. Thus by making people use energy efficient devices (including lightbulbs) you actually stop things like rolling brown outs etc.

2) Creation of flimsy plastic bags that fucking fall apart so that you need twice as many to carry the same groceries followed by the removal of plastic bags with studier but still flawed and breakable "green" "enviro" bags which are now sold at large profit instead of being given away. Lets nickel and dime our customers to death in the name of the environment - but we couldn't possibly stop filling their mailboxes with dead tree junk mail. Fucking hypocrites!

Now again putting away the dead dolphins and concentrating on the costs of landfill and the belief that you don't want to live in a socialist country this switch again makes sense. What you are given a choice between is a poor product for free (socialism) or paying a market price for something that lasts longer and has more value (capitalism). So its not enviromental nutters its just plain old capitalism at work.

3) Solar hot water systems that cost more environmentally and financially to produce, install, run maintain than their conventional counterparts, often require that they be supplemented/boosted by a conventional heater (so net negative gain in terms of production). Honest it's not about selling shit people don't need!
Now the Solar hot water systems I know about (for instance the ones that I've seen down here in Australia) are definately nothing like this and are for large parts of the year totally self sustaining. Some of them are pretty damn technically simple (black pipes on the roof) with very little cost of production. If you aren't forced to use these however what is your problem? Its capitalism at work again, the latest Ferrari is a ruddy expensive car, has rubbish amounts of space and sits only two people, why on earth would people pay over the odds when they could just get a truck? The majority of solar water systems sold in the right markets (i.e. hot countries) and geothermal systems in the right countries (e.g. Iceland) are much cheaper to run than conventional systems, sure some people put the system in the wrong place (e.g. a solar system in Ireland) but those things happen all the time. Still I could generously give you that some environmental people are a bit silly (David Cameron and his windmill springs to mind).

4) Water conservation and rationing. What a fucking joke. It's got nothing to do with environmental impact of building more dams and desalination plants and everything to do with the dollars it takes to do so. Water is not scarce on this planet. It recycles well if you don't abuse it badly with extremely noxious chemicals. The system is build to deal with the shit and piss of every creature on the planet. Anything short of sewage and noxious chemicals often can be reused if we weren't so skitish about grey water. Water as a scarce resource, and kids no longer being able to play in their back yards with a hose has nothing to do with environment and everything to do with politicians lining their pockets with taxes that should be spent on infr

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[pspahn]

Have you ever seen what the Colorado River looks like as it "dumps" into the Sea of Cortez? Its flow is not infinite, and a once vast marsh is now barely a trickle due to its use in agriculture.

I wonder, also, if you have ever seen how the land in California's Central Valley has changed in the last 100 years due to agricultural use of the aquifer.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Legion303]

"The main reason that population control goes all wacky, is when you run the numbers, EVERY man, woman and child could live in the state of Texas, with NOBODY else on the planet ... and that is with everyone having about 1200 sq ft around them. Start grouping people into families, and the size needed to hold everyone gets smaller. Now, just start going up ... you get the picture."

An individual human needs more than 1200 square feet of space just to sustain life. Your argument is ridiculous, and I suspect you pasted it from the internets. Consider checking snopes.com before posting again.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I just ran the numbers, CFLs do seem to save money. Even assuming one dies at half its stated lifetime (still, I just replaced a CFL bulb that lasted roughly 17k hours on a 10k hour rated bulb), a 100W equivalent CFL still saves $30 in electricity over its lifetime compared to tungsten. Then there's the cost and inconvenience saved in not having to replace bulbs so often. It's not a universal thing though, if you only use a bulb for minutes at a time, then a tungsten bulb will do better, fluorescents tend to have a limited number of starts.

I'm interested in LED, I guess I should try one, but they seem pretty expensive compared to CFL, more than 10x more expensive and I don't think the additional lifetime, if any, pays back for that.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to tell you, but one individual human requires substantially more resources than one individual insect. Furthermore, individual insects have specialized resources needs but insects as a whole can live in a much more diverse set of living conditions and can consume a much more diverse set of resources.

I have no idea why you would bring up the population of insects. It's among the most ridiculous arguments I've ever heard seriously presented.

I don't know of a good way to stop overpopulating the earth that is also ethical, other than to just suggest to people to please not have many kids, and to get rid of government support structures which promote having children -- though even that runs afoul of ethical concerns, because the same support structures which promote having children are often important if a child is had anyway.

Also, 1200 sq. ft. is pretty much living quarters (btw, I come to 1150 sq. ft. after running the numbers). You aren't going to grow food on that, or generate electrical power, or manufacture goods, or process water, or put down roads (or even paths for walking/bicycles, but you're going to need more than paths to ship the goods required to survive). A single fire is going to take out all of this supertexas, and most other disasters will knock out significant portions of it.

So, I know your point wasn't to just shove everybody in texas, but just to illustrate that there's plenty of space. But the thing is, yes we could use our space more efficiently, but no, you really haven't illustrated anything. You need to work out how much total land every person needs to maintain a certain lifestyle, and how much of earth's surface is suitable for this, and maybe you can break down into subparts to squeeze some extra land out -- eg. humans need X sq. ft. arable land and Y sq. ft. land with nearby freshwater and Z sq. ft. in the vicinity of a power supply and W sq. ft. contiguous and habitable, etc.. Then, equal to your demand of a method for reducing Earth's human population, you have to provide a method by which humans can be arranged efficiently into this pattern.

I live alone in a place twice that big (but somewhat vertical -- probably about 1200 sq. ft. footprint). I'm well aware that living alone in a place this size is not very environmentally conscious of me, but I'd rather not shrink that down.

With all that said, you seemed to be hinting at arcologies, and I think they are a workable idea which attacks the problem of overpopulation by increasing Earth's capacity rather than decreasing our consumption of that capacity -- attempting to solve the same problem.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit like this wouldn't fly with a sane rationed well educated public:

1) Compulsory replacement of lightbulbs with more expensive technology "for the environment" (no it's not just because there's a huge profit to be made selling new technology at 20x the price, honest it's not). Never mind that LED technology has much more potential.

When you add in the cost of electricity, incandescent lighting is, in most cases, far more expensive than CFL lighting. Consumers don't seem to be able to take this in and make rational decisions about it. At 10c per KWH a 100W bulb that lasts 2000h will cost $20 over its lifetime in electricity. A 20W CFL which has roughly the same light output will cost $4 in electricity over the same time and should last a lot longer. Actual lifetimes do vary and do make a difference to the calculation, but in almost all cases CFLs come out a lot cheaper. The trouble is that consumers see a $1 pricetag of an incandescent light compared to a $5 pricetag of a CFL so the incandescent looks cheaper.

I don't think banning incandescent bulbs is the optimal solution, but if the public was fully informed, sane and rational nobody would be buying incandecents and rules to ban them wouldn't be needed.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[sunspot42]

It doesn't. CFL's have made good financial and environment sense for well over a decade now, at least in most lighting applications. Unless you need a bulb with a wide dimmable range or some other fairly exotic use, CFL's will always cost out as the cheapest option. The bulbs themselves aren't even that expensive anymore - at IKEA they don't cost much more than standard incandescents do at my local grocery store.

If you live in a warm climate CFL's have another big advantage - they don't heat your room the way incandescent bulbs do. That can really reduce the load on your air conditioner, saving you even more money. And if you have light fixtures in hard to reach areas, they really cut down on the need to change your bulbs. I've had some CFL bulbs in use in the same fixtures now for almost a decade.

LED technology looks promising, but it still isn't as cheap as CFL. Will probably get there though sometime in the next decade.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Veggiesama]

I'm fucking fed up with people... plastic bags that fucking fall apart... Fucking hypocrites! ... What a fucking joke... stop fucking the environment? No you don't need to fucking eat Fido. Don't have more than 2 kids in your lifetime... The one reason we're fucking up there environment is that there's about 6.5 BILLION people...

So the only fucking way to save the fucking environment is to stop fucking so much?

I'm so fucking confused!

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you've already gotten your frontal lobotomy. Enjoy!

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[pkphilip]

The myth that it is the population which is causing all the problems is an old one.

The problem is not the population - but the fact that people are very wasteful.

Example: Do you really need a couple of TVs in your house? Three cars? One way to reduce pollution is for us curtail our purchases - we must purchase less of EVERYTHING. Also, we should try and repair broken things before we head out to buy a replacement.

Also, You are right in that this CFL madness going on is a scam. The bulbs are far more expensive and also much more difficult to recycle because of the mercury content.

Also, what about the latest craze for hybrids and electrics? All electrics and any sort of high-end energy efficient solar panel requires rare earth minerals and these are very, very expensive in terms of energy to mine. But yet, we consider these as good ways of saving energy. The better way to reduce automobile emissions would have been to allow individuals to purchase far more efficient engine replacements for their cars or reconditioning the existing engines and cars without requiring them to completely junk the car to purchase a new one.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

I was actually agreeing with what you were saying ... up until you started going all population control.

I didn't go all population control on anyone. I suggested self regulation if you actually want to do something for the environment. I'm not suggesting the same incompetent and greedy as fuck governments and corporations be put in charge of limiting population. That would not end well.

The main reason that population control goes all wacky, is when you run the numbers, EVERY man, woman and child could live in the state of Texas, with NOBODY else on the planet ... and that is with everyone having about 1200 sq ft around them. Start grouping people into families, and the size needed to hold everyone gets smaller. Now, just start going up ... you get the picture.

It's not about real-estate. There's huge enough sections of the planet unpopulated as it is. We don't need 6.5 BILLION humans alive to maintain a social structure. We could get by with a tenth of that, or a hundredth, and perhaps people wouldn't starve or kill each other over land.

Also, how many insects are around? They don't have any "modern technology" and yet "at any time, it is estimated that there are some 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects alive." Your argument that humans are overpopulated just doesn't hold water.

Fuck me, are you being obtuse on purpose? Insects breed even more prolifically but their footprint compared to a human being is tiny. They don't exactly burn coal to drive hundreds of kilometers now do they? This is possibly the stupidest extension or misrepresentation of an analogy of mine I've seen here. That's really saying something.

However, if you continue to feel that humans are overpopulating the Earth, please lead the way in reducing the population instead of telling everyone else what they should do.

I don't plan on having more than 2 children. I am no more telling people what they should do than the parent article which suggests you eat your dog. In contrast my suggestion of not breeding like a rabbit is moderate. But feel free to twist it as stupidly as you possibly can. I bet you're one of these religious nut jobs that has a family of 12 because god told him contraception is sinful.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

Today I bought a 'biodegradeable' bag made from corn starch or some such thing for 15c.

Count yourself lucky. You say you live in Australia too? Here in Sydney they sell for $1-$2 and they're made of supposedly biodegradable plastic. They're much more durable than the flimsy plastic bags they've been making for the last 7-8 years but they still break and they often get forgotten at home or in the car. Which means more are made and sold. More money for the corps, but the environment gets fucked.

Your conclusion is spot on. Exponential growth in a finite world will lead to catastrophe.

Half the problem is that we have a financial system that requires exponential growth. Negative growth is an economic disaster. Negative population growth and an aging population is also economic disaster. All the posturing in the world doesn't change that little fact about our economic system. All these band-aid half assed half measures are pure fiction that's being spouted to sell shit.

As far as I can see there's not a politician on the planet other than the Chinese communist government that have made any attempt to really address that issue.

I don't trust the politicians to do it. WE have to do it. If we want to make a difference, don't worry what car you drive or what shopping bag you use. Sure reduce waste - switch off things that aren't being used, don't buy crap you don't need. But the real difference you can make is just limit the number of kids you have yourself without being forced to do it.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

Choosing to be the lone martyr is as effective as being the lone yeast cell in the bottle of sugary water that doesn't reproduce. Individually deciding not to have kids won't work.

It'll work better than eating your dog.

Population control needs enforcement from government. No way I'm taking one for the team while the free riding asshole over the road has 17 kids because his god wills it, or if the government of the day decides to import someone new (through laws or lax border security) for every child I decide not to have.

The government is corrupt and amoral and just as batshit insane as any religious nutter. If you look at the amount of effort you put into raising a kid well, no one is taking "one for the team" by having just 2 children. It'll actually give you a chance to enjoy the one or two you have if you don't have a whole line of them vying for your time.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

Lets break down your "mentalism". I'm not going to argue global warming as I'm sure you think its an evil hoax, so lets just do basic science and economics

Well then you're a complete fuckwit for assuming you know my mind. I have no doubt that if you push a system it'll react therefore I have no doubt we're fucking the environment and not just through global warming.

So yes LED technology might be better but the point is that the old technology was certainly worse. Thus by making people use energy efficient devices (including lightbulbs) you actually stop things like rolling brown outs etc.

THAT is your idea of basic science? You're an idiot. Basic science does not mean forcing people to use new and unproven technology every few years when you have something clearly better under development. Basic science means you don't introduce new problems (mercury!) in order to solve old ones. Fuck it it's not basic science - it's basic common sense. Get some.

What you are given a choice between is a poor product for free (socialism) or paying a market price for something that lasts longer and has more value (capitalism). So its not enviromental nutters its just plain old capitalism at work.

Well if it's capitalism you favour, why are you suggesting that there should be controls on the market? That's now how capitalism works, and if you knew what you were talking about you'd know that. Capitalism is what got us into this fucking mess in the first place. This is the misuse of capitalist principles and the use of false advertising - ie that these are better for the environment when in fact they take longer to degrade and will eventually do more harm. These products aren't better for people. The old plastic bags were much better and cheaper. They're not better for the environment either. They are better for the bastard selling it to you. Which I suppose is what you mean by capitalism. These same pricks were happy to give away free plastic bags for decades to entice shoppers but now that they've got the environmental boogie man on their side it's time to make a huge profit out of people's stupidity.

If you aren't forced to use these however what is your problem?

My problem is that they're being sold on the basis they'll do fantastic things for the environment. If you don't understand why owning and maintaining 2 hot water systems might go against that I can't help you. They're not free in terms of money or the environment to produce. I'd love to see some long term statistics including costs of installation, maintenance and replacement that aren't skewed by advertising bullshit from people who stand to make a fortune installing them. Until then I'm skeptical. I happen to object with most forms of false advertising that prey on stupidity and a lack of balanced view. Captalism is clearly your religion. Stick it where the sun don't shine.

Now here is where you move firmly into a mental category of your own. Australia is a massive problem with water shortages due to a long term drought.

Thanks for lecturing me on the country I live on. More fucking assumptions completely unbacked by any kind of reasoning.

Fresh water isn't a scarce resource if you can produce it easily. You're such a proponent of solar hot water systems. Heat sea water with a piece of clear plastic over it and you have fresh water. It's cheaper to manufacture a plastic sheet than it is all the pipework for a solar hot water system. Yet you have no problem with people installing the hot water system and are happy to rant about fresh water. Typical inconsistent thoughtless bullshit from someone who worships capitalism and will believe anything he's told by a megacorp or greased up politician.

The water problem in Australia is in fact one of water transportation - we've populated places too far from the coast. We're trying to fucking grow crops in places that are essentially arid desert and scrub. THAT is the mistake, not the fact that we let kids play with fucking garden hos

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Ma8thew]

I don't agree with your other points, but your complaint over plastic bags is the most outrageous. How hard is it for you to buy a couple of canvas bags to take to the supermarket with you?

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely agree with you: any environmental analysis is pure bullshit if it does not begin at the root of the problem: demographics.

In other words, if you have more than 2 kids, fine for you, but you better shut up about anything green because you are in no position to criticize anybody's lifestyle regarding eco-friendliness...
I think about it everytime any greenie with a large family (and those are common among the greenies) tells me to change my behavior because I "need to save the planet for the children". Yes, their children, which they have in excess...

Only worst thing is the economists lamenting about the aging population and proposing increased birth rates and immigration to solve the problem....talk about a sustainable solution, LOL!

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[turing_m]

It'll work better than eating your dog.

By deciding to weight the gene pool in favor of irresponsible, yeast-like humans by not breeding? Only in the short term. In the longer term the population growth rate will increase. Long term problems don't get solved by short-term thinking.

The government is corrupt and amoral and just as batshit insane as any religious nutter. If you look at the amount of effort you put into raising a kid well, no one is taking "one for the team" by having just 2 children. It'll actually give you a chance to enjoy the one or two you have if you don't have a whole line of them vying for your time.

I know my personal quality of life may take a hit with more kids. For me, life's about more than immediate or even long-term pleasures, especially of the senses. YMMV. I'm concerned about how my kids will fare in the world that they are going to end up in. To some extent it is also a numbers game. If unchecked exponential growth is going to turn the country into a favela, a purely high-investment parenting style will be trumped by thuggery. Someone with 6 stupid and aggressive kids who end up killing or causing the 2 carefully nurtured kids of a high-investment parent to move away "wins" genetically speaking, even if 2 of his kids end up dead or in jail.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

. Someone with 6 stupid and aggressive kids who end up killing or causing the 2 carefully nurtured kids of a high-investment parent to move away "wins" genetically speaking, even if 2 of his kids end up dead or in jail.

If that were true, we'd never have made it out of the trees. The more intelligent family is going to do better and be better at avoiding the thuggery. Brains, not braun are the main reason the human species has thrived. Plenty of stronger creatures exist. None use tools, speach, and their minds like we do.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

So your argument is that by exhausting a single supply and not looking for alternative supplies that water is scarce? Come on. Ever heard of rain water tanks? Fresh water falls from the fucking sky for fuck sake.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

My experience has been that CFLs don't have significantly longer lives than incandescent bulbs. They've only saved me money for a while because the government has given them away and I've bought a total of four globes since this enviro-madness started. Free is better than cheap. Once I have had to buy my own, any cost savings are going to be in the running costs only, and the prices are still sky high, the quality of the light worse.

LEDs have truly incredible life. I don't own LED globes yet but I haven't had an LED on a torch die yet. Estimated lifetimes vary from years to decades. Trouble is there's no money in selling globes that don't blow longer term.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Bongo]

I'm fucking fed up with people absolutely losing their minds whenever the word "environment" is mentioned. Suddenly they're willing to buy stupid shit that makes no sense. People lose all objectivity, all ability to add up total cost of ownership and conversion and turn into sock puppets for large corps who are selling them fairytales about being green.

Shit like this wouldn't fly with a sane rationed well educated public:

Thanks for your post, very much agree. At the end of the day, if there are more people than the means to support them with capacity to spare then there's a problem. I say that because the "too much waste" argument is backwards. We should be able to waste lots, as that is a sign that we have plenty of spare capacity to work with, that we have the spare raw materials to go out and invent new stuff. It is about having backups and spares. I mean, I have several backup disks, instead of one I have four--is that waste? Or is that resilience and "sustainability" of my data?

The people who go for the "too much waste" argument are basically coming from the view that "humans are selfish and greedy". Well, there is some truth in that, but it has little to do with the environmental system, a system where multiple species compete, and you know, eat each other. That's how life works.

Our problem is that perhaps we have more people than the systems to support them. But it is a timing issue. More people means more brains and greater concentrations of people which leads to advancements in local culture (poor rural people have big families, educated people in Western cities have fewer children, I for one have none and am married and 40). The advancements mean that those parts of the world will continue to develop and who knows, we might all be running off of Chinese fusion reactors one day.

Our task is just to get to the next level before we die on this level. Sure, people can spiritually evolve, become less greedy, less selfish, less concerned with material wealth, but make no mistake--and this is the mistake most extreme environmentalists make--our present world and freedoms are built on material prosperity. If you reduce material prosperity, you throw culture back to an earlier period. How far back depends on how bad it gets. Want to go back to those times when women were possessions and slavery was an essential and natural part of the economy? Environmentalists have no clue about this. And the first thing to suffer will be the environment. Older periods were also periods of greater war and even greater selfishness. Slavery, racism, brutality, and cut down every tree in sight.

We need more technologies that allow us to do more with less, not less technology. We need ways to support twenty billion people, so that everyone is in such comfort materially that they never need to reach ten billion. So that everyone's material needs are so satisfied that they have time to turn their minds to higher aspirations, so that we can all afford to be loving to our neighbour, and to feel common human bond of humanity.

We just need the technology: mass produce/grow meat in labs; super materials to build very high to house everyone on a small footprint; virtually unlimited energy, either nuclear or hydrocarbons from the other planets; free flow of information so every individual is highly educated and none will remain trapped in fundie terrorist breeding grounds; cities architected to have multiple backup systems to withstand any sudden natural climate shifts; the list goes on.

Greenies seem to believe that we are all too selfish or too ignorant--we'd rather have our furry pet, or we'd rather not know what it really costs to feed--but even if we know that, what difference does it make? We have always had to face environmental and resource issues, just like every other species does, all the time. What we need are solutions to the problem of how to survive. Greed has little to do with it. If I forsake my lunch, the food doesn't automat

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

So the only fucking way to save the fucking environment is to stop fucking so much?

Couldn't have fucking said it better my fucking self.

I'm so fucking confused!

Ah fuck, another fucking one.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, two people producing one offspring is a great idea. Please, let's go into negative population growth.

Why is this idea so popular?

Could we save resources, etc by removing people? Of course, but this is the same as the "let's eat dogs" argument this thread is supposed to be about. This "solution" doesn't actually solve anything meaningful.

It would be like halting production on an assembly line to save resources for a company. Sure, you are no longer spending money so the company is saved, but as soon as you run out of stock you have to start producing again anyway so the solution doesn't actually work.

All "population control" does is attempt to take rights away from other people. It's just another one of many tyrannies put into place to "help" the "less intelligent".

Every day I see the modern day equivalent of The White Man's Burden. "You aren't smart enough to make up your own mind, let me do it for you, you poor uncivilized, less fortunate person!"

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[thoth]

2) Creation of flimsy plastic bags that fucking fall apart so that you need twice as many to carry the same groceries followed by the removal of plastic bags with studier but still flawed and breakable "green" "enviro" bags which are now sold at large profit instead of being given away. Lets nickel and dime our customers to death in the name of the environment - but we couldn't possibly stop filling their mailboxes with dead tree junk mail. Fucking hypocrites!

My local grocery store charges $0.99 for a reusable shopping bag, and also deducts $0.05 from the bill for everyone you use. Thus, after only 20 uses, the bag pays for itself and you start to make a small amount of money off it. So not every store is out to nickel/dime you and rip you off at every turn.

4) Water conservation and rationing. What a fucking joke. It's got nothing to do with environmental impact of building more dams and desalination plants and everything to do with the dollars it takes to do so. Water is not scarce on this planet. It recycles well if you don't abuse it badly with extremely noxious chemicals. The system is build to deal with the shit and piss of every creature on the planet. Anything short of sewage and noxious chemicals often can be reused if we weren't so skitish about grey water. Water as a scarce resource, and kids no longer being able to play in their back yards with a hose has nothing to do with environment and everything to do with politicians lining their pockets with taxes that should be spent on infrastructure.

Water may not be scarce, but drinking water is. Most of the people in the world don't have access to clean, safe, drinking water. Granted, my conservation of said safe drinking water doesn't fill the cup of some kid in Cairo or Kolkata, but it still doesn't help to waste it needlessly. I lived in central FL for a while, and water rationing is in effect to limit how much people can water their lawns, or otherwise you know some boneheads would water it for hours every day. And no, very few homes have separate "non potable - safe but not for drinking" water lines run to homes for lawns usage (although many business parks or commercial districts did), so those thousands of gallons of water dumped on lawns were the same stuff coming out of the faucet.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[maxume]

If you can deal with all your waste and grow all your food in a square 35 feet on a side, I will give you a gold star. Make sure not to walk on your neighbors 35 foot box, he is sick of living in it and a little cranky.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[maxume]

There was recently a case in Colorado where someone was getting fined for installing rainwater tanks. See, someone down the river owned the rights to the water that fell on their roof.

In case you don't believe it (there is a pdf there detailing bills to change the law to allow the tanks):

http://water.state.co.us/

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Ma8thew]

I'm going to ignore the unnecessary vitriol in your comment. I am not ordering you to change your actions. You may be surprised to hear that plastic bags are not, in fact, a limitless resource, and as such, they have a value. You may not think the 5 pence, or whatever you pay for them is their actual value, but if you don't like it, no one is forcing you to buy them.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with your other points, but your complaint over plastic bags is the most outrageous. How hard is it for you to buy a couple of canvas bags to take to the supermarket with you?

Very hard actually. I don't often plan my trips well enough in advance to take bags with me. I don't shop in lots of two bags full. I'm not the only one who forgets the bags in the car and stuck with a trolley (or even two trolleys) of groceries has no choice but to buy more bags.

OK, no biggie, that's just human. Still, it's funny how you later rant that your forgetfulness is a 'lifestyle choice' and one that you don't want to compromise.

As it stands I think they're an opportunistic cash grab at my expense and the expense of the environment.

Why do you expect to get something for free?

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[drinkypoo]

The problem is not the population - but the fact that people are very wasteful.

The problem isn't the people, it's the people! Want to try again? Here's a free hint: You're trying to argue that human nature doesn't exist. Since it does, the problem is the population, which is made up of the people. You're saying "if people were all good" and I'm saying "have fun in your fantasy land".

All electrics and any sort of high-end energy efficient solar panel requires rare earth minerals and these are very, very expensive in terms of energy to mine. But yet, we consider these as good ways of saving energy.

Wrong. People who buy hybrids don't give one tenth of one fuck about saving energy. They want better mileage for their own selfish reasons, and they want the cachet that comes with a vehicle marketed as being environmentally friendly. If they cared about saving energy they'd have investigated lifetime energy consumption, and they would find out that the makers of hybrid vehicles do everything they can to prevent you from finding out what the energy cost of production is because it is shit. If you buy a TDI Jetta you'll get it at the same price as a Prius, you'll get substantially more vehicle and you'll have a noticeably lower lifetime energy consumption. If you run it on waste vegetable oil (kits have a way of cropping up for even new diesels fairly quickly) then you can bring your energy consumption down still further, something not possible with a gasoline hybrid.

People who buy hybrids are buying smugness, period the end full stop. They do not care about lifetime energy consumption. If they did, they would have bought a TDI (new car option) or just fixed an older, fuel efficient car with relatively low emissions (best option.)

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Picard_1701]

Hey, buddy, in general I agree with you. It's mostly a cash grab spun really well. But. The water thing is real. We are messing with the fresh water cycle in a way that has, historically, ended civilizations. Overview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2000/world_water_crisis/default.stm Most shocking to me are the Aral Sea and Mexico City. Aral Sea because it already happened, and Mexico City because if it destabilizes, well, North America gets a hell of a lot more interesting. Aral Sea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea Mexico City http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125270169029204249.html

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[green1]

>> Unless you need a bulb with a wide dimmable range or some other fairly exotic use

When did dimming a light bulb become an "exotic use"??? Most houses have at least 1, if not several dimmable bulbs in use, and most of us don't want to give them up!
I love CFL bulbs, and all my non-dimming fixtures now have them, but I still have 8 bulbs that I can't replace with CFLs because, regardless of what the manufacturers claim, nobody has yet produced a CFL that dims!

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[fmobus]

They're much more durable than the flimsy plastic bags they've been making for the last 7-8 years but they still break and they often get forgotten at home or in the car. Which means more are made and sold. More money for the corps, but the environment gets fucked.

I lived a year in Germany, where no supermarket would give you plastic bags for free. As a result, everyone carried their own sturdier plastic bags, or stored their groceries in their backpacks. Also, their cities are walkable - supermarkets are at walking distance for most people. I have then returned to Brazil where, used to reusable bags, I have purchased a dozen of them (also brought some from Germany). I keep some at work, some in the car, some at home. In these last three years, not a single such bag broke on me. Some of them support weights up to 12 kilograms. Compared to my fellow countrymates, who use and dispose of something around 800 plastic bags a year, I think I'm good.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

You're post was pretty good until the last paragraph. With that paragraph you fell into the classic fallacy that Malthus used a couple hundred years ago. You completely lost your "objectivity."

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

So much anger... lol. Their are many valid criticisms of the environmental craze, but none of the ones you listed are among them.

1) Replacement of incandescent light bulbs w/ fluorescent are one of the cheapest way to lower energy consumption... It's not 20x the cost, it's maybe 5x the cost, and offers up the same level of brightness at 1/4 the wattage. And lasts a lot longer. Sure it would probably be slightly cheaper to stick to multiple incandescent light bulbs, but we're talking a few extra dollars here (taking energy saved into account), for a lot less energy consumed. When LED light bulbs are readily available, people will shift over to it.

2) Biodegradable plastic bags are a GOOD thing.. regular plastic can break down quickly in the ocean, but it can take hundreds of years to actually dissolve. Mother nature is not equipped to handle this, and the consequences of this over the long term cannot be predicted (although common sense would say the impact would be very bad) .

Also contrary to popular belief, paper is generally not bad for the environment as the trees we use to produce them quite literally grow faster then we are able to cut them down. (So in fact, the process of recycling paper is bad for the environment). Trees are a sustainable resource, and the ones we use for paper can mature in only 5-10 years.. More people need to be educated with this.

3) I spent about 60 seconds on google trying to find a link saying that solar hot water systems cost more environmentally then they save, but with no luck. You'll have to give me some kind of source for this before I can believe it.

4) I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. You're saying that water is only scarce because we recycle/treat it (w/ chemicals etc)? This makes no sense whatsoever. Why would we recycle water in the first place if their wasn't a shortage? Is this all just anger and not being allowed to wash your car with a hose in the summer? Or at the idea that humans are not willing to drink or bathe in dirty water?

lol. You are getting angry over having to spend nickels and dimes while ignoring the actual problems with the environmental movement. E.g. the billions of dollars wasted in taxpayer money every year on recycling paper/plastic, when it has been proven over and over again to cause more environmental damage then it save (Recycling aluminium cans though is good - as proven by the fact that private companies are willing to buy empty cans).

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is paying for this energy cost of production?

Moron. If they actually used that energy like you say, they would cost more.

What kind of a commie shithole do you live in that you think people just go to the factory, use up a bunch of energy to make a car and that nobody pays for it.

Moron.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Man! you are sooo angry... go eat some fido and have fun!

Anyway, i agree with you. For 6.5 B person on this planet, there's no point on what you are going to eat. We are already too many, and only a birth control plan, with some kind of consumism-control (people must stop buying everything they see) will have some effect on the future.

Eating dogs is just a joke. A bad one.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[rainmaestro]

That many of a species that without modern technology and medicine should by rights number in the tens or hundreds of thousands just isn't going to be sustainable.

Okay, I'll preface this by saying that I agree the current rate of growth is not sustainable.

However, the idea that our population should number in the thousands is way off. Pre-Columbian populations in the US were >1 million (estimates range quite a bit, but the *low* end of the scale is still above 1 million). The city of Alexandria at its peak in ancient times had over 300K citizens. Neither example had anything close to "modern" technology and medicine.

The real problem is not so much the numbers, it is age. We weren't meant to naturally live into our 80's. With a faster turnover from the "natural" life expectancy of 35-45 years, you could probably support more people (fewer "drains" on resources from the old/infirm/etc).

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Hatta]

Consider it a favor to yourself then. Research shows that non-parents are happier than parents. Kids are an enormous drain on your financial and emotional resources. And yeah, parents will say "it's worth it", but their judgment is clouded with hormones. Spend your life doing what you want to do, not what your kids want to do.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[SleazyRidr]

I agree with your sentiment, but your specific examlpes are a bit off the mark.

1) I switched to CFL for purely economic reasons, and while I don't agree with making them mandatory, I have been saving money. (I haven't had to replace a light globe in 3 years.)

2) Completely agree

3) My parents installed a solar hot water system in 1981. A couple of years ago it started leaking, we called a plumber but no-one wanted to look at it, so I have to get up there with a tube of silicon. Still running, still only have to pay for hot water for 2 months out of a year.

4) Now this one I do take issue with. There are only certain areas which are suitable for building dams. Everyone gets excited about the idea of recycling water, but that incurrs a sizeable energy cost. Certain areas of the planet can only support a small population. I am a huge fan of grey water recycling, and so are the trees in my backyard.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

YES. even worse, with each new technology or environmental initiative, the original problem, overpopulation, can be pushed into the future for resolving. we dig in deeper as we refuse to deal with unintended consequences of our behaviors. and, of course, the planet is perfectly fine with cycling us out of the system, using disease, or infertility (trust me, the planet will "adjust" us). nature bats last. if we want to solve this problem, we cannot fight with ourselves, and cannot fight nature. if we fight, we lose.

The solution, as mentioned in SCI AM this month, is educate girls, so they grow up to not have so many children. i dont mean indoctrinate, just give them the same hope each boy has of having a real human life, and not to be a baby machine/slave to men. maybe 5 generations from now we can be down to below 500 million, with green technology making a difference at that point.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[rainmaestro]

You see the same in some stores in the US now. Mostly discount stores, but also in stores like Aldi (a German-based corp, IIRC).

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[kimvette]

2) Creation of flimsy plastic bags that fucking fall apart so that you need twice as many to carry the same groceries followed by the removal of plastic bags with studier but still flawed and breakable "green" "enviro" bags which are now sold at large profit instead of being given away. Lets nickel and dime our customers to death in the name of the environment - but we couldn't possibly stop filling their mailboxes with dead tree junk mail. Fucking hypocrites!

I actually use those bags as trash bags in the bathrooms and bedrooms, and at the office. They are the perfect size for desk/sink/bed-side wastebaskets! I also use them for food waste that can't go down the garbage disposal (hard bones and such) so I can take the food waste out before the trashcan is full. Otherwise, I try to remember to ask for paper bags, because they are renewable, paper also comes in handy, and also because I am helping thin out old-growth forests so that the forests will regenerate. :-) I am no treehugger and see through it for the money-grab it is, with Al Gore's goal of founding new "carbon offset" markets (just like NYSE, NASDAQ, etc. for company shares) but I am into conservation because it benefits ME.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

I'm going to ignore the unnecessary vitriol in your comment.

I love it. You call my behaviour outrageous, tell me you disagree with all my arguments without providing a shred of refutation and then call my response "unnecessary vitriol". You need a reality check.

You may be surprised to hear that plastic bags are not, in fact, a limitless resource, and as such, they have a value.

Nice job. I see you're still in fine form being condescending and insulting, but at least you're ignoring my "unnecessary vitriol".

You may also be surprised to know that sturdier but still quite breakable shopping bags with the word "green" or "enviro" on the side aren't a limitless resource either.

You may not think the 5 pence, or whatever you pay for them is their actual value, but if you don't like it, no one is forcing you to buy them.

What I don't like is paying $1-$2 per bag for a "solution" that does roughly as much if not more harm to the environment than the plastic and assholes trying to convince me that the reason they are forcing me to buy these is the environment when in fact it's the $1.90 profit per bag they're making. I'm sorry that you fail to understand this rather simple concept and that you'd rather be rude, condescending and judgemental, then wonder why you have hostility in return.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[TheRaven64]

On CFLs. You have this one right. It's a ery obvious case of greenwash.

I switched entirely to CFLs about ten years ago now. I've replaced about half of them over that time, although they get dimmer over time so I tend to shuffle them around after a few years so the dimmer ones go in things like my bedside lamp and the brighter ones light rooms. Over this decade, I've saved considerably more than the cost of the bulbs in electricity costs and, given the rate I was replacing incandescents before then, probably saved a lot in terms of bulb costs too.

I'm not sure about the 'greenwash' label; I did it just to save money, not for environmental reasons. The fact that I've used less electricity and not needed to have a hundred or so bulbs made and shipped to me in that time is just a bonus.

Today I bought a 'biodegradeable' bag made from corn starch or some such thing for 15c.

That's crazy. On this side of the pond, supermarkets all sell sturdy fabric bags for about £1-2, depending on where you get them. Each time you use it, they refund 1p for each of your own bags you use. If you shop every week, it takes 2-4 years to break even, but during that time you have a much more sturdy bag and don't have to worry about disposing of plastic bags.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

OK, no biggie, that's just human. Still, it's funny how you later rant that your forgetfulness is a 'lifestyle choice' and one that you don't want to compromise.

My rant is that it's an insane compromise to make because it doesn't make things better.

Why do you expect to get something for free?

If I'm going to be charged for something I'd like the company charging me the money to be honest about why rather than blame it on the environment while they continue to abuse the environment.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[TheRaven64]

light globe

I don't know if this is a poor translation or a regional variation, but I really like this phrase. Very Dunesque. I think I'm going to use it in future.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

I have purchased a dozen of them (also brought some from Germany). I keep some at work, some in the car, some at home. In these last three years, not a single such bag broke on me.

Clearly your needs aren't anything like mine. I tend to go shopping once a month to six weeks and fill the back of my station wagon. (Good for the environment isn't it? Given there's no shop in walking distance, go once a month instead of 6 or 7 times) I have to have about 20-30 bags and they certainly do break. If you're just walking down to the corner shop and filling your 2-3 bags half way it's not the same use case.

Sometimes we have the groceries delivered. It costs a little more both in unit price and for having them delivered. When they arrive they are typically bagged in plastic bags and boxes. One thing you don't see is the thousands of boxes used to deliver the goods you bought to the store. Buy in bulk and you will see that.

Compared to my fellow countrymates, who use and dispose of something around 800 plastic bags a year, I think I'm good.

Let's see 800 plastic bags a year is just over 2 bags a day. For this to apply to you, based on what you've told me you'd have to go shopping every day (or second day at most) and never reuse anything. I bet you buy garbage bags. I can reuse store shopping bags (They aren't suitable for all situations but they are for some. Of course the flimsier the bag the less suitable they are for everything including carrying groceries).

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Ma8thew]

My disagreeing with you did not include any personal attacks. Any condescension in my reply was nothing compared to the direct insult of your 'Fuck you'. I'm sorry that you feel the need to resort to that whenever participating in a discussion. Back on topic, if you don't like the price supermarkets are charging for 'green' bags, you can get them somewhere else. It is one of the marvels of capitalism. A sturdy canvas bag will last years.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[SleazyRidr]

It's definitely in use on the west coast of Australia. I'll add that to the list of terms I didn't realise were Australianisms.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[fmobus]

I perfectly understand you being forced to shop with a car - it is a "feature" brought to you by US suburban sprawl and nazi zoning rules. I don't, however, see how it justifies the usage of dozens of plastic bags. Think about it: you could just checkout your groceries, put them back on the supermarket cart, pull it right next to your car's trunk, and dump your stuff there. At home, park the car, unload items and voilá: no bags needed. Of course, some small stuff require bags, but you could greatly minimize your plastic bag usage this way.

Regarding the 800 bags estimate: we have some sort of mixed supermarket usage, id est, some people go every other day, some others leave it for the weekend/month. At any rate, the free bags the supermarkets provide are very very flimsy, and people end up putting multiple bags to carry heavier items (think large soda bottles). Also, some chains employ "bag boys" to pack your stuff upon checkout - some of them just pack stuff a lot. So, in our context, this estimation of bag usage per yer per person is quite reasonable. Also, noone reuses those bags for shopping - most people use it to pack their trash afterwards. This is not a good idea, given that those bags use "first-rate" plastic. It's always better to use garbage bags, as they are down-cycled plastic. I heard someone created a biodegradable garbage bags, but have not seem them yet.

Some initiative is underway to this regard: some Wal-Mart stores give a small discount whenever you bring your own bags or totes. Some locales are also talking of forbidding free bags on supermarkets, enforcing some Germany-like scheme.

Of course, US has bigger eco-problems than bag reuse can solve: suburban sprawl is a BITCH, and something should be done about it.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[AbRASiON]

Exactly this, I could rant for days about what you said but you covered it all basically.
I think this movie quote genuinely sums up my feelings about this.

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realised that humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague, and we... are the cure.

Long story short, nope - not having kids, no way in hell.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

Think about it: you could just checkout your groceries, put them back on the supermarket cart, pull it right next to your car's trunk, and dump your stuff there. At home, park the car, unload items and voilá: no bags needed. Of course, some small stuff require bags, but you could greatly minimize your plastic bag usage this way.

Love it. People have no concept when it comes to stepping out of their own shoes. I'll tell you what. I'll do that. You can come around to my house and pick 300 unbagged items out of my car individually and take about 250 of them upstairs to my kitchen. Lets see how long an excercise it becomes.

Not to mention the time it would take to load the car item by item from the trolley. There's a reason shoppers use bags!

Honestly with such a profound lack of understanding of the problem, you're simply wasting my time.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[syousef]

My disagreeing with you did not include any personal attacks. Any condescension in my reply was nothing compared to the direct insult

You don't think telling me that you're outraged by what I said is a personal attack? YOU BET I got more direct with you.

Stop ranting about captialism. Capitalism has directly contributed to the current environmental mess.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Ma8thew]

I said I was outraged by what you said, not by you. That's the difference between an argument and a personal attack.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[petermgreen]

Brains, not braun are the main reason the human species has thrived.
The point is that in current western societies very few people die or otherwise get rendered unable to breed before reaching childbearing age. So what determines out evoloutionary performance is how many kids we chose to have. Bright people in general choose have less kids.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[fmobus]

Well, I actually do some month-shopping, and I actually load/unload most big items the way I described. Also, I live on the fourth floor (no elevators). As you said it yourself, it's a hell of an exercise.

My point is: do not use and dispose of perfectly good, first-rate plastic just because it will "speed things up" (wtf is with this accelerated life anyway) or because it's cheap (free). At least consider purchasing some of those reusable, sturdier bags, and leave those in the trunk of you car.

Re:Environmentalism means losing your mind

[Anonymous Coward]

You just need a CFL-compatible dimmer. Conrad sells quite a few of them.

But how does...

[lgbr]

But how does my German Shepherd compare to me? I certainly emit more than two Toyota SUVs with my CO2 spewing diesel truck, my heated house, my heated office, my lawn mower, my motorcycle... the list goes on. As big as my German Shepherd is, he breathes less than I do and he only eats dog food which is more CO2 friendly than all of the methane-producing-cow products that I eat. Perhaps I should teach him to hunt, that way he can start killing ducks. Or do like the police do and use him to start putting minorities in environmentally friendly prisons. He'll get carbon neutral damn quick.

Animals, including our pets, have as much right to our environment as we do. Their track record for the environment is far better than ours.

Plus, pets don't drive cars

[lullabud]

Pets don't drive cars so there's no compound resource consumption going on. Eating neighbors definitely tops eating pets.

A couple of points

[laron]

- If you are worried about the eco footprint of your dog, just reduce your own meat consumption accordingly.

- And as others have already pointed out, dog/cat food grade meat has not the same carbon foodprint as meat for human consumption.

- The comparison of eco footprints between pets and cars is flawed, as long as most cars run on fossil fuels. Pets need arable land, cars consume fossil fuels and add CO2 to the biosphere.

- Their math may be a bit off. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel/ gives the example of 445.5 m2 of land for 47.4l Biodiesel. Scale that up to one hectar (10,000m2) and you get 10,652 Liters of Biodiesel. You either need a very efficient car to go 10,000km with that (1l/100km or 235 miles per gallon) or a vastly more efficient energy plant than rapeseed. (Apologies if I made a mistake, corrections are welcome)

Re:A couple of points

[hkroger]

your math seems to be a bit wrong. a hectar would product 1000L instead of 10000L. Still, driving 10000km with 1000L is not a big thing for a diesel car. That's 10L / 100km. Actually, I guess the most of the diesel cars go easily below that.

Re:A couple of points

[drinkypoo]

- The comparison of eco footprints between pets and cars is flawed, as long as most cars run on fossil fuels. Pets need arable land, cars consume fossil fuels and add CO2 to the biosphere.

How do you think that land is worked? What do you think that land is fertilized with? The answer to both questions is fossil fuels.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel/ gives the example of 445.5 m2 of land for 47.4l Biodiesel.

Making fuel from topsoil is wrongheaded. You make biodiesel from algae, not from soy. In fact, Soy is highly acid and one of the worst sources of oil feedstock; it has high oil production, which is why it is often mentioned, but the oil is shitty. We could produce the nation's fuel needs by only using algae in the desert. (Arguments about the desirability of desert to be saved for another time.) Of course, it would be best to also reduce our fuel needs. One way would be to reduce the relevance of the federal highway system, and subsidize rail instead; it's much more efficient for shipping heavy goods long distances. Another way would be to reduce shipping by increasing point-of-use production.

Save the Planet, Eat Your Children

[uarch]

Why not? They certainly must have a much bigger carbon footprint than the family dog.

interesting responses

[misanthrope101]

I'm not saying that eating pets is viable or necessary, but I find the responses interesting. When people say "we might as well eat neighbors|kids|whoever" they are pretty much putting the lives of animals on the level, value-wise, with the lives of humans. I'm a shameless speciesist (or is it species chauvinist?) and I'm always jarred by people treating animals as if they're as valuable, as humans. I know people who would rather use prisoners for medical research than animals. Seriously.

This thing goes pretty deep, and always amazes me. I used to work in an ER, and I had to sew up a child's face after she was bitten by a dog. After she was discharged , I was criticizing the family for having a 100lb carnivore that was bred for aggression living in the house with their 4 year old child. One of my co-workers got really angry at me, saying "we don't know that that child did to provoke the dog! Did you even ask that?" She blamed the kid and sided with the dog. I was dumbfounded. It fascinates me that people can work alongside one another and have profoundly divergent value systems. I'd have been less shocked to find that an otherwise amicable co-worker belonged to the Aryan Nation than to hear her side with the dog over a mauled child.

Re:interesting responses

[Legion303]

I notice your co-worker's response did nothing to refute your comment. It doesn't matter what the kid did to provoke the dog.

Re:interesting responses

[FlyingSquidStudios]

It may seem odd, but I think a lot of pet owners here, myself included, if they had a choice between rescuing their pets from a fire or a total stranger would go for the pets. That doesn't exactly mean they are the same value as humans, but they have more personal value than humans that I don't know. My two dogs really are like children to me. I have had one of them for 14 years, got her the week I moved out of my parents' house. I empathize with her when she feels joy, I share her pain when she is hurt or sick. I will be as devastated when she dies as I would if I lost any other member of my immediate family. That's how important pets can be.

By the way, one of the reasons the black plague spread so quickly in the middle ages was that people blamed cats and dogs and started culling them. Guess what was keeping the rat population at bay? I'd say that alone is good enough reason to keep our pets around. If you want to lower your carbon footprint, stop eating all that unsustainable fast food.

Re:interesting responses

[lul_wat]

You know why I'd rather the prisoners were used for medical experiments instead of animals? Because prisoners arn't as enthusiastic about licking peanut butter off me

Re:interesting responses

[khallow]

I don't think there's much to say. It's the same mentality that keeps pets from dying in many movies. As far as advocating cannibalism. That's just a natural extension of the thread of "sustainable" living seen here. If you're going to have edible pets for sustainability reasons, then it makes sense, from the same angle, to consider edible neighbors. Long pig is just another meat, after all. And we'd be amiss, if we didn't consider our edibility in this new sustainability paradigm.

Re:interesting responses

[Ma8thew]

Most prisoners are evil? Seriously? In that case the USA has a higher proportion of evil people compared to the rest of the world. Oh, and blacks and hispanics are more likely to be evil than white people.

Re:interesting responses

[qc_dk]

The problem is that it would require a much better hygene. Very few diseases can jump the species gap, and even those that can have a hard time doing so. Any disease in a human however can easily transfer to another human. Dog and cat would probably be safer to eat than pig.

Re:interesting responses

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a pretty fascinating sentiment coming from "misanthrope101".

Re:interesting responses

[Anonymous Coward]

Troublingly, the inability of people to divorce themselves from the "moral good" of owning a pet runs very deep in our culture, and I suspect from conversations I've had with people not raised in a comfortable liberal democracy, owes most of its tenacity to the life experiences of the subject. - If it would never come down to you or the dog, then you never have that thought, and regard pets as sacrosanct.

But I'd be more careful how I approached anyone in that context now. A few months back, the family dog (for whom I had no particular affection for, and felt that attitude was shared generally) was put down after developing very serious motor problems. My elderly father, who had a history of mental illness (despite the longest period of functional behavior since the onset of his disorder) spiralled into an acute, almost psychotically rapid mania. The only trigger I could identify was the dog.

I'd long since stopped caring for and identifying with animals, and most people, generally speaking - I fancy myself something of a hardass. But for a lot of people, pets continue to stand in as surrogates for confronting lonliness, fear, love, and death throughout their lives. They would be the first voluntary, elective connection a lot of children make to another being, the first thing they encounter subordinate to themselves, and most obviously the first time they confront mortality, in time-honored sitcom tradition. Most importantly, no pet will ever verbally challenge its master's belief in it, well except maybe a parrot.

My father had lost most of his army buddies, relatives he was close with, et cetera. He handled all of those better than the dog. And it wasn't even his dog. Ultimately, we deal with human beings as adults. With maturity that comes from repeated interaction and our lifetime's trial and error. Pets never ask us to improve on the model we learn, so we deal with them just as we did as children, if not forced to alter our attitudes. All it takes, I think, is one regression back to an old way of fuctioning to undermine us as individuals, as rational creatures. People project their own feelings onto pets in a way they seldom do with other human beings, and that can be a fundamentally dangerous thing to dispute with someone.

Re:interesting responses

[misanthrope101]

Why the heck did you post such a wonderfully insightful thing anonymously? That was one of the most interesting things I've read in some time.

Re:interesting responses

[DragonFodder]

People need to wake up and start using my long standing philosophy...

"Everything is lower on the food chain"

With its corollary ... "Don't give pet names to your food"

Best case in point I'd seen of this, was one of those reality shows where a family had been given a pig to raise. The intent being they would use it as part of an end of season feast. So they gave it to their son to raise. And, of course name it. So, when the time came tears were shed all around. And instead of being thankful they were able to eat something lower on the food chain, they instead provided drama for all the PETA fools, and child protection idiots to fret over.

Re:interesting responses

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen! Shocked by the first few responses I read, I had to go through all the other posts to find one that shared my values. I'm not a cold animal-hater (I even grew up on a farm), but I do consider myself a realist when it comes to human survival. Anyway, this is the only post I found that shares my beliefs, so thank you for speaking up.

Re:interesting responses

[vlm]

After she was discharged , I was criticizing the family for having a 100lb carnivore that was bred for aggression living in the house with their 4 year old child. One of my co-workers got really angry at me, saying "we don't know that that child did to provoke the dog! Did you even ask that?" She blamed the kid and sided with the dog. I was dumbfounded. It fascinates me that people can work alongside one another and have profoundly divergent value systems.

With incredibly few exceptions, that literally make the news because they're so shockingly unusual, dogs don't just randomly mutilate their family/pack members. With incredibly few exceptions, untrained kids will randomly provoke dogs until taught how to behave.

You are looking in the rear view mirror, not planning for the future.

By your plan, removing the family dog but not training the child, in the future the child will die when it inevitably harasses an even larger stronger dog, and that dog won't have any mercy because it is not part of the family "pack". By your co workers plan, in the future, the child will live because it will understand how to properly handle a dog, or at least how not to get hurt by a dog. I'm sure your co worker thinks you're just as crazy as you think they are.

Interestingly, in your post, neither of you blame the family for not teaching the kid to properly handle a dog, which in a world full of pet dogs, is pretty much a mandatory learned skill, unless you enjoy stitches/death.

Re:interesting responses

[drinkypoo]

The only trigger I could identify was the dog.

Your father was already fucked up in the head (let's talk about mine sometime, you'll see I mean nothing bad about yours by that) and you only noticed because his lifeline was lost. It's always unfortunate when people become broken to the point that they identify better with their pets than other humans. It's probably more common than not among the elderly, who we tend to sweep into a corner when convenient. I don't have a solution for that; I can't stand my parents, they're actually one of the biggest sources of problems in my life and they did little to deserve my attention at this phase, especially my father. But when we identify with animals better than humans, we're not being very good humans. Then again, most of us are surrounded with people to whom animals are far preferable.

I'd long since stopped caring for and identifying with animals, and most people, generally speaking - I fancy myself something of a hardass. But for a lot of people, pets continue to stand in as surrogates for confronting lonliness, fear, love, and death throughout their lives.

This is just not healthy. It might be more healthy than having nothing, but IMO it's a crutch that prevents people from having to connect with other humans.

They would be the first voluntary, elective connection a lot of children make to another being, the first thing they encounter subordinate to themselves,

usually that's younger children, unless you're raising children without others around... which again, is unnatural and unhealthy

and most obviously the first time they confront mortality, in time-honored sitcom tradition.

only because we disguise death in our culture.

Most importantly, no pet will ever verbally challenge its master's belief in it, well except maybe a parrot.

Yeah, my Sun Conure "Baby" (she was named that when I adopted her from some losers who "no longer had time for her" after ten years... on a 25 year lifespan that's pretty fucking harsh) says "Erk you!" to that idea. Just ask her if I'm in charge some time...

My father had lost most of his army buddies, relatives he was close with, et cetera. He handled all of those better than the dog. And it wasn't even his dog.

That's sad.

Re:interesting responses

[dissy]

When people say "we might as well eat neighbors|kids|whoever" they are pretty much putting the lives of animals on the level, value-wise, with the lives of humans.

Well you do have a point there.
Most humans lives aren't worth NEAR that of an animal!

Re:interesting responses

[khallow]

Actually, now that I think of it, there's an obvious issue that justifies the cannibalism quips. Namely, the near absence of considerations of value in the "sustainable life" calculations. A lot of the discussion in the linked article is of the form "X consumes a lot of energy/produces a lot of pollution and hence on that basis alone is a good/bad thing). Since for some reason, we seem to be only considering the carbon footprint (or similar) as a measure of the worth of something, then naturally, we should consider our fellow humans, who generally have a much larger carbon footprint than pets do.

The point of most of these responses is to illustrate the serious fallacy of considering only some small part of a thing as the whole of its value.

Re:interesting responses

[Anonymous Coward]

As if blacks and hispanics are even people.

Re:interesting responses

[misexistentialist]

Dogs are bred to be loyal, selfless, and playful; people are bred to be selfish and serious. It's not surprising that people like dogs better than humans, and though it is somewhat paradoxical that dogs like people better than dogs, it's mainly because we have all the food.

Re:interesting responses

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this attitude is exactly the problem. Not being personal, but it's selfish and antisocial to imagine that you would not sacrifice your animal to save a human life, in a heartbeat, without thinking about it. This seems to be related to the justification of many wrong actions at a distance, where the people killed are not familiar to those responsible. They're still people.

Again, I'm not personally attacking your response. It's a very common sentiment. Maybe an unintended consequence of the kind of institutionalized, detached environmentalism we have where I live. Respecting and preserving nature, and even acting with extreme prejudice to achieve those goals against willfully malicious opponents is not the same as putting animal (or plant) life above human. But, somehow, a great many of us draw the latter from our lessons.

I love animals. We have dogs, cats, and others, and I cry when I bury them. Sure, the article is dumb. Animals are our worthy partners in life and serve many important purposes, including companionship. We needn't be cruel to animals. But sometimes they have to die so that we may live, and it's not because we don't love them, but because human life is so precious.

I really sympathize. I mean, many of us, myself included, retreat a bit from society into a kind of isolated existence. Whether it be technology, suburbs, relative wealth, or whatever, we don't have to interact with other people enough, or depend on them as directly as we used to. But we are all citizens of the world and depend on each other.

Re:interesting responses

[nsteinme]

At least you are honest about it.

I don't understand why people, particularly here in the U.S., are so callous about the unnecessary killing of animals for food. Why would any other life form be worth any less than a human? Killing living things is murder, simple as that. How would you like it if some other superior species came along and raised you just to eat you? I guess it is just one more of those areas like poverty that people are oblivious to because they are fortunate to be far removed from it (e.g. slaughterhouses).

Obligatory Simpsons quote:
“I’m a level 5 vegan-I don’t eat anything that casts a shadow.”

Re:interesting responses

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that we are putting animals on the same level as people, we are putting people on the same level as animals.

  Some people are not even high enough on the scale to be even with animals. Ask any pet owner too choose whether the last seat on a rescue helecopter should go to their family pet or a child molester or some other criminal and they wouldn't even hesitate to answer their pet.

As far as the child is concerned, I don't have much hope for it. It doesn't matter which side of the debate you fall on in "nature vs nuture", the simple fact is that Stupid people beget more Stupid people either through their genetics or the poor home environment that they create. We spend so much time running around trying to save everyone from themselves. Maybe its time to stop and let natural selection take its course.

Re:interesting responses

[outsider007]

Something you might not have considered is that your father identifies with the dog because like pets, old people are treated as 'disposable' when their health problems raise 'quality of life' concerns. If you've recently encouraged him to make a living will you could have made it a lot worse. I'm not saying you did anything wrong, btw.

Re:interesting responses

[TheSync]

When people say "we might as well eat neighbors|kids|whoever" they are pretty much putting the lives of animals on the level, value-wise, with the lives of humans.

Yes, it is crazy! Dogs are way better than humans...

Re:interesting responses

[pbhj]

I've always thought people that devoted to animals to be psychologically deficient in some way - to me it's liking choosing porn in preference to an actual sexual relationship. Weird.

Of course many pet owners appear to have a partner relationship with their pets. Kissing animals that have just been sniffing at shit and licking their own anuses; I will never understand that.

Didn't the Mongols do this?

[pspahn]

I've heard before that one of the reasons the Mongols were so successful was that they not only used packs of dogs during their raids, but would then eat them later. They killed the proverbial birds with this tactic, using them as self replenishing ammo that was edible.

Anyone else heard of this? Quick googling proves inconclusive.

Re:Didn't the Mongols do this?

[TheRaven64]

I've not heard about the dogs, but they did tap their horses arteries and produce a blood pudding when there was nothing else to eat. The horse usually survived (they have bigger reserves than humans), and so did the human. The French army did the same thing on the retreat from Russia in 1812. The Russian army burned the fields as they retreated and the French had poor supply lines because they were expecting to be able to live off the land.

Jonathan Swift would be proud

[focoma]

Wait, you mean this book isn't satirical?

Well would you look at that. Radical environmentalism has gone full circle from wanting to give animals human rights to asking people to eat their own beloved pets. I loathe to see the day one of these people comes to power. Who knows when they'll start to take A Modest Proposal seriously. Save the Planet, Eat Your Children!

That is probably a bunch of non sense

[aepervius]

Most of pet is known to be refuses, or rest of what is left of an animal after human have taken the best or less best part. So the eco foot print has ALREADY BEEN PAID, except maybe transportation cost. Comparing it to using 1Kg of real chicken and surface is a lie, and I smell the kind of lie a PETA associate would do. Remember PETA dislike pets.

The obvious solution

[Jeremi]

Replace your dog with a goat, or sheep. Now you have a pet that feeds itself in the yard, and you don't need to buy (or run) a lawn mower anymore.

Re:The obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

And they're more fun to have sex with.

Re:The obvious solution

[ceoyoyo]

Or get a cat. Cats are SUPPOSED to eat mice and things. They will too, if you let them go outside.

Re:The obvious solution

[ksheff]

mine will eat roaches and spiders that it finds inside the apartment.

Re:The obvious solution

[ceoyoyo]

Ah, we don't have roaches and the spiders aren't big enough for a cat to subsist on.

I'm not sure who this author is...

[andrewagill]

but she has marvelous judgment, if not particularly good taste.

Instead of my dog...

[ProteusQ]

How about I eat an environmentalist?

Re:Instead of my dog...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong book. You're looking for "To Serve Environmentalists".

Their "Pollution"

[kwiqsilver]

For their measurement of "pollution" they talk about CO2 emissions and [anthropomorphic] global warming.

After mathematicians showed the hockey graph was bogus, scientists who contributed to the IPCC report claimed their work was distorted by the politicians, EPA scientists reported that the EPA was suppressing any dissenting opinion, a growing number of scientists in relevant fields have publicly stated that they were pressured into supporting the theory, and...oh yeah...the earth cooled over the last decade in complete defiance of what the global warming alarmists' models predicted, why do people still worry about CO2? There are plenty of real toxins out there, with real scientific proof behind them, polluting the world. Isn't it time we worried about them instead?

Re:Their "Pollution"

[qc_dk]

Only they didn't show the hockey graph was bogus, and lately a completely different method and analysis has confirmed the hockey graph: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~tingley/mean_variance.pdf

why do people still worry about CO2?

Maybe you should ask yourself why you fail to worry about CO2 and you will know the answer to your question?

Re:Their "Pollution"

[kayoshiii]

The earth hasn't cooled over the last decade it has stayed fairly level in temperature. The oceans however have risen in temperature. The distribution however is not even however a disproportionate amount of warming is happening in the artic area. I hear assertions like this being made all the time but when you look closely at the debate from both sides it just doesn't hold water.
where exactly did these mathematicians show the "hockey graph" to be bogus?

Hot dogs ??!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont you people already eat hot dogs ?!

NZ headline: Owner roasts family pet in barbecue

[twosat]

It was big news a few months ago a when a Tongan couple were discovered roasting an unwanted pet dog on their barbeque in Auckland, New Zealand. www.stuff.co.nz/national/2756912/Owner-roasts-family-pet-in-barbecue

You'll have to pry suv & pets from my cold dea

[itsybitsy]

You'll have to pry my suv & pets from my cold dead hand you damn dirty stinking extreme environ-MENTAL-ist human!

First off it's just a means for the author to get sales for his works of fiction, for fiction it will surely turn out to be.

Actually I have a van but still...

They hypothesis of global warming was renamed climate change since the counter evidence kept pointing out too many flaws in AGW. "You are entitled to your own interpretation, but not to your own facts". The facts of AGW simply don't support their hypothesis. The Null Hypothesis put up against AGW is that it's simply Nature at work and that has yet to be proven wrong by anything from the AGW camp while the keystones of the AGW hypothesis are regularly falsified. The more I look into the details of the AGW hypothesis claims the less it seems plausible or possible position to hold.

Save our pets from the maws and jaws of the AGW Pet Eating Hordes! They're pet eating zombies! What's next? Soylent Green is People as a means of saving the Earth from our own AGW mythology?

In a hundred years people will wonder how primitive and gullible we were to accept the intentionally exaggerated claims of AGW folks (like Al Exaggeration is Needed to Get Action Gore, hockey stick reprimanded by his peers Dr. Mann, Dr. Hansen of GISS Nasa who failed in his forecasts of 20 years ago that NYC would be underwater by now, the IPCC and many others).

I prefer to review the actual factual evidence and come to reasonable supportable conclusions.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/25/bob-carter-with-a-down-under-view-of-climate-science

This should actually be more or less common sense

[pseudonomous]

Pets are expensive to "maintain", by this I mean feed, supply medical care for, and in some cases clothe. Things that you spend money on ussaully in some way involve consuming energy, therefore "expensive = bad for the environment". Keeping non-food / work animals around is a tremendous indulgence that is possible only becuase we live in a very affluent society. Of course it's also true that the energy consumption of a pet is still far less then the energy consumption of a human adult or even a human child, but if we are to continue to survive as a species, ceasing to reproduce is not exactly an option. However, for the amjority of human beings, not keeping pets IS.

How about eat your book you putz..

[Bob_Who]

...then eat shit and die.

How about...

[Amiralul]

How about calculating the environmental damage done by printing this stupid book?

Totally flawed "study"

[tomhudson]

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.

Sorry, but that "meat" is animal byproducts that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Nobody but the family dog or cat is going to eat beef lips, eyelids, rendered gristle, etc.

Also, they leave out the cost of manufacture. How much does it cost to manufacture a car, and also to build and maintain the related infrastructure (roads, snow clearing, etc) compared to the cost of producing a dog?

Then throw in the environmental impact of consumables. Gallons of toxic antifreeze, tens or hundreds of gallons of windshield washer literally sprayed all over the environment, contaminated waste engine oil and transmission fluid, etc., asbestos from brake dust and clutch linings, - toxic waste, compared to the organic fertilizer Fido produces from what would otherwise be scrap food.

Contrary to the "study", Fido does NOT eat prime chicken - he gets the left-overs off the carcass, the table scraps, etc., that would otherwise just add up to more organic waste. As such, Fido also reduces the rat problem at landfills, as well as converting waste food into fertilizer if you have a compost heap.

Also, when you need a new car, you have to fork out big bucks. Need a new dog? They can make their own replacements, and you can get pretty much any "pure-bred" for free. I've gotten 2 Newfoundlanders for free (one from a local dog rescue, one as a reward for keeping a lost mutt for two months until the original owners were found, and a St. Bernard for $125 (she was less than a buck a pound, if you're into pricing meat) at the local dog pound. And a wolf, again for free.

You can eat my dogs when you pry their leash from my cold dead hands. But make it a fair fight - both of you naked, armed with nothing but your teeth and claws. My money's on the dogs.

Why stop at the pets? Let's euthanize ourselves

[guacamole]

We can do more to save the planet.

Stop taking vacation trips to save the planet.
Stop watching movies, listening music, etc.
Walk or bike 2-4 hours (one way) to work to save the planet.
Eat as little possible and stop exercising to conserve the energy.
Euthanize all patients who can't pay off the medical bill.

In fact, let's just euthanize ourselves to save the planet.

Why only pets? We should analyze wild animals as w

[Anonymous Coward]

Take into account something big - like a mammoth ! I the analysis done in 13121BC by Bang Bang it was shown that ecological impact of a mammoth is as large as a whole tribe and the only sensible thing to do is to eat a mammoth !!!

In the follow-up analysis by Crack Crack in 13099BC it was suggested that to stop Global Warming ( icesheet in France was vanishing
at a shockingly quick rate) we have to eat all the mammoths. Otherwise our friends in British peninsula could be completely
separated from Europe mainland! This would cause fatal psychological effects for many generations...

The mammoth extintion was approved by an intertribe meeting in a igloo in Ven-Ice hills... All mammoths and further all woolly things
(with exceptions of sheep) were exterminated but it did not stop Global Warming...

Wrong conclusion

[DavMz]

Eating pets because they use resource makes as much sense as using horses to pull cars because they use fuel. I am sure that with such a title the book will be a best-seller: riding the green wave and provocative.

the math is bad

[graft]

Okay, so take me through this:

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.

In other words, they're comparing the INPUTS required to run a car to the OUTPUTS from a hectare of land - isn't this an apples to oranges comparison? They should really be comparing how much energy it takes to produce a hectare's worth of crops (i.e., how many fuel equivalents are consumed in the car and by the dog). This seems a big error in the computation. Also, the thing just doesn't pass the smell test. In all other carbon footprint calculators I can find, food is a smaller fraction of the footprint for an average person compared to driving & flying - often less than half or even a third as much. So if an adult human consumes less energy via food than they do in a car, are you telling me that a dog somehow consumes four to six times more food than an adult human? That a cat does? This sounds like a load of bullshit to me.

hm

[Arimus]

1. Hop on green bandwagon
2. Use unsubstantiated/flawed maths
3. ????
4. Profit

My dog wants steak!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they took into consideration that dogs often eat scrap/waste meat and not prime ribs. I would assume that most of the meat fed to dogs and cats is that which would otherwise be wasted or turned into hot dogs.

yeah, you need to NOT substitute

[r00t]

Essentially you need to reduce your economic activity. You need to work half-time or less.

With less money to spend, you'll have less entertainment and fewer toys. Your environmental impact goes down.

The trouble is that you can't do this. Just try getting an engineering job at 15 hours per week. Tell the prospective employer that you only want to work 2 days per week. Even allowing for a proportionate drop in pay, you won't get this. We've standardized on a long work week. If you won't work long hours, somebody else will.

And why? Oh, probably an instinctive desire to aquire and display resources. It has something to do with preparing for hard times, and something to do with attracting females. We work far more than needed for survival.

Augh! Really bad energy math!

[goodmanj]

I tried feeding my dog gasoline, and I tried putting Purina in my gas tank. Now I've got to go see both the mechanic and the vet, but I'm not sure who should see which patient... This is a classic case of apples and oranges. You can't freely exchange food energy and fuel energy in today's society, so it's meaningless to compare their energy costs.

When you look at the calculation in detail, they work out the amount of farmland per dog (0.83 hectares), then convert the amount of energy used by an SUV into acres of land, by using THE INTENSITY OF SUNLIGHT on that land surface. So yeah, if we had solar-powered cars that worked at 100% efficiency, their calculation makes sense. Otherwise, it's rubbish.

Here's a better calculation: The U.S. has 1.5 hectares of farmland per capita. If every family of 4 owned one big dog, we'd be devoting 15% of our farmland to feeding pets. It's a noticeable chunk of our food resource, but it's not an SUV.

Wrong!

[Fengpost]

Did the study take in account the methane the dog produces? Dogs are even more of a threat to the environment than cattle! Having said that, you would need to get pass me to kill my dog!

Or have kids

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a cat, but we don't have any kids. I'm sure many people view pets as child substitutes. My cat may eat a lot, but next to a human being that will live longer an consume more and isn't covered in fur naturally, my money is on a huge net saving in resources and carbon emissions by having a cat instead.

People are crazy.

[Belial6]

What you are seeing is large scale insanity. It is strange to you because you have not realized that a huge portion of the population (may a majority) can not completely differentiate between a human and a dog/cat/etc.

Mod Parent Up!

[HRbnjR]

Exactly, everyone quit having babies already!! We need to shrink the population, consolidate people around fewer urban centres with mass transit, reverse the sprawl, dig up most the roads, and let a few continents just totally grow over with rain forests again, where we can all just go to visit on vacation.

Here's your problem

[Anonymous Coward]

One hectare of land can produce 135 gigajoules a year, which means....

So, if they had used the energy that a hectare produces on average, instead of some idealized figure the result would have been substantially different. And this 135 gigajoules is produced how? Solar? Hydro? Nuclear???

sounds like homeschooling

[r00t]

I think my daughter ought to accept where food comes from and not be bothered by it. There is also a disection opportunity here, helping her to learn about the organs found in a typical mammal.

The rabbit is also excellent eating. For bonus points, make a fur hat or some ear warmers.

Re:sounds like homeschooling

[Chris Burke]

The rabbit is also excellent eating. For bonus points, make a fur hat or some ear warmers.

And with Halloween just around the corner, think inexpensive costume!

You love Fluffy, don't you honey? Well now you can go out on Halloween as Fluffy!

Re:sounds like homeschooling

[dkleinsc]

And excellent lesson, all told. A similarly teachable moment occurred back when I was working at a summer camp. The kids were clustered near the head cook's cabin, where he was raising some rabbits. The kids asked the cook what their names were. He replied, "this one here is Lunch, and this other one is Dinner".

Actually, that particular camp did a lot of work with farm animals, and not only ate some of the meat they raised (usually referring to it by name, e.g. "pass some more of Porky please") but also handled some of the slaughtering themselves, with the kids.

mice

[Anonymous Coward]

What about mice? I need them for my experiments and I'm not going to eat all that cheese in the fridge myself anyway.

Re:mice

[Yvan256]

You'll be surprised to know that it's the mice that are running an experiment on you.

Oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apples grow on trees.

Oranges grow on trees.

COMPARISON, OH YEAH!

For my next trick, I shall demonstrate perpetual motion.

Hmmm - way to get a Nobel price...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. wage a war

2. kill some people reducing our carbon footprint

3. get a peace Nobel price !!

No way !

[Anonymous Coward]

Dogs : "Time to eat the master". 100% efficient. 100% renewable. So goooood !

sorry, we can't stop

[r00t]

Your desire to have kids is partly inheritable. (brain-related genetics) It should be pretty obvious what will happen regarding evolution! We humans are currently facing HUGE selective pressure from birth control.

Prior to birth control, sex equaled reproduction. Sexual desire was thus equivalent to reproductive desire. We've been selected to desire sex.

Now that sexual desire and reproductive desire are no longer essentially the same, mere sexual desire is no longer a fitness criterion. Future generations will desire kids as strongly as people today desire sex. We'll go back to having huge families because everybody will want them.

Huge wastage

[TheLink]

Actually, maybe we should indeed be eating more different sorts of species to help "spread the damage", particularly for nonfarmed animals and plants.

One of the other things I am very disgusted about is "bycatch" in the fishing industries.

In simple terms what happens is a shrimp boat goes out to catch shrimp, and then for every 1 pound of shrimp they catch, they throw away 5-20 pounds of other animals (fish etc)- which do not survive (usually dead by that time).

Then a sardine boat goes out to catch sardines, and if they also catch shrimp or some unwanted fish they throw that away too (even if that species is edible).Then a tuna boat goes out to catch tuna (and throws away other fish). Then a cod boat goes out, etc...

Tons of perfectly edible fish are wasted and killed. Many of the discarded fishes are sold on the market for decent prices, they just happen to be landed by the "wrong boat".

That is a HUGE FUCKING WASTE. This practice should be banned!

If any fisherman can't cut down on bycatch and stay in business, he should be banned from commercial fishing.

Heck at worst force them to turn their "bycatch" to dogfood, if they can't figure out how to turn it to food for humans.

Re:Huge wastage

[KDR_11k]

I believe the logic is that by preventing them from monetizing bycatch there is no incentive to "accidentally" grab some huge bycatch. Wouldn't want people to "accidentally" grab a whole bunch of dolphins for some dolphin meat black market or whatnot.

Re:Huge wastage

[conureman]

This reflects some similar practices I saw while working in the logging industry in the '80s. Clearcutting, piling slash and burning it, it was not photogenic. I think a little more discretion is in order for our public lands. I'm in favor of horse-team logging on my own bit, as a matter of fact.

Re:Huge wastage

[TheLink]

Limit the percentage of bycatch. And whatever is not bycatch has to be legal stuff. As for throwing away the juvenile fish, no, we should eat them - it is "unnatural" to not eat the baby fishes and instead only eat the big ones. It's "normal" for most fish species to lose millions of babies from each spawn. It's not so normal for them to lose most of the adults.

I know it's not easy, but I like eating fish, and there's plenty of scientific research out there that humans do better on diets that include fish (live longer, less depression etc). If regulation continues to be poor, lots of fishes will go extinct.

Yes it may raise the cost of fishing, but the "small time" fishermen in my country appear to still manage to scrape a living (albeit with some subsidies). So it might actually do them a big favour if the fishing industry stops being able to just "strip mine" the ocean, kill and discard stuff that their onboard canning factory doesn't have labels for.

Re:Huge wastage

[commodore64_love]

>>>no incentive to "accidentally" grab some huge bycatch

Typical example of unintended consequences caused by laws. What's more efficient? To go on 5 trips catching 5 different marketable sea animals? Or to go on ONE trip and just catch all of them at the same time? The answer is obvious.

>>>maybe we should indeed be eating more different sorts of species to help "spread the damage"

A survivalist told me one time that a family could survive on just 1 acre of ground if they learned to eat bugs and worms. That sounds extreme but when the asteroid hit the planet, the only animals which survived were the ones that dug-up and ate bugs. The ones that refused to eat bugs (dinosaurs) starved.

I guess eating bugs is no worse than popping calcium pills - crunchy with a meaty center. Or just swallow them whole.

Re:Huge wastage

[AvitarX]

Current fish regulation appears to work quite well where it is being used (A recent study was done, and found that fisherman in areas that have had only a few years are now doing as well or better than before the regulation, and overall there are far more fish).

Re:Huge wastage

[twostix]

Good grief where to start...

In EU waters (and most western waters) boats are only allowed to take species that they are licensed to take, and of course there are limits on what they can take and once they reach the limit on one type of fish / crustacean they face hefty fines if they *dont* throw them back - dead or alive.

I was watching an interesting doco a while ago where the captain of a prawn trawler was almost in tears as they had had two weeks of terrible prawn hauls so the crew were near mutiny (pay is directly related to how much the boat takes on) but were dragging in tonnes and tonnes of prime fish and under EU law had to throw it all back mostly dead, each time every time as to take it back to port risked him losing his boat.

So laws and regulations written by "well meaning" bureaucrats mandate that in many instance captains MUST take the action that you condemn and ironically you demand more laws and regulations made by the same to make them stop doing what the first set of laws forces them to do in the first place!

Nothings ever so simple as "they should just make a law". In this case they did, because people like you demanded that what they catch and how much they catch be regulated...and huge waste is largely a (now mandated by law) "unintended" consequence like the captains said it would be.

Not to mention, who are you to force anyone to do anything? They're supposedly free men who own fishing boats and catch fish. If you don't like it don't buy their fish or pay more for pet food so it doesn't *cost them* money to bring in junk fish just so you can feed your dog. Truly I hate to sound like a libertarian but you throwing around like phrases like "force them to turn their "bycatch" to dogfood," makes you look like an mini fascist. Just because they own a boat and supply something that you rely on doesn't suddenly make them your personal slaves. Tell us what industry you're in so we can start discussing "forcing" you to do various things that cost you huge sums of money just to satisfy our own personal attitudes.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

There might be no industry in history that so consistently shoots itself in the head the way commercial fishing does. Learn about the waste endured to catch those shrimp and then go to a typical chain seafood restaurant and see how much people throw away on the front end.

Re:Huge wastage

[TheLink]

Yeah that's the sad thing. Regulation can work, the fishes can recover (and the fishermen themselves actually benefit in the end). But so many governments refuse to do it - political reasons etc.

Re:Huge wastage

[buchner.johannes]

So they went out on the sea, killed tons of fish they weren't interested in and that is supposed to be a good thing? If they can't catch any prawns doesn't that just mean there are too many fishermen and the live-stock has been exhausted?
Shifting the problem to other species doesn't seem like a solution to me. Also, a majority of seas is already overfished. Maybe I should see that great docu, but I fail to follow you.

Re:Huge wastage

[plague3106]

Not to mention, who are you to force anyone to do anything? They're supposedly free men who own fishing boats and catch fish. If you don't like it don't buy their fish or pay more for pet food so it doesn't *cost them* money to bring in junk fish just so you can feed your dog. Truly I hate to sound like a libertarian but you throwing around like phrases like "force them to turn their "bycatch" to dogfood," makes you look like an mini fascist. Just because they own a boat and supply something that you rely on doesn't suddenly make them your personal slaves. Tell us what industry you're in so we can start discussing "forcing" you to do various things that cost you huge sums of money just to satisfy our own personal attitudes.

Their right to make a profit at fishing ends when they destroy the econsystem upon which we all depend.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

Is "your country" a time as well as a place? I sounds like the place is Germany, and the time is 1936.

Re:Huge wastage

[ElectricTurtle]

Apparently you're not aware that half-baked, emotionally-driven random people from the internet know better than panels of researchers and industry experts with years of experience.

Re:Huge wastage

[TheLink]

> and ironically you demand more laws and regulations made by the same to make them stop doing what the first set of laws forces them to do in the first place!

I don't see the irony at all. It's not about quantity. It's about quality.

What next? The nunmber of lines of code makes a computer program good? Or the number of words make a book good? Similarly it's not the number of laws, or the amount of Government.

If the law is bad, fix it.

> who are you to force anyone to do anything

Forcing people to do stuff is the business of Governments. Governments must maintain a monopoly on force.

I'm pointing out the problem and it should be fixed. If people have better ideas of how it should be fixed, by all means go ahead and fix it that way. As you yourself have pointed out the present system is badly broken.

I'm all for a free market, but a well regulated free market.

> Tell us what industry you're in so we can start discussing "forcing" you to do various things

Why should I tell you what industry I'm in so that you can launch a personal attack that's likely to be off topic and a waste of time? Just so that you can feel good about yourself? Why don't you go and pleasure yourself in other ways.

Re:Huge wastage

[kaizokuace]

they should allow other boats to come grab the bycatch directly off the boat in the water. This might solve the problem for now.

Re:Huge wastage

[TheLink]

Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod#Endangered-species_controversies_in_Canada_and_Europe

Re:Huge wastage

[bendodge]

Says who? The environment is not king of everything, people. Our laws are still superior to what insulated people in the city say animals want. You may think that the environment is top priority, but it's not, really. I'd venture to say that most people who go around all day thinking about the whales or the algea or whatever wacko cause of the week are people who already have their needs and personal whims catered to.

I honestly think these people would think differently if they moved to the rural areas of America (or whatever country), and had to earn a living by their own sweat. In truth, farmers are pretty conservative people, politically or environmentally. The things the enviroworshippers hate are actually in their own beloved cities.

Re:Huge wastage

[liquiddark]

Do you honestly think bycatch is unregulated at the moment?

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you don't own a shrimping boat...

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

It's badly regulated.

Re:Huge wastage

[ShieldW0lf]

You attribute to the fishermen more control than they have. They're not in control of what swims in their nets, it's the very nature of fishing.

There are a growing number of people keeping chickens here in my city. Meanwhile, the legislation is such that they are not permitted to keep any whatsoever, so the cops and municipal workers are harassing people who wish to be more self-sustaining.

Personally, I'm about to start fish farming in my apartment. I've already got over 100 varieties of food bearing plants growing in here, and soon I'll have protein in addition to vegetables. Should remove fertilizer for my plants from the budget too once the kinks are worked out.

My girlfriend and daughter were both interested in getting chickens called Silkies as pets and eating the eggs. Apparently they're attractive enough that people actually enjoy having them around, docile enough to make good pets and lay good sized eggs, just not quite as often as typical bantam chickens.

Re:Huge wastage

[Libertarian001]

Sooooo... make the license "After the fact." Boat goes out, catches what it can, comes into port for inspection, where appropriate (pro-rated) licenses are attached.

Re:Huge wastage

[pastafazou]

maybe you didn't get the poster's point. They're wasting so much fish in the form of bycatch because they are FORCED to by stupid legislation that was originally designed to PROTECT fish livestocks.

Re:Huge wastage

[russotto]

Yeah that's the sad thing. Regulation can work, the fishes can recover (and the fishermen themselves actually benefit in the end).

Said end benefits are cold comfort if the fishermen have starved in the meantime.

Re:Huge wastage

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Why do humans have to eat the bycatch? What's wrong with throwing it overboard for sharks and other sea scavengers?

Re:Huge wastage

[JerkBoB]

The environment is not king of everything, people.

Trying to understand your point, here, but all I'm taking away from the rest of your rant is that you hate the gub'mint sticking its big-city nose in your hard-working rural business.

Since you're seemingly intelligent enough to work a computer, I'll assume you can figure out how to research something called the tragedy of the commons, if you're not already familiar with the concept.

I'll grant that there are some "hollywood moonbats" who "worship the environment" or something... But in reality what's happening is that government is the only thing that can force people to avoid short-sighted total exploitation of non- or slowly-renewing resources. It doesn't always work out perfectly, but I have greater faith in science-based policy implemented by government organizations than I do in individual wisdom when it comes to shared resources.

You seem extremely hostile to the idea that government might make better long-term choices than individuals. What's your solution to the problems of overfishing, pollution, hill-cutting mining, clear-cut logging, etc? Let the market sort it out somehow? Trust that Jebus will come back soon so our children's children won't have to deal with a polluted world barren of species diversity? What?

Re:Huge wastage

[SleazyRidr]

I wonder if this practice may actually increase the local fish population. After, that's a nice food source sitting there unutilised, drawing in other fish to feed on it. It would probably have more of an effect on birds, but I wonder whether it's also noticable in fish.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to disagree but I have a questions for you. Where would we be without the environment?

Re:Huge wastage

[FatdogHaiku]

Tons of perfectly edible fish are wasted and killed. Many of the discarded fishes are sold on the market for decent prices, they just happen to be landed by the "wrong boat".

Well, nothing edible tossed into the ocean in or near fishing areas is "wasted"... SOMETHING is going to eat that little "fillet o fish from heaven". You think all those birds are circling the boat because they admire the decor? Or, if the birds don't get it, that the food cast aside will just sink to the bottom and rot? If the fishing industry was not forced to toss aside this stuff, the "bycatch" would become much greater, due to profitable accidents. Also, things like shrimp would be "accidentally" taken out of season, when prices should be higher for them.

The way it is now the bycatch is wasted labor for the crew and owner, and that's the incentive that keeps it as low as possible. I do think that fishing areas with unacceptably high bycatch ratios should be off limits... and that shrimp caught in nets have an inexcusably inefficient yield to bycatch ratio in light of the fact that you can raise the damn things in ponds.

Re:Huge wastage

[bugs2squash]

Do you think the fishermen would be happier if they were limits on all types of fish and they had to keep everything they caught and bring it in for market until they either

• reached any individual limit for anything that they had caught or...
• filled their hold or...
• simply got fed up and decided to come ashore ?

i. e. in short, they could catch whatever they liked but throw nothing over the side and per-species catch limits still applied to them.

I don't think so, I think they want to carry on with throwing the byecatch overboard and this has little to do with pen-pushers back at city hall

In fact, without the bureaucrats fish and other "free" resources such as timber would be gone the way of big game mammals. And markets would be flooded with produce, depressing prices until the fishing industry was wrecked by having nothing left to fish for.

I couldn't do the job of a fisherman, and they have my sympathy over many aspects of the hard job they do, but not over regulation.

Re:Huge wastage

[petermgreen]

The fact that EU fisheries policy is fucked up does not mean that fisheries do not need to be regulated. There are plenty of people out there who will happilly play a part in stripping a commons bare in the name of a quick buck.

Re:Huge wastage

[PachmanP]

Says who? The environment is not king of everything, people. Our laws are still superior to what insulated people in the city say animals want. You may think that the environment is top priority, but it's not, really. I'd venture to say that most people who go around all day thinking about the whales or the algea or whatever wacko cause of the week are people who already have their needs and personal whims catered to.

I honestly think these people would think differently if they moved to the rural areas of America (or whatever country), and had to earn a living by their own sweat. In truth, farmers are pretty conservative people, politically or environmentally. The things the enviroworshippers hate are actually in their own beloved cities.

Seriously, guy? It's called The tragedy of the commons. I refer you to Haiti as a case study. "Country Folk" can be just as guilty as anybody else.

Re:Huge wastage

[HiThere]

The problem is that governments haven't been making good long-term decisions either. You're right, they "should", but they don't. Realism requires that we realize that they don't.

Now I will agree that this doesn't provide a solution, and an anarchic operation in this sphere doesn't work either. The problem appears to be that we have a secondary "Tragedy of the commons", where the different countries are each trying to maximize their profit. So the role of the villagers is taken by the individual countries. And many are unwilling to be regulated by an international body.

Thinking a bit more about it, even on local issues (i.e., within one country) governments don't have a stellar record. They're too subject to corruption. They might not think of it as such, but when, say, the Bureau of Land Management takes orders from a Senator or Representative who is bought by a mining company ("I should support my constituents!") rather than considering independent (unbiased by profits resulting from which way the decision goes) advice, to me that's a form of corruption. Under some theories of how government should work, corruption isn't the right term, but I don't use those theories. Under my theories the purpose of government is to steer a safe course into the future, or at least the safest that can be managed. This means considering the long term implications of policy decisions.

Sigh. The world is far from ideal. I don't know of a way to get a decent government, or even what it could look like.

HOWEVER, governments do slightly better than individual companies at regulating environmental damage. It's faint praise, but that's all I've got in stock.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

you dont know what you're talking about, and the mods should be slapped for modding you up so high.

bycatch is very limited, not nearly as large as you seem to think, and there is absolutely no money in it for larger outfits who's boats are aimed solely at one thing. the boats are designed by and large for catching and storing one thing, and excess is either dumped back overboard (NOT WASTE, believe me, it gets used by the ocean), or brought to land and processed. no, not a landfill. think animal feed.

your numbers are total bullshit too. if a boat is catching 5 to 20 times as much bycatch as the target critter then they are obviously doing something wrong (nets at wrong depth, fishing wrong area, etc). which bodily orifice did you pull that number out of?

in short: you're just another typical uninformed slashdotter who oughta keep his mouth shut.

Re:Huge wastage

[BlackSnake112]

Sorry to burst your bubble but if the catch is eatable or sell able, it is sold. If it is the targeted catch or by catch makes no difference. Hell many oyster boats catch flounder (fluke or summer flounder) a lot. Many even keep a barrel of oysters on the boat while they catch tons of flounder. Yes I do mean actual tons of flounder. The barrel is there so if someone stops them they can say they are catching oysters, here are the oyster permits. Even though they are fishing for oysters where no oyster has been caught in over 50 years. The flounder is a by-catch. The flounder is selling for 2-3 times the price of the oysters. They return to shore to sell the flounder and go out with the same barrel of oysters to catch more flounder. In reality, the commercial boats are targeting flounder and trying to cover their ass with the barrel of oysters. I know this because we have often stopped by the commercial boats on the way out and picked up four to five 5 gallon buckets of oysters (for free) to use as bait. You did not want to eat these oysters, there had gone bad. Good for bait, but you would not want to eat them.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

"it may raise the cost but so what"

you completely failed basic economics didn't you? just stop posting. you're an idiot frankly who couldn't find his own ass with a map and a flashlight and both hands. the regulations created your problem, so you want more regulations. you dont read a single thing anyone says. you're wrong in every aspect.

just. shut. up.

Re:Huge wastage

[sjames]

Are you sure? Without the environment, we all die. That's pretty darned important.

It's also fairly complex and full of unforeseen interactions. A number of projects that failed to consider environmental impact have had long lasting repercussions including damage to the very industries the projects were supposed to support.

That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people out there who are deeply misguided as to what does or does not harm the environment and to what degree.

Re:Huge wastage

[Sheik Yerbouti]

"One of the other things I am very disgusted about"

disgusted much?

Lighten up it's just a three ring circus to which we each have tickets.

Re:Huge wastage

[JerkBoB]

HOWEVER, governments do slightly better than individual companies at regulating environmental damage. It's faint praise, but that's all I've got in stock.

Yes. I never claimed that government regulation was perfect, and in fact I am often frustrated by the incredible amount of waste and buffoonery that goes on in the sausage factory that is government.

As you admit, though, government has had a more positive role on policing the commons than any other single entity. As someone who lives in the extreme Northeastern US, I benefit greatly from the clean air laws that "shackle" hard-working coal factory owners across the midwest who are upwind from us. We still deal with increased levels of mercury in our water which has been shown to be a direct result of coal-based power generation, but it's not nearly as bad as it could be (and used to be!).

Have you ever visited a national park? You can thank the government for them. Think private industry would provide that kind of resource, even if it could? You're naive if you do.

Finally, I'll grant that congress-critters are often corrupt and in the pocket of various industries. The beauty (ok, that's the wrong word for it) of the system is that they're mostly in DIFFERENT pockets. There Is No Cabal. Unions vs. owners, Big Pharma vs. Big Insurance vs. AMA, etc. True, the little guy often gets short shrift, but it's the best system we've managed to come up with so far, human nature being what it is.

Re:Huge wastage

[plague3106]

Your right to do something always stops when it causes harm to another. Damanging the environment to the point where fish specices (which we all eat) are nearly exitinct is not a right.

It has nothing to do with "prioritizing" the environment, which you seem to be throwing up as a convient red-herring. This is exactly along the lines of "your right to swing your fist ends at my face."

In truth most farming is done by huge corporations when large machines and huge amounts of pesticides. You mock people that live in cities (even assuming that I do) yet you are totally ignorant with your knowledge of how farming is done today.

Re:Huge wastage

[sammy baby]

Personally, I'm about to start fish farming in my apartment. I've already got over 100 varieties of food bearing plants growing in here, and soon I'll have protein in addition to vegetables. Should remove fertilizer for my plants from the budget too once the kinks are worked out.

Whoa - are there any online resources about this that you could link to? I had no idea people did this on a home/personal scale.

Re:Huge wastage

[FiloEleven]

Remember how there was that big deal about the first woman winning the Nobel prize for economics? It's a shame that the fact that she has a vag overshadowed her research, which showed that the people using a common resource can better manage that resource than a government.

The bar for entry for a Nobel prize is admittedly low these days, but Elinor Ostrom's findings warrant your own investigation, assuming you can get over your prior assumptions.

Re:Huge wastage

[aaandre]

Dude, check this out:

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

There's a difference between mindlessly twitching about unimportant, blown out of proportion issues and realizing that the human race has already started breathing and eating it's own toxic waste.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct regarding fish sizes. For example, catching only large fish has been shown to cause fish to evolve into smaller adults (as only small adults would be confused with young fish). Also, a large fish may produce a magnitude more offspring than a smaller, adult fish.

Regarding consumption of fish, just make sure to eat sardines and small crap like that, not tuna and salmon. Reasons:

  1. large fishes will be extinct in no-time thanks to human over consumption
  2. fish farms are fed sardines and other small crap caught in the wild which doesn't make farmed salmon (most these days thanks to overfishing) any better than wild regarding our impact on the oceans
  3. thanks to coal fire plants, most water bodies in the world, including oceans, are contaminated by mercury - eat lots of sushi, tuna and salmon, and you'll be in the checkout lane waiting for new kidneys
  4. smaller fish (like sardines) have less pollution in them overall
  5. sardines probably will not go extinct as long as there is food for them in oceans - think "trillions of sardines" :)

And finally, fisherman are heavily subsidized! The situation is much worse than with regular farming subsidies (in most countries). Fishing is badly regulated and resource over exploited. Fishing is a classic example of Tragedy of the Commons (another is air/water quality and climate change :P

Re:Huge wastage

[eugene ts wong]

Well, most fishermen don't work during off-season. If they took only minimum wage jobs during the off-season, then they'd be able to supplement their income. That being said, maybe they have stuff that they need to do during the off-season. Anybody know?

Re:Huge wastage

[eugene ts wong]

I don't mean to be rude, but you definitely misunderstand him. 1 of his points, and the point of others is that the fishermen are required to throw back great fish, just because of the rules.

Re:Huge wastage

[eugene ts wong]

I came up with an idea, just as I read your post. I'd be interested in your feedback.

Maybe a house of commons for representatives of the geograpical people group could represent 49% of the power, and a senate of technical experts would control 51% of the power. The house of commons would represent the people and the lobbyists, so that everything would hopefully be in the open, while the senate would represent people who have experience in the industry which they govern.

Every minister in the house of commons would be offered a pay rate at the election. It would be up to the constituency to name a price. By running in the election, the minister is agreeing to the pay rate for the full term. There shall be no negotiation once the job has been accepted.

Every senator would bid for a job, and the entire country would vote as 1 constituency for who gets the job as minister of foobar. The same would go for every position. The senator would have to campaign on how much he wants to be paid.

Re:Huge wastage

[eugene ts wong]

I agree. That is within the spirit and letter of the law.

Re:Huge wastage

[cenc]

I bet if we nuked systematically every major city in developed countries, the environmental impact of the radiation in a hundred years would likly be less than if they just keep on going the way they are wasting 90% of the World's resources on 10% of the population.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution seems obvious. Change the flawed regulations.

Re:Huge wastage

[AvitarX]

They won't be any worse off than they will be a few years in the future anyway, and in the end everyone wins.

Fisherman can start doing better with more long term prospects, and we can still eat fish.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

which showed that the people using a common resource can better manage that resource than a government.

I have not read that article, but the general theory is that that situation is only true given two basic premises:

- "the people" form a single group (i.e. no disjoint users of the resource)
- the resource is abundant (non-scarce)

This quote from the provided link might just be a case of the reporter not getting it, but WTF:

Ostrom's book argues that resource users can create local rules and institutions to manage the resource while preserving shared access.

Emphasis mine.

Re:Huge wastage

[7 digits]

There is no such thing as an Nobel Prize for Economics.
It is not actually one of the Nobel Prizes, which were established by the will of Alfred Nobel during 1895

Re:Huge wastage

[GBsko]

Unfortunately you can't legislate "goodness". At some point if there's a large enough minority that doesn't want to keep the law it'll become unenforceable. Also, if there are enough well meaning laws, even "good" people will end up breaking laws just because they're trying to live normally and didn't know what they were doing could possibly be against the law.

Re:Huge wastage

[lennier]

"panels of researchers and industry experts with years of experience"

Industry expert being someone whose paycheck depends on there not being a problem with what their industry is doing, right?

Not surprisingly those "experts" tend to report that there isn't any problem with what their industry is doing.

Re:Huge wastage

[lennier]

"The environment is not king of everything, people. "

Er, yes, it kind of is. By definition. No more environment, no more everything.

People's *understandings of* and *beliefs about* the environment, not so much.

Re:Huge wastage

[HiThere]

Who pays for the campaign?

Sorry. I don't think that solves any of the problems. It's already *officially* true that our legislature represents us. It just doesn't work out that way. And it's been LESS that way since the networks stopped being required to provide equal time to competing candidates. Which was a governmental decision. (The bureaucracy, but one that was taking orders from above, not acting independently.)

I've occasionally thought that there should be a limit on how long a law could be, and another on how many laws could be on the books. I've also thought that any law, before it was made into law, but be understood the same way by more than half of three high school senior classes. (If people don't understand the law, it's unjust to expect them to obey it.) Both of those would help. So would an automatic sunset clause attached to all laws. (If it's important enough, they can vote it in again.) Or a third house of the legislature whose only power was to revoke laws.

Basically, laws always go into effect in an early alpha state, and they aren't then subject to debugging unless the flaws are extremely severe. (That's not the only problem, but it's a major one.)

Of course these are all "Not going to happen" type proposals. Any real enactment of them would have thousands of little corner cases that would need to be debugged.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with bycatch? They toss it back in the stew, it's not like they launch the unwanted fish into space.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

It's discouraging to hear that people still haven't studied debate enough to recognize the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy.

Re:Huge wastage

[eugene ts wong]

I support your suggestion on revoking, and sunsets.

The comphrehensibility concept is good too, but it would be easy to game if people didn't support it [e.g. "Oh, I don't understand. Whoops! I guess we can't pass the law." etc.]. I'm not saying that it wouldn't work. I'm just saying that I'd like to see implementations tested first. Comprehension is such a huge aspect. Then again, if people didn't support it, and gamed the system, then maybe that is all the information we'd need.

Re:Huge wastage

[TheLink]

> Said end benefits are cold comfort if the fishermen have starved in the meantime.

How sad, just like the people who were dependent on hunting the Great Auk.

Re:Huge wastage

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't own an SUV either, what's your point?

Re:Huge wastage

[TheLink]

OK I just read it. From what I see, someone is still going to have to force people to obey those locally created rules and institutions.

The "catch and share" stuff doesn't seem to have sprung up "emergently" from fishermen over the centuries and longer.

Re:Huge wastage

[TheLink]

By that same logic nothing chopped down in a tropical rainforest is wasted even if the loggers only want 10% of the trees (hardwoods) and chop down the other 90% because they get in the way of getting to the 10% and dragging them out. After all something is going to eat those 90%. Various fungi will benefit, and some smaller trees will too since they now have more sun.

Yes that's fine if you like fungi, grass (and maybe even deserts). And you don't care about the benefits that come with forests.

Similarly, all that bycatch stuff is fine if you don't mind the results. It's not a problem for the gulls and bottom feeders. While scientific research has shown that humans do well on diets that include fish (minus the mercury, PCB, BPA etc), there's not much research on the effects of eating "what's left if we overfish".

If we keep at it, the bulk of our seafood might end up being stuff like plankton and anchovies. Say bye bye to tuna, cod etc.

Re:Huge wastage

[ElectricTurtle]

That would be valid if I were saying 'experts are right because they are experts' however in this context given the post to which I was replying the implied argument is more along the lines of 'experts are right because their fishing management policy has resulted in verifiable positive changes to areas in which it has been implemented.' Thus, no fallacy. And you imply that you've studied debate? I'd recommend hitting those books again padawan.

Re:Huge wastage

[ShieldW0lf]

I would suggest you look at the farm fountain project.

http://farmfountain.com/

They've got instructions on how they did it in their own home, step by step, in addition to several other projects.

I'm going to start off with a nutrient film technique and look for plants that are immortal and have edible foliage. We've got a vine here, something from India I think, it kind of tastes like spinach and will grow forever if harsh temperatures don't kill it. I think I might start off with some sort of cheap non edible fish until I know the system is working reliably, then order in my Tilapia and switch over.

Come on people, it's the Dominion Post

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a third rate newspaper that only a few people in the South Island read. This article was written to get people riled up since most New Zealander's (especially the wonderful Southlanders) are pet lovers. Many dogs here are working farm dogs too. They pretty much pay for their own food and are far more carbon friendly when compared to the reporters spouting a lot of hot air from their rear spout.
I like the comments in the article
"According to well published reports, their carbon foot print is 1/4 that of the average politician which is 20 times that of the average citizen. It simply proves that we should eat politicians to save the planet. Lets start with Al Gore, then for the main curse (VEG) Nancy Pelos with a certain person who fly s a big plane all over the country for date nights."

Why not "Save the Planet - Eat Your Bitch"?

[tomhudson]

I mean, if they're just trying to get publicity for a stupid book they've written that uses very bad pseudo-science (they're architects, FFS), why not go all the way?

Or "Save the Planet - Soylent Green 4Ever"

Or "Save the Planet - Baby-In-A-Bag in resealable pouches"

I'd vote for "Save the Planet - FOAD" for these two authors. They bring nothing useful to the table.

hardly evil

[misanthrope101]

I'm mostly with you on this one, but prisoners aren't random normal humans. They are generally evil.

No, they aren't. A significant percentage are there for drug crimes, prostitution, etc. You can be labelled as a sex offender and go to jail because you peed in an alley. We have moved well beyond the stage where everyone in jail can be considered evil. Are there bad people in jail? Certainly. But being convicted by a jury doesn't mean you really did it, or that it went down the way the prosecutor said. Cops lie, witnesses lie (or misremember), evidence gets planted|lost|tainted|misinterpreted, etc. Many have been released from death row after they were exonerated by DNA evidence. In short, the system is far from infallible, and even when it works flawlessly many who are far from "evil" are caught up in it. Don't fool yourself.

Re:hardly evil

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they aren't. A significant percentage are there for drug crimes, prostitution, etc.
You can be labelled as a sex offender and go to jail because you peed in an alley. We have moved well beyond the stage where everyone in jail can be considered evil.

Really? It's very, very hard to put someone in jail. You can't just do it to everyone who deserves it. You have to catch them in the very act of breaking the law. You need witnesess. Then, you need physical evidence to support your witnesses statements. Then, you need to prove, to a jury of 12 emotionally gullable people, beyond any reasonable doubt, that there is no other explanation other than the criminal's guilt, while a defense attorney does his best to spin the facts, and play upon their emotions and fears to confound the truth.

The crime has to be specific. If you know three people were in a locked room, one guy was shot, and a guy in the room was holding the gun, you can't charge either guy with murder. You don't know which one to charge: and if you charge one with being an accessory to murder, you won't have enough details on the murderer to make the charge stick.

After all that, the guilty party gets to look for loopholes in the law, and excuses for how to get free. If anything goes wrong with the paperwork, the police conduct during the investigation, any T's not crossed, or I's not dotted, and the criminal gets to go free to menace the world again.

Most criminals walk free; a small percentage of them go to jail. If they're in there, they almost certainly deserve it; despite a small number of innocent people being arrested every year.

The right answer, of course, is to stop breeding criminals in the first place. Sterilize young offenders before they breed; and kill off repeat offenders before they teach their "successful way of life" to others. If you can't follow the simple laws of society, you don't deserve to exist within it.

Re:hardly evil

[Hatta]

Then you're just selecting for better criminals. The thugs that occupy our jails really don't pose that much threat to society. In the scheme of things, armed robbery really isn't that bad. The truly evil people are busy starting purposeless, unwinnable wars and undermining our entire economic system. And they get off scot free, since it isn't even illegal.

Re:hardly evil

[r00t]

The thugs that occupy our jails really don't pose that much threat to society. In the scheme of things, armed robbery really isn't that bad. The truly evil people are busy starting purposeless, unwinnable wars and undermining our entire economic system. And they get off scot free, since it isn't even illegal.

Sounds like you!

You're "undermining our entire economic system" when you decide that armed robbery isn't that bad. That makes you one of the truly evil people, and you get off scott free.

Proper punishment for armed robbery:

First, do we need him for anything critical like organ donation? If so, strap him down and pull out the organs. Remember that the organs will be fresher if he isn't killed first.

Second, does the victim want to take a crack at him? Anything goes: nail in the eye, cock up the butt, battery acid injections, beating with a claw hammer, purposeful parasite infestation, sex change, skinned alive...

Third, will anybody pay to use him in a way that doesn't let him go free? He can perform movie stunts that are sure to be fatal, he can test new drugs on himself, he can be used to test treatments for spinal fracture, etc.

Fourth, if he's still there, we let the police dogs snack on him. (live, of course)

Fifth, dead or alive, we mulch him and flush him.

Re:hardly evil

[r00t]

I didn't say "perfectly 100% pure evil". I said "generally evil". That's plenty, especially when you get to the death row people.

Of course, the non-evil ones are still nearly all worthless to society.

There certainly is a degree of evil in drug crimes (supporting criminal empires with murderous thugs) and prostitution (spreading disease among the general population). Even peeing in an alley is a problem; it damages property value because nobody wants to live or work where it smells like pee.

Re:hardly evil

[Hatta]

I agree, armed robbery is bad. But what do they get, a couple hundred dollars? Someone who makes a couple hundred thousand dollars by making bad loans is a thousand times worse, and should be treated as such.

Re:hardly evil

[r00t]

But what do they get, a couple hundred dollars?

I don't care very much how it affects him. I care how it affects the victims.

The guy making bad loans isn't threatening to kill anybody, he isn't making people terrified to be out in public, etc. He does hurt more people, and I do think that you can add that up, but there isn't the very real chance that he might pull the trigger of a gun or sink a big knife into somebody's heart or eye.

A Modest Proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the next step is eating our children.

I KNOW! ZOMBIES!

[denzacar]

Lets make everyone into zombies!
Zombies have no pets, don't drive cars, don't watch TV...
In fact, they go everywhere on foot, and they always use local resources by feeding on human brains - and thereby reducing the number of polluters.

Zombies would be the ultimate green solution!

feck dogs

[Anonymous Coward]

Feck dogs and feck dog owners!

-1 troll

[Kupfernigk]

Oh, do come off it. Mathematicians never showed any hockey stick curve was "bogus" because, guess what, mathematicians != statistical analysts. All we have is an elderly physicist or two with no knowledge of modern modeling complaining that they couldn't have done it back in the day using slide rules and mechanical calculators. Just like elderly physicists in the past rejected QED because they didn't understand it. In fact, the latest papers on improved climate modeling show that not only is the "hockey stick" correct, but that the additional data shows greater variability in the past, but mainly in the lower temperature direction - this is the first time in 2 millennia that temperatures have been consistently rising for an extended period with no previous fall. Basically, every statement you make is either a lie, a distortion, or just plain wrong. What do you get out of it? One way another your patio heater and hemi V8 are going to get too expensive to run, either by carbon taxt or by oil shortages.

The Real Point of the Book

[BarlowBrad]

Is it possible that the real point of the book is not to really suggest that we eat our pets, but rather to raise awareness and get people talking about the environment? If so, perhaps they have succeeded.

Eat your Children Perhaps?

[Liambp]

I note that they do not appear to have included human children in the list of animals evaluated. Perhaps in a follow on study they could determine if eating our own offspring would be beneficial to the environment. On a more serious note I feel that the summary has drawn some very dodgy conclusions from what could otherwise have be a very useful piece of research. The analysis of the resources consumed by pets is an important lesson and a reminder to us all to try and include Fido and Tiddles in our thinking about sustainable living. The fact that herbivorous pets have a much lower eco footprint than carnivores is perhaps obvious but nevertheless worth reminding people about. However banning cats and dogs is unlikely to ever be acceptable and the suggestion that we only keep pets for the dinner table is laughable. Then again if they hadn't come up with the headline about eating man's best friend I wouldn't be reading about it on /. would I? Unrelated question: How do folks who do not have a PhD in computer science get line breaks into their slash dot posts?

wait!

[Anonymous Coward]

hold on a sec......did anyone consider having it all? i mean why not raise rabbits and stuff and then feed them to your dog?! then you can still have all those furry friends and offset your dogs pollution.

Kittens?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it work with kittens too?
Remember? "Every time you masturbate, god kills a kitten"
I've been saving the planet all that time and didn't even know it!

Statistics and lies.

[leuk_he]

"
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."

My dog does not get half a kilo of meat every day. And the meat in dogfood is almost worst meat, that is left over from all other meatprocesing. You can easy say that that number is inflated.

The eco foodprint she is talking about is not the amount of ground that is required to create fuel for the car, creating biofuel is inefficient compared to current free-oil-out of ground.

The gist of the story is true, meat is ecologically expensive, but the number she choose is like comparing apples with oranges. We should covert all to atomic energy, that has a clean eco footprint...

No!

[dushkin]

:(
Screw the environment, I like my dog

Re:This should actually be more or less common sen

[Anonymous Coward]

And the instant dismissal of the article by the vast majority of posters here, without thought through arguments (e.g. that some pets eat waste food) mostly is more evidence for a theory of "slashdot - website for people who think they are clever but are just as stuck in their ways and prone to wishful thinking as the average internet poster".

Save a tree

[richtopia]

Eat a Beaver!

Where does your meat come from.

[leuk_he]

If your meat comes from sheep that have eaten on a hill-side then your point is valid. If your meat is bought form a super market where it is the lowest price then your argument is valid, but your life-style not.

Besides that, in the article they use a artificial "eco footprint" that has little real meaning, it is not about farm-land. If you have a acre of land you cannot use it to create a suv from it. You can only use it to compensate for the co2 created by the suv.

Re:Where does your meat come from.

[slim]

If your meat comes from sheep that have eaten on a hill-side then your point is valid.

I'm from Wales where a great deal of the land is taken up by sheep grazing meadows for sheep. Although it's a form of agriculture that goes back many centuries, I'm pretty sure that an awful lot of that land used to be densely wooded. It's the precursor to the rampant deforestation in the Amazon and elsewhere.

VHEM

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.vhemt.org/

Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. May we live long and die out. Thank you for not breeding.

Don't let exasperation...

[Anonymous Coward]

...exacerbate your situation.

Save NZ, eat the cat

[Anonymous Coward]

NZers have an obsession with cats which are far more damaging to NZ's animals than dogs.

They think little fluffy has the right to roam free and it's cute when it drags in yet another native animal.

Strc^ prst skrz krk

[tepples]

Pretty easy talk from a guy that has obviously had the government come and take away many of your vowels.

At least it isn't as bad as the Czech government, which sticks its fingers through the people's throats to steal vowels. All they can do is decorate their consonants with horns and the like. The Nuxalk nation, on the other hand, willingly traded away their vowels for bunchberry plants.

Carbon footprint

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are they comparing the landusage needed? A car which gets it's gas from biofuels basicly has a footprint of zero (or close to it), so comparing the land needed to run the car compared to a pet is just stupid, and doesn't prove anything. If anything, because all pets run on biomaterial, they are helping to pull co2 out of the atmosphere and turn it into biomaterial, which is mostly stored in solid form.

Converting everything to energy, and then doing a comparison of the energy alone is just stupid. If you want to compare enviromental impact, calculate how much co2 actually ends up in the atmosphere all things taken into account.

Save the Planet, Eat Your Neighbor

[Anonymous Coward]

Less people = less people to have pets, drive cars, eat food.
Or just commit suicide, bio-engineer a virus... Population control is the key!

Fucking Insane

[syousef]

Quick! Save the environment! Kill and eat all the animals! It's the only way to save the environment!

Anyone else see how far up it's own arse this entire idea is?

Re:Fucking Insane

[Shados]

I think Jimbo from Southpark would like that one. I can just picture him in front of an animal thats the last of its kind, and go "Ahhhh! Its consuming carbon!" *shoot*

Re: Eat your dog

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure humans consume more resources than dogs. I'm going to start eating humans.

A Modest Proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds good to me, I've been looking for something to add to all the baby meat I've been eating...

Can I have...

[Anonymous Coward]

one catburger, two macShepherds and a guinea shake, please. To go

ho yea... super size it. :)

Dear Tree hugging Dickhead

[DarkOx]

Dear Tree Hugging Dickhead,

I am not apposed to making attempts protect the planet and conserve resources for future generations. I am not in favor of people just being lazy and wasteful because they can. I am however becoming more than a little tired of the constant proposals that we all leave a joyless existence without cars, pets, food we like eating, etc. Lowering our quality of life is not a solution, its a lazy cop-out. By the way its not lost on the rest of us that you elites imposing all the regulation on the rest of us and providing all these great suggestions are the ones flying everywhere in private jets, are being followed around in constantly by security agents driving 10s of giant SUVs and towing the really big parties.

It all rings a little hollow. So I have a proposal rather than I give up my cat why don't you just kill yourselves? You consume orders of magnitude more resources than I do; inclusive of my cat. If you hang yourselves tonight think of all the good you'd be doing. All that carbon you won't release, we surely do more to more to keep the seas rising; as the changes the rest of us are likely to make combined. You'll die knowing you really made a difference, who could ask for more than that? I'll even volunteer to undertake a vigil in your honor on the anniversaries of your deaths.

Save the Planet, Nuke the whales!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those darn polluters eat the nice carbon absorbing plankton and breath out carbon out into the atmosphere.
Nuke them before it's too late!

In Soviet Russia ...

[genw3st]

... your dog eats you!

And what will be next?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what I find funny, no one is allowed to touch the fact that the human population definitely is doing far more overall to ruin the environment than our pets ever could.

So really, when is some idiot going to suggest that people not have babies? Overpopulation of idiots like this is a far greater problem than any pet ever will be.

Re:And what will be next?

[slim]

So really, when is some idiot going to suggest that people not have babies?

It's not an unusual view. The population timebomb has already gone off. We should definitely promote smaller families. Ideally as a matter of choice -- convince people to replace themselves as a maximum (i.e. 2 children or fewer per couple).

There are many obstacles to this: people do love to breed.

10,000 kilometers a year

[argent]

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.

Is that a reasonable basis for an estimate? I live in Houston, so my perceptions may be distorted, but that doesn't seem like much.

This Gives me a Great Idea ...

[krygny]

Kill and feed all the eco-fascist progressives *TO* my dogs.

Carbon != carbon.

[argent]

Also, the basis of their carbon footprint calculations seems off:

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.

The carbon that went into that 0.84 ha of ground came out of the air, and by no means does all of it go back into the air... while all the carbon that went into the Land Cruiser's gas tank came from fossil fuels and all of it goes into the atmosphere. Unless the LC was a diesel run entirely on biofuel... and people claim that biofuels are carbon-neutral!

Selfish Humans

[Anonymous Coward]

rather idiotic report. did they study how much humans consume? my 3 dogs go through 1 33lb bag of food every 2-3 weeks and beyond that drinks water and eats various scraps that would otherwise be thrown away. thats it. I garentee you my kid consumes alot more than that in straight food, throw in his energy use, clothing, internet usage, phone calls, me driving him around, electricity. I could probably have another 30 dogs for all that, and if we view it impartially 30 lives>1 life. so what do you think? time to eat our kids so we can give 30 dogs a better life? I DON'T THINK SO!

Eat dog? I'd rather eat some p....

[Anonymous Coward]

well, subject says it all...

Re:Good grief.. (--- is he serious???)

[Anonymous Coward]

Two dogs to pull you around = 4 suv, your petty indulgence could have been transport for 16-24 people, and not just few miles, but over hundreds.

But you can already get them canned

[Jay L]

Environmentalists may have more protein, but kittens are already productized. Wellness (a gourmet pet food brand) sells the usual chicken formula, beef formula, etc. But, although it's not well-publicized, they also sell kitten formula.

the racial disparity is wrong

[circletimessquare]

but that's mostly a class thing: poor people are sent prison more than rich people (which is of course, wrong)

additionally, a lot of "crimes", such as smoking a joint, are ridiculous: marijuana should be legal

however, after saying those two things, i think if you went to the philippines or bangladesh or cameroon, you wouldn't find people proud of their low prison rates as compared to the usa. i think you would find people angry and jealous of the usa and desirous of high prison populations: all of the graft and corruption around them

high prison populations are not automatically a bad thing. high prison population is also a sign of strong social order. highly corrupt, highly disordered, anarchic societies: all low prison populations. all the criminals are on the street (and in the government)

people always talk about freedom, but they never talk about responsibility. and if you break certain deadly serious responsibilities to others in this world, you very much are evil and deserve to be in jail

such that a high prison population is not something awful in the usa. on face value, i see a high prison population as a plus, not a mnus. i believe it is a sign of a superior society that takes its responsibilities as seriously as its rights

people are always whining about rights, and no one ever talks about their responsibilities

without taking your responsibilities seriously, you automatically degrade the levels of rights in your society. not taking responsibilities seriously mean the government has to come in and police people for not doing what they should be doing themselves. rights do not exist without responsibilities, they are joined at the hip. a high freedom society is automatically a high responsibility society, and visa versa. it is when people in this world aren't very responsible do rights begin to degrade, completely regardless of whatever government does, and the government has to step in to maintain your freedoms when responsibilities are shirked

you will never have more freedom in your world until you, and those around you, take on more responsibility. then more freedom is automatic. this completely shortcircuits and renders moot the government's role in any of the arguments over your rights and freedoms, which is thr truth: the government is mostly a reflection of the people it governs. a high responsibility people get the government they deserve (not much of it, less intrusive) and visa versa: a people who won't take care of themselves AND EACH OTHER gets an intrusive rights-denying government

Issue for a lot of people...

[GeekDork]

Dogs are not halal.

Save the environment!

[qwertyatwork]

Eat a dog!

This message is brought to you by Cats

What about your pet's intake?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm feeding my cat organic food and using environmentally friendly cat litter (i.e., Yesterday's News, which is made up of recycled newspapers, among other things), does this offset my cat's eco paw-print?

No! Not dogs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cats, on the other hand, are expendable...

Re:This should actually be more or less common sen

[khallow]

Alternatively, one can realize that even non-work/food pets deliver some sort of value to their owners. Then rather than considering whether something "is an option" or not, we can consider whether the pet (or the SUV or the eco-book writer, etc) justifies its cost. The pet owner seems to be in a unique position to make that decision.

Save the Planet, eat a vegetarian!

[malloci]

Or any other human really. You think that our cats and dogs are the real contributors? How about us? I propose a study of the overall carbon emissions of a human on average.

Re:Save the Planet, eat a vegetarian!

[shentino]

Indeed.

And vegetarianism is a planet-saving option that doesn't require killing people.

A BETTER IDEA

[Anonymous Coward]

Eat any and all the enviro-idiots who suck down public funding and then release "findings" such as this. In the end the planet wont need saving, it has a track record of outlasting anything thats been thrown at it obviously.

Yes indeed...

[mario_grgic]

Just yesterday I picked a huge phone book off my porch and carried it over to the garbage with a good dose of loud cursing as to why would anyone print this garbage in today's day and age.

another take

[FornaxChemica]

This is an oversimplification. When you say "people would rather use prisoners for medical research than animals", I know what you're referring to, I may even agree with the idea, but this is not about using ANY kind of prisoner, you're wording it so that it would sound inarguably wrong. The prisoners we're talking about would be the most deviant, vicious kinds: murderers of children, serial killers, those who enjoyed torturing, etc. The question is, in the balance of life, is an innocent sentient being (an animal) worth less than a wicked human being (a murderer)? I'm sorry, but siding automatically with the human being because you're of the same species doesn't seem like the best of arguments to me. For a misanthrope, you seem to hold your species in quite high esteem. ;)

Anyway, some people say this out of sheer anger when reading about animals being tortured, I don't think all of them mean it and would actually support the process throughout. Their ideal being that no living creature should have to suffer for the prosperity and comfort of humanity.

About the second case, you were probably right to criticize the family if it was indeed a "100lb carnivore that was bred for aggression", I've heard of that before, small children left almost on their own with rottweillers, this is pure madness. I'm not sure though why your co-worker was mad at you instead of the family, might have been something else, I'm kind of careful with stories like that told from a single perspective.

Do we really raise chickens for dogs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if it is right to say that

        "It takes 43.3 square meters of land to produce 1kg of chicken a year. This means it takes 0.84 hectares to feed Fido."

I would imagine we don't raise chickens to feed to dogs... in the USA we raise chickens for boneless skinless chicken breasts and then I would imagine dogs end up with the leavings that are not fit for export. My guess is there is so much "waste" in human food production that we have not really had a lot of motivation to go find more efficient solutions for dogs.

Eat your mother

[bhagwad]

Let's use the same logic for people to eat their parents and children too! I mean wtf - we're trying to clean the planet for the sake of those who live on it - not kill those who live on it so that we can drive more SUVs!

Save the Planet, Kill Yourself!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Save the Planet, Kill Yourself," is one of the funniest bumper stickers I have ever seen.

Hamsters vs TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple solution, then. Get some crazy, hyperactive hamsters (roborovskis, for instance!) and give them a hamster house that looks like a TV. Then just watch them for entertainment.

They can do silly things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXRH50fvHWA

Funnier and with more personality than lots of stuff on TV.

Problem solved.

Hamsters like to muck about at night time, which would seem to make them well suited as a geek pet. One day I'll try this theory out...

excellent!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to have a bunch of chickens and a few pigs. but not as much as I love living in the city, though.

Cool

[JustNiz]

I'm glad this has come out.
Practically everyone in my neighborhood has a dog. Dog owners use our local park where kids are meant to play as a dog toilet. Bloody dogs barking all night drives me crazy. Why keep a dog in a city? Its stupid.

Re:Cool

[Wonko the Sane]

Just so you know kids and dogs have lived in close quarters for the last 10,000 years or so and incidental exposure to dog poop may even cause more benfits than harm.

Re:Cool

[JustNiz]

Sorry but that article is just plain wrong.

There are plenty of serious diseases in dog poop, not least of which is Toxocariasis which causes permanent blindness in over 700 kids in the US each year. (citaion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxocariasis )

I don't know about you, but I care more about my child than I care about any animal. I know lots of dog owners don't care to think about that so visibly care more about their dog than their kids. To be fair, that's their life choice but its too much when they also expect me to put my 4 yr old son's health second to their damn dogs too.

Re:Cool

[Wonko the Sane]

As children my siblings and I played in the same backyard that our dog lived in. We never intentionally got into the stuff but I'm sure that there was incidental contact. None of us ever had any problems.

Swift

[Anonymous Coward]

Next they'll be telling the Irish to eat their children.

Pets for the Wealthy, Food for the Poor

[handy_vandal]

A visiting student from Uganda once told me (I'm an American) that few people back home in Uganda had pets: too expensive.

flapdoodle

[ncmathsadist]

The greenies do themselves a disservice when they harp on stuff like this. It makes them look like foolish chicken-littles. Another sky is falling story. fml. right.

Re:This should actually be more or less common sen

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right.
In towns and villages it is enough to feed cats milk and some remains since they run around catching small prey. You see , the non-affluent places have not so much cars so that it is dangerous to let the animals live outside.
And non-work my ass - why do you think egyptians worshipped cats and any agricultural civilisation was fond of them? If you have no poison or clever rats, a bunch of cats is the best thing you can have to protect your crop. Hell ,even austrohungarian army had army cats in the warehouses in WWI!
In my case, having a catprevented me from releasing CFC into air as it among other things slew most insects and such crap that came in, and also reduced my heating bill by warming me up, not to mention psychical benefits

Re:Augh! Really bad energy math!

[InsurrctionConsltant]

When you look at the calculation in detail, they work out the amount of farmland per dog (0.83 hectares), then convert the amount of energy used by an SUV into acres of land, by using THE INTENSITY OF SUNLIGHT on that land surface.

The other thing is that there's a reason we have phrases like "eat your own dogfood". The meat in dog-food is not being farmed specifically for that purpose. It largely consists of the parts of food animals that cannot be sold as meat for humans.

Overall the use of this meat as dogfood can have no net effect in carbon emissions, because the alternative is to put it in landfill, where it will be swiftly putrified, returning its carbon content to the atmosphere. When it gets eaten, a large percentage of the carbon is temporarily sequestered in the dog, but then gradually released as carbon dioxide, true. In both cases, there is also a fertilisation effect, whereby the nitrogen (and some carbon) in the meat will be fixed by producers in the ecosystem.

The net carbon emission is the same in either case.

its hard to equate

[nten]

I don't think GP was saying that pollution *isn't* a rights violation. I think he was saying its hard to say who and when and what are doing the violating. A small family farm with X cows isn't polluting the river, but N of those small family farms are along the river. So each of the farms do pollute, but to a degree that would be fine on its own. Saying no one can pollute at all "total rights protection" would impact more than just industry. It would impact you and me. Other than that I think you are completely correct, especially about the note that when we notice regulation being too restrictive it usually isn't doing the job we hoped it would. Sometimes that is because humans make the regulations and humans make mistakes. Sometimes it is because humans made the regulations and humans are corruptible. The idea of a free-ish market is that it can learn certain parameters better than we can specify them. It really is just a genetic algorithm, well not genetic as its not random, its more like hill-climbing or a particle filter. The key part is that humans get involved again in recognizing when the algorithm has broken down and needs our intervention to pop it out of a local maxima via regulation, and humans make mistakes and are corruptible so we choose not to recognize it or recognize it incorrectly, and then enact the wrong regulation even when we do recognize it correctly. The solution? Get used to imperfection.

Oh and to qualify as on topic, keeping large dogs in an urban environment is unkind, so eat the poor thing already!

Out With Them!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets just ban all pets.

capitalism

[SuperBanana]

I was watching an interesting doco a while ago where the captain of a prawn trawler was almost in tears as they had had two weeks of terrible prawn hauls so the crew were near mutiny (pay is directly related to how much the boat takes on) but were dragging in tonnes and tonnes of prime fish and under EU law had to throw it all back mostly dead, each time every time as to take it back to port risked him losing his boat.

Welcome to capitalism. The incompetent go out of business.

Sorry: But I'm a responsible Pet Owner

[fast turtle]

and I have several questions for the idiots who did this so-called Study.

1. can your pet gold fish be trained to guide a blind person through a groccery store
2. can your pet parrot detect and assist an epileptic by alerting them to an oncoming or actually assist them in preventing it
3. is your gold fish able to lower your blood pressure, fight depression, encourage you to a more active lifestyle

If you can't answer yes to all of these, then your study is flawed in the 1st degree so I suggest you use it for the shit wipe paper it is instead of trying to get people to think.

One of the issues of pet ownership is accepting responsibility for their care and maintenance. As you state, you like to travel and owning a dog/cat is problematic due to your preferrence. I'm assuming that you're in the EU, which means that traveling with pets is problematic for you due to the various health regulations and such for the many countries, which is a shame as a traveling pet, can help reduce stress levels tremoundously. As I live in the states, I find that flying unless business related is simply not worth the stress levels when I can easily travel either by rail or automobile/rv (recreational vehicle - camper) with my pets as traveling companions. From a personal standpoint, I'll take my dogs over most other people for traveling as they're far less annoying, provide comfort and companionship while visiting, provide stress relief and enforce a minimal break routine while traveling to take care of their needs that also benefits me with increased safety due to being more alert behind the wheel or detecting the need for nap time, which is why I prefer an RV for traveling.

Re:Sorry: But I'm a responsible Pet Owner

[slim]

All you've done is the same as the GGP, which is to list some benefits of having a dog. The study tells you what the dog uses in terms of natural resources.

It's up to you decide how those costs and benefits balance.

Likewise, the study doesn't consider the benefits of car ownership. It's just out of scope.

The extra benefits you mention, are entirely relevant for someone who is blind, epileptic, depressive or unable to motivate themselves to exercise. But they're not all that relevant to anyone else.

I think the most relevant thing is that - like many people - dammit, you *love* your dogs. And that justifies the costs to you.

Save the Planet, Save the Dog...

[daninaustin]

Save the planet Save the dog Eat the environmentalists.

The study doesn't account for all the value

[Anonymous Coward]

Dogs bring additional value. Mine catch mice and chase away rabbits and squirrels which would destroy my garden. I would have to spend additional money and use additional resources to come up with alternate ways to keep pests away.

Re:The study doesn't account for all the value

[Anonymous Coward]

...rabbits and squirrels which would destroy my garden...

Gardening destroys the planet.

Common Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Look - the article/study is a ripe target - obviously so.

Yet, I find it does have some value. We take a lot of things for granted - including a normative household that includes a few pets. Those pets are often indulged more, and receive better health care than, our homeless (many of whom are veterans). There's no charter that includes a certain standard of living / provision as a 'right' - quite the opposite.

So, looking at the environmental effects of pet ownership individually and especially globally - is a worthwhile study.

Toward the comments on Alternative Energy Heating / Systems - the North American technologies are very rudimentary and DIY - thus the inefficiency. German Solar Systems (a country with 30+ years of residential solar experience) are vastly more efficient - and well worth the environmental and economic incentives.

Oh, please

[sean.peters]

everyone seems to forgetting the impact of all the supplements that they have to take, because the human body is evolved as an omnivore and thus needs various things we cannot get from a vegetable diet.

IANAV (I am not a vegan/vegetarian). But this is a bit much. About the only nutrient you really can't get in sufficient quantity from a vegan diet is B12. And I'm pretty sure you could provide a lifetime supply of B12 to the entire planet for the environmental cost of a single year's consumption of meat.

Not to mention that...

[sean.peters]

Your dog does not give back in fertilizer all the extra energy used to get that food on your plate.

Not to mention that 1) approximately 99.99999 percent of all dog waste is either landfilled or just left lying on the ground and 2) dog waste is not suitable for use as manure, as it can carry parasites and other disease organisms that would contaminate human food.

I'm not a big fan of the whole "let's just eat our dogs" thing either, but some of the criticisms of it are kinda dumb.

A modest comment

[boyko.at.netqos]

You think a dog is bad - you should see the ecological footprint of an Irish child!

Bingo.

[sean.peters]

All I can figure is that they are doing it for the shock value.

You nailed there. If they were really interested in helping people reduce their carbon footprint, they'd recommend things like: getting a smaller car and driving it less. Getting a smaller house and making sure it's very well insulated. Upgrade heating and cooling systems to high-efficiency models. Eating less meat (especially feedlot fed beef and pork). That kind of thing. But that wouldn't create any "buzz", would it.

Really? Drawing this type of conclusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are we comparing animals consumption to that of cars and televisions? It seems like someones trying to subliminally justify inefficiency. (I'm not PETA or anything, this just really sounds ridiculous to draw such correlations)

At least the pets are consuming resources that are renewable. Can't say so much about the comparisons.

I guess I can't disagree with the conclusion that farm animals are the most efficient use of the worlds resources (since we eat them in the end), but wow, aren't there other subjects that would be more beneficial to society from the level of research that was applied to write this?

New Scientist link

[eh2o]

This article in New Scientist has considerably more information about the impact of pets beyond food:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.600-how-green-is-your-pet.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

To be fair...

[sean.peters]

Note that animals don't thrive on CO2, and that fairly small shifts in the percentage of environmental CO2 cause nausea, confusion, and panic.

While I agree with the spirit of your post, CO2 concentrations have to be much, much higher than what we're talking about for toxic effects to become evident. We're worried about atmospheric CO2 concentrations in the hundreds of PPM range. You need concentrations as high as 1 or 2 percent before you can even notice any toxic effects. But overall, yes - atmospheric CO2 is a big problem.

Re:Good grief.. (phone book)

[userw014]

Normally, I'd beg to differ on the utility of a phone book - I'd give the example of how much faster I can find a local phone number with a dead-tree version than he can on-line. However, the other day, while looking for a phone number for a consignment shop, I ended up having to go online.

I'm still think of the phone book as useful - especially one I can carry in my car that has local maps, etc. so I don't need to go through cell-phone hell trying to figure something out.

On the other hand, I usually end up with 3 or 4 phone books per year. Two "minis" and a "normal, large" by one publisher, and another "craptastic" one by another publisher. That's ridiculous.

Ok, some answers

[sean.peters]

1) Lightbulbs: what on earth are you talking about? No one is coming into your house and demanding that you replace STILL WORKING incandescents. They're just not going to be making them any more. And that's because CFLs really, no kidding, do save energy and money over their lifetime. LEDs I'm sure will be great... when they become widely available... which they aren't yet. 2) Grocery bags. The replacement of paper bags with plastic had nothing to do with being "green" and everything to do with the fact that it cost the grocery stores less to supply them. And if you don't like the sturdy, for sale, "green bags"... don't buy them. The ordinary bags are still available everywhere I've shopped. 3) Solar hot water. Nothing to say here but [citation needed]. 4) Water. Might come as a shock to you, but the places where you can put new reservoirs without serious economic impact are pretty limited. The people and businesses who own property within the proposed basin are going to be annoyed, for starters. But sure, we could do better with gray water recycling, etc. On the whole, I'm not sure what your point is here.

Final paragraph is probably the smartest - yes, population control is the real answer here. But in the meantime, here we all are... all 6.5B of us. I think we need do something in the meantime.

Finally, geez, rant much? I think it's rather ironic that someone who opens up his post being annoyed with people "losing their fucking minds" when environmentalism is mentioned... promptly loses his mind in the body of the post.

[citation needed]

[sean.peters]

Ok, show your work. Where are the references to these supposed quotes? *drums fingers*...

Yeah, the book is dumb

[sean.peters]

... but on the other hand, if we 1) ate less meat as a whole, and got rid of our dogs, we'd solve both the problem of resource consumption by the dogs and what to do about the offal. There wouldn't be as much. Or 2) if we ate the same amount of meat as before, we could cook the offal into liquid fuel - it's being done with turkey guts in North Carolina or somewhere. Yeah, I know - realistically, dogs are the least of our problems.

Re:Yeah, the book is dumb

[tomhudson]

I've got a better idea - liquidate the breeders (you know, the families who think that having 8 kids is a good idea). The problem is over-population.

Can you spell strawman?

[sean.peters]

Yes, the book is dumb. But what's even dumber is putting out strawman statements like this. Of course, the book isn't advocating "killing and eating all the animals". It's about getting rid of our pets. "Pets" != "all animals".

Re:Can you spell strawman?

[syousef]

The point still stsnds that a pet is still an animal and that presumably they are a part of the environment that you wish to protect. Advocating that you kill and eat your pets is simply sensationalist nonsense to get attention. Like a two year old throwing a tantrum, and about as well reasoned.

It's just dumb

[zogger]

I used to work shrimpers and this is exactly what happens, and it was dumb then and dumb now. It was *illegal* to keep any of the good fish, at least that is what I was told back then and how I understood the practice to come about, they were trying to "regulate" the fisheries, plus the shrimpers themselves only wanted the one thing in the iceholds anyway, to facilitate unloading and also because most of them are contract shrimpers. So it was a double rule to "just keep the gulf shrimp". Huge schools of sharks follow the boats and eat the stuff that goes back over through the scuppers.(this also served as a handy protip why it was a good idea to pay attention and not accidentally fall over, your chances of getting picked back up immediately are between zero and no way most of the time)

    Now we used to eat what we wanted onboard, whatever you wanted to pick out that ya caught, my favorite by far is cobia, but come close to getting back into port, whatever we had that wasn't shrimp, over the side. Now this was a long time ago now, maybe the law/practice has changed, but it sure was retarded back then, thousands of dollars worth and plenty of good tasting calories more or less wasted, *per trip*. I'm talking real decent grouper and snapper, etc, all sorts of stuff. I don't recall catching any dolphins, but we'd see a lot, they follow the boats around as well to eat bycatch. Any of the fish with airbladders would just croak anyway when you hauled them up, that part was really dumb that they made it illegal or against the rules to keep them. Hell, we didn't even keep all the shrimp! We'd toss back over the rock shrimp and just keep the gulf shrimp, and the rock shrimp are twice as good, way more a lobster flavor to them. That I think was more from preserving them, they just don't last as long on ice and we did two week trips. We sure did eat a lot of them though.

Anyway, I think that dumb law (like I said, if it was a law) and practice did more to wipe out good edible species in the gulf than the "legitimate" catch did, commercial or sportfishing.

The *coolest* thing we caught, IMO, was two giant manta rays, just way way cool. Hugegigantoramous. They didn't croak but it was a bear to get them back over the side.

Re:It's just dumb

[TheLink]

Yeah terrible laws. But as you said the shrimpers even threw away the rock shrimp. I doubt there was a law forcing them to do that, they did it because of commercial reasons.

See, even if refrigeration/preservation technology is better, shrimpers may still throw away the "wrong shrimp" if the demand and prices are down for that type of shrimp. Storage space is limited, so there is an incentive for the boat to fill it up with stuff that will make them the most money and discard everything else. Go tell me that a commercial fisherman wouldn't do that.

Thus regulation has to create an incentive to not waste the ocean's resources, and we probably need some help from technology too - so we can reduce spoilage and bycatch.

AND, back somewhat to the story topic, we also need people to eat a wider range of species. Because unless technology improves a lot the fishermen will still end up catching significant quantities of "other stuff" - different types of seafood, fish etc. If we are too picky it means stuff will have to be thrown away. Whereas if we are willing to consider as food a far wider range of edible and decent tasting stuff[1] that the fishermen land, there'll be less wastage. I'm not saying we should always buy everything up, but I'm saying we should be willing to eat a wider range of stuff so there'll be a market for it.

[1] There are creatures out there that are healthy to eat, tasty, but there's no market for it because it has a bad name or is ugly or people don't know how to prepare/cook it, or some other poor reason.

This whole mess is such a huge shame and tragedy. That's why I want more people to know about it.

But people are still flaming me or saying I don't know anything, just because I don't own a shrimping boat or am not a fisherman, or because I'm proposing forcing people to do stuff.

Extinction of stuff will force change on fishermen anyway. Why wait till then? If people don't think fishes are going extinct well they should check again.

The book is about more

[slim]

Not that anyone will still be reading this discussion. Especially this far down the page...

But I actually looked up the book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Eat-Dog-Sustainable-Living/dp/0500287902/

They've chosen an inflammatory title, alright, but it seems the book's about a lot more than pets, and it doesn't look if they really advocate killing the family pooch for a meal.

It looks as if the whole book is about calculating the overall cost of various things in terms of resource usage using a standard unit of hectares/year. Supposedly there are interesting surprises in there. One review mentions that they say that a fully occupied plane is more efficient per passenger mile than cycling (taking into account the food to fuel the rider, and the hot shower to wash of their sweat).

It looks like they've misjudged their publicity drive though. The pet owners are clearly not impressed!

What about girlfriends?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would ask if eating them would help the environment. But this is Slashdot...so never mind

Still less of an impact than baby humans!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this study should be factoring in that many Americans subconsciously view their pets as surrogate children. So in that sense pets are reducing ecological footprint by being a replacement for little Americans.

Obvious retort

[metamatic]

"I'm Korean, you insensitive clod!"

Yea yea. and what about the benefits ?

[unity100]

automotive vehicles use a lot of resources, but noone comes up saying we should stop using them. because there are quite important benefits.

it kinda felt that this book is taking the pets as something of a vanity, with no immediate and important benefits. a very stupid point of view that is.

it is repeatedly proven that keeping pets alleviates a lot of stress accumulation in people, which, if not mitigated, could seek other ways to get rid of, or should lead to disorders in people's personality. nothing anormal here, modern times are stressful indeed.

but what happens when you take pets out of the equation ? imagine some percentage of the population becoming more stressed, erratic, disturbed and annoying. imagine these people interacting with the others on the road, at work, in the grocery store, school and in the house. wouldnt that lead to more problematic behaviour due to increased level of stress in general populace ? entry level psychopaths around every 4-5th corner you turn on the road.

no sir i dont like the sound of it. i dont like such visionless, knee-jerk approaches to environmentalism either.

The reverse must also be true

[roc97007]

Whew! I was trying to figure out how I was going to fit my dog in a smart car. But now that I know my truck has less carbon footprint than my dog, I guess I'll keep it.

probably fake science

[barry_allen]

I don't understand how owning a SUV is the same as owning a dog.

First of all, a SUV is machine. The dog is an animal.

I could love a machine but it won't love me back. Machines don't have emotions. The dog will always show emotion when i show affection.

Instead of eating our dogs. we should be using our SUV's for parts for inventions.

This article is probably fake science that the Extreme Environmentalist movement has created. Global warning, dying polar bears and now this. (Reminder: Nazi Germany has been know for fake science)

Want to really save the planet?... Plant trees and other plants to absorb carbon-foot prints.

Re:probably fake science

[KillerBob]

You're trying to apply morality and emotion to a discussion that's quite clearly based solely in the numbers. You're absolutely right that the dog will love you back, and that there's countless benefits that simply can't be measured by the numbers. (well, can, actually... having a pet has been shown dozens of times to improve your overall health, which means that as an individual you'll consume less resources)

From a strictly mathematical standpoint, though, a pet dog will consume a lot of energy, and owning it will increase your carbon footprint. That's the point of TFA, but IMO it's completely ignoring the side benefits that can't be measured.

on regulation and hostility

[eleuthero]

You seem extremely hostile to the idea that government might make better long-term choices than individuals. What's your solution to the problems of overfishing, pollution, hill-cutting mining, clear-cut logging, etc? Let the market sort it out somehow? Trust that Jebus will come back soon so our children's children won't have to deal with a polluted world barren of species diversity? What?

1. I agree that overfishing by the industry has demonstrated need for regulation.

2. Certain industries need to be regulated with regard to pollution while others, which are still regulated, would naturally not have problems without regulation because of the nature of the business. Regulation for this second group of companies simply creates extra expense in the form of time lost due to shutdowns and inspections.

3. strip-mining does occur but is largely unpopular and less cost efficient than many modern mining techniques provided a large enough company foots the bill (smaller companies cannot always afford to improve efficiency) - thus there is partial need for regulation in this area as well.

4. clear-cut logging went out of style ages ago as it was realized by the various logging companies that re-seeding was the only way to ensure their descendants would have jobs.

5. So ... in answer to your question, yes, the market will usually sort things out but some regulation is needed.

6. Trusting in Jesus has nothing to do with irresponsibility - in fact, good land / environmental stewardship is a main point in Christian teaching (though not, obviously, directly connected with what makes one a Christian, simply with how one is called to live after). Is this carried out by very many? No. Humans are all hypocritical, but it doesn't change what Christianity seeks to do.

Re:on regulation and hostility

[Anonymous Coward]

Trusting in Jesus has nothing to do with irresponsibility - in fact, good land / environmental stewardship is a main point in Christian teaching (though not, obviously, directly connected with what makes one a Christian, simply with how one is called to live after). Is this carried out by very many? No. Humans are all hypocritical, but it doesn't change what Christianity seeks to do.

Then you're clearly not talking to the right Christians. I just spoke to one the other day, a member of a major Christian sect, meaning he's far, far, far from alone in his beliefs. He believes he's not responsible for any of his actions because its all in God's hands. He has no free will. And should he do evil, its because God made him do it because of Original Sin. And should he do good, its because God directly touched/inspired him to do something other than evil.

Christians are a diverse group and some *major* sects of Christianity will be more than happy to kill all of mankind and every living animal, in the name of God, if for no other reason than God didn't inspire him not to; meaning its directly the will of God.

There are some pretty screwed up belief systems out there. And the person above is a life long friend. I was shocked.

Re:on regulation and hostility

[eleuthero]

It sounds to me as if you are talking to either

1) a misinformed member of one of the denominations within Christianity or

2) a member of a "sect" in the other sense of the word (a non-standard religious branch not accepted by other branches within Christianity as still falling under the umbrella--in other words, a "cult").

Responsibility for personal action is one of the central tenets of the faith--that God will work it out in the end is true, since Christianity regards no individual as without guilt, but it does not deny personal responsibility in the midst of this. Further, though Christianity preaches forgiveness, this does not equate to license to do whatever (if he objects to this, ask him for his impression of Romans 6, particularly the first half).

Re:on regulation and hostility

[lennier]

"Trusting in Jesus has nothing to do with irresponsibility - in fact, good land / environmental stewardship is a main point in Christian teaching"

++. E. F. Schumacher, one of the fathers of Green economics, would agree with you strongly.

I don't understand why in the USA Christianity has become such a fan of right-wing economics. Doesn't have much to do with Jesus' actual teaching IMO.

Re:on regulation and hostility

[Anonymous Coward]

What is Jesus' actual teaching on economics?

Re:on regulation and hostility

[eleuthero]

1. Share with those in need (also upheld in the early church

2. Give to others out of your gross not your net and be willing to give more than even you might ordinarily be able to (see the story of the widow in Luke 12:38-44 among others).

3. Give to those in need out of all wealth (not just money) - see the various stories of food given and time / skill set ministries.

4. Don't live beyond your means (various settings here as well - Matthew 5-7 is helpful in general for the whole topic as is much of the book of Luke).

5. Invest appropriately with available means (Matthew 25:14-30 addressing physical and spiritual sense here).

6. Pay taxes to the established government for its maintenance (see Matthew 22).

The list does go on, but there is a short list for you. As to his teaching on resource management in general, I would note the implications of all of the above as well throughout the rest of the NT.

nope

[zogger]

Junk science in that article, easily debunked, at least as pertains big game animals, and I will include whitetails here. And this is how. You can't even GET to a big buck to harvest until he is an adult for several years after he hits breeding age, so he has passed on his big buck genes numerous times. I mean really, this is simple biology.

    In addition, it isn't just big bucks taken anyway, most hunters will take a large one if possible, a smaller one just for eats, then an even smaller doe during doe season to keep herd size manageable. Medium sized ones are frequently ignored, to let them grow a few more seasons. This is *very* common practice, even moreso with private deer clubs who lease land and go even beyond state regs. This is true scientific herd management now where the private sector is even better at it than the public sector. Modern deer herd management is very good at maintaining both larger and healthier animals for the most part. It is in their *interest* to do so, and a lot of time, money and effort goes into it.

Now maybe this isn't the case in "anything goes" places like Africa during some local tribe versus tribe war and anything that moves is taken for eats, but modern hunting science and management *where it is practiced legitimately* has resulted in decent game animals. And no, I don't want to hear that they manage their herds there in africa, they TRY to manage their herds there, and there's a big difference between "do" and "try", like yoda sez. It's anarchy warzone there more often than not, and basically unlimited poaching going on, "bushmeat", and the killing of animals for that ludicrous ivory trade and so on for rich farts, so of course herd size and individual size will start to drop then.

So you really can't paint with too broad a brush, it really matters which areas you are talking about and which species. In places where it is pure sport, and it is intelligently managed and patrolled, the herds are getting better barring any killer multi year drought, in places that have unregulated market hunting, combined with local warfare so much less legit agriculture is done, where the people get insane desperate and just want anything at all to eat, yes, smaller.

  Prime example, Zimbabwe. Regulated sport hunting combined with good quality agriculture, back when it was Rhodesia, worked (I will leave the political element out, just concentrate on animals, wild game and domestic, and food supply now), after the revolution, with no credible management other than the victors went bonkers and looted whatever they could and killed off the farmers and so on, the whole nation collapsed. They used to export ag, bigtime, breadbasket of Africa, plus had outstanding big game hunting, now they have *neither* and are a global laughingstock and their people starve.

Re:nope

[SoupGuru]

Junk science in that article, easily debunked, at least as pertains big game animals, and I will include whitetails here.

I don't see much debunking here. I see a lot of wishful thinking, hearsay, and opinion.

The professor should kill himself

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

that will certainly save more carbon footprint.

How about NO PETS and NO MEAT

[Latinhypercube]

Green house problem SOLVED. Future food shortages SOLVED.

Re:Oh, please - Oh, please yourself

[BranMan]

IANAV/V-TIEMV (I am not a vegan/vegetarian - though I eat mostly vegetarians). While you CAN get all nutrients in sufficient quantity from a vegan diet except B12 (NOTE: This claim I am taking on faith), you really have to work at it. It doesn't just happen.

Like it or not, we did evolve as omnivores, we are still omnivores, and denying that is just silly. You can live a vegan lifestyle if you like, but don't expect anyone to believe that we aren't omnivores. Actually, now that I think about it, just the fact that we have so many vitamin deficiency diseases supports our omnivore evolution. When you eat everything, you'll get a little bit of every nutrient, all the time. Why have your body manufacture it when you eat it?

And I'm not sure I buy the 'environmental cost' theory either. To live vegan, you need cultivated fruits and vegetables - fertilizer, irrigation, pest control, harvesting, etc. Cattle can live on a free range - grasslands that - guess what - sustain themselves. With no cultivation or intervention by us. I doubt that is taken into account, as I would count that as zero environmental cost. Yes, you need more vegetation to produce a pound of meat than a pound of vegetables. But a lot of that vegetation will just grow by itself anyway. And, no - the worlds population is NOT so large we need to watch how we use every acre of land.

Have you ever stepped in a pile of dark matter?

[NotBornYesterday]

You never finish getting all the little bits off the sole of your shoe, even if you use a little stick. Trust me.

Re:Oh, please - Oh, please yourself

[h4rm0ny]

I don't know how many vegetarian friends I have - plenty. I know that I certainly have at least five vegan friends. Three of them are obnoxiously healthy, the fourth slightly less so but pretty muscular. The fifth is less healthy-looking than the others but he's neither obese nor especially sickly. In fact, he's doing a half-marathon next year so he must be reasonably fit. If your contention is that it's very difficult to get all the necessary nutrients from a vegan diet, then presumably you would have to eat greater quantities to acquire the same nutrients but four of the five vegans are all pretty lean and the fifth is merely plump (and has the sort of body-type that suggests she's supposed to be).

As regards vitamin deficiencies resulting from a limited diet, they do. But all the vegans I've known have had a very varied diet and never seem to be wanting for vitamins. Most of them are some of the least "bottle of supplements" people I know.

And finally, regarding the environmental cost. I do hope you don't suppose that meat-eaters don't need fruits and vegetables as well? But if you think that non-meat eaters must compensate so much in eating more fruit and vegetables that it cancels out the environmental gain, that's not so.
100g beef gives: 1.9g fat, 23g protein, 0g carbohydrates, 109KCal total energy
50g lentils + 50g wholegrain rice gives: 2g fat, 16g protein, 70g carbohydrates, 365KCal total energy


As you can see, an equivalent weight of grains and pulses actually offers more energy than beef. Those are dry weights of course. So your cow would have to actually utilise less area per lb of consumable meat than the vegan option for the equivalent weight. And we know that's far from true. You can get 1,000lb per acre yield on lentils (or more). I'd like to hear some equivalent figures for cattle.

Of course you're arguing that the cattle can be raised on areas unsuitable for growing grains and pulses. That may be so, but we both know that what is actually happening is that vast tracts of forest in South America are being torn down to grow soy beans for the US cattle industry. It's woefully, horribly inefficient, even ignoring the long term environmental damage.

Re:Oh, please - Oh, please yourself

[DuckDodgers]

Keep in mind too that non-human meat eaters get the most nutritional value from their prey by consuming the entire body, or at least focusing on the organ meats first.

I would make the argument that my omnivorous diet was healthier than a vegetarian diet if I was consistently eating brains, livers, and kidneys from larger farm animals and the entire carcasses of fowl, fish, and insects. But how many modern humans do that?

I've been trying to gradually move to a lower meat intake, but since soy disagrees with me and I get sick of lentils in a hurry, I have not found protein sources to my liking yet. It's especially a problem since I adore the taste of beef.

Blasphemy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can imagine the rage in California as people are informed of the hypocracy of driving a Prius with 3 great danes. Did they add in the costs of all the "doggy daycare" and elitist grooming too? I have a friend down there who once told me they were applying for a job in a bakery... for dogs. Seriously, this place was solely dedicated to gourmet dog treats. Better buy another Prius to make up for it...

eat your neighbor

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it make more sense to eat your neighbor since humans are the biggest impact on the environment ?

hehe... I modded you down twice in this thread.

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the first things I do when I get mod points is go into my bookmarks and see what my friend drinkypoo is up to. Mostly because I love it when you go "WAAAAH! WAAAAAH! The mean moderators modded me down!"

yep, debunked

[zogger]

Well, go do your own googling then and find out about modern game management, it's out there. I am a rural person and long time outdoorsman, like well over half a century worth now, this is just freeking as common of knowledge in our "community" as starbucks charges multiple dollars per cup of coffee is in yours. I mean, geez loweez, just go to some magazine stand that has a lot of "multicultural diversity" in the selections, they have entire magazines devoted to JUST whitetail deer hunting and *herd management*. Now, besides the articles, just look at the ads in that magazine. This isn't "opinion", this is established practice and business.

This is old hat well established science here and is already a *pretty large industry*. A business, not just some wild theory. If that ain't enough for a "debunking" I don't know what else could qualify. All these folks are not in the hobby and sport and business of making less deer, and smaller deer.

As to basic biology, the birds and bees.. That's second grade at the latest stuff, at least the basics. Taking big bucks, mature many year old game animals, does NOT remove the genes he carries from the herd, they are already out there in tons of baby and older deer from that buck gettin' lucky numerous times before. He ain't "saving himself" for later, for Ms. Doe "right", he's already done his buck-best in that regard, and they duke it out between the big bucks over who gets first dibs and who gets sloppy seconds. This period is called "the rut". The bigger tougher ones win. This means the bigger tougher buck-genes get a much better shot at being passed down into the herd. Like I said, basic biology.

Want some more odd facts about deer in the US? There are MORE whitetail deer NOW, 2009, then there were when the pilgrims first landed,by a huge factor, and for a couple hundred years after that time. Want to know why? It's because there is more dense cover now, less climax forests but more second or later growth, plus more ag area so they can munch on like corn and soybeans, etc, which means LOTS more for them to eat of a higher nutritional density, many more places to hide and yard up, and now we have better game management as well. We are getting more deer now, and overall larger deer, *even with robust hunting pressure*.

The very lowest period of time for whitetail populations in US history was immediately after the beginning of the great depression, when hunting pressure shot through the roof because people were starving because the wallstreet pirates had borked the economy, so hunting pressure increased well past the point that the authorities could handle. It got so bad for the deer population, that in some areas, such as my state of Georgia, they estimate only a few hundred head were left statewide, total, before things started getting better, and now the herd size is back up just great, and the individual animal size is back up as well. Very similar to my Zimbabwe comments, just we didn't have a big civil war going on then (unfortunately in my view, we should have sorted out those scumbag ripoff "elitists" the traditional way back then and been done with it));.heh.... Very similar in some ways, borked economy, ag plummeted, hunting increased from necessity, etc. Anyway, water under the dam now. Or maybe coming soon again, who knows....

It all has to do with whether or not the local economy is intact or not, if local agriculture is able to work and make some money and not be destroyed from warfare or other retarded big business and big government normal tom foolery, then responsible game management. No game management (the agenda 21, Gaia, "rewilding" junk science theory), means the herds get overly large for their area and start croaking from diseases and malnutrition, and then the natural predators, who's numbers have now increased go through the same thing, lose food, so they croak from malnutrition, a boom bust never ending cycle). No game mana

Re:yep, debunked

[hairyfeet]

Greetings from AR, fellow rural guy! I always find it kinda funny how out of touch most of the city folks are when it comes to things like herd management, like everyone is some clueless hillbilly just blasting everything that moves. Here the deer are so numerous and well fed that less than 5 miles out of a town of 15k I can go to my mom's place and find numerous deer beds where a passing herd bedded down for the night, and stopping to allow a large deer herd pass, usually led by a truly magnificent buck, is pretty much an everyday occurrence here.

Here we take herd management VERY seriously, going so far as to set up specialized deer feeders that rub the animals fur against it to cut down on Lyme disease bearing ticks in the animal population. During droughts or other conditions where the health of the herds might be affected feeding and watering areas are set up (no hunting near there allowed, of course) to encourage the animals to feed there instead of destroying crops...it is all VERY well managed, with the health of the animals being just as big a concern as with any livestock.

And finally while we may get a few doctors or lawyers that hunt the deer for sport, most hunters here are multi-generational hunters that have been helping put food on their families tables going back over a century. The local cemetery has the first hunter in my own family, who came over during the early 1800s potato famine and died during the civil war. The hunters here are VERY serious about protecting the herds, and have no qualms whatsoever with turning in those who take illegal kills. To them these large herds isn't about sticking some trophy on the wall, it is about respecting nature and putting food on their table and the poorer families around them. Nothing goes to waste, from hide to bones all is used, and these hunters care about those animals just as much as any rancher cares about his herd. As you said this affects all of us living in rural areas, and we take GOOD care of these animals.

I have no doubt that my boys grandchildren will be able to hunt the descendants of the herd I stopped and witnessed just today, and their grandchildren will be able to, and so on. It is all about balance here, and keeping these herds robust and healthy is something we all care about. And any tree huggers that think we are over hunting the herds just needs to come to AR and witness some of the truly magnificent herds we have here. Pretty much anywhere you go in this state you will find truly huge deer trails, and as I said finding a large herd have bedded in your back field the night before is pretty much an everyday occurrence. If anything the deer population has grown larger than when I was a child, not smaller. Then I was lucky if I saw one wild animal a week, now deer, opossums, ducks, squirrels, quail, you pretty much can't go a day without getting a chance to stop and observe some wildlife migrating from one place to another, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Hmm, I want to help but my dog is kind of scrawny.

[Shagggs]

Can we eat the environmental researchers who did this study, seems like that would save loads of resources.

everything uses giga-joules

[murdocj]

If you had your computer with a 500w power supply on 12 hours a day, 365 days a year, you are burning about 8 giga-joules (figuring 1 watt = 1 joule/sec, 3600 secs/hr * 500 w = 1.8 million joules / hr, multiple by an random guesstimated average usage of 12 hours/day and 365 days a year), or about 1/7th of the Toyota Land Cruiser (according to the article).

And that doesn't factor in the energy to produce it, the energy to connect it to the Internet, the fact that if you are reading Slashdot you probably have a couple of computers, you may be using them more than 12 hours in a day, etc.

Or to put it another way, these researchers, who don't have a pet, probably run computers that use as much energy as a pet. Like most people, these researchers find it easy to dispense with things that they don't personally care about.

Heres a better idea

[tengeta]

Since you environmentalists act like religious zealots, just using Al Gore instead of god, lets just eat all of you and rid The Earth of a group of useless control freaks.

Better sugestion: Human Horn!

[SectoidRandom]

I mean seriously compare your average westerner's eco-print to those figures quoted here for our loved ones. I for one believe we find far better places to "make savings" when it comes to our combined foot print!

And yes, this is sarcasm. (maybe)

Re:Oh, please - Oh, please yourself

[h4rm0ny]

Wow! The point about eating the entire carcass is one I've never actually heard before. And it's a very good one. It's perfectly possible to have a healthy diet that includes meat. It's also perfectly possible to have a healthy diet without it. Statistically, vegetarians are much healthier than meat eaters, but this is in large part due to vegetarians correlating with the better educated and, especially, with the more health conscious. Allow for those factors and vegetarians are not as overwhelmingly healthier, but they are still statistically healthier by a worthwhile margin. Obviously all meats can be healthy in the right amounts, but meats that are "healthier", or perhaps just much harder to abuse, are chicken and fish. If you would make the argument that a truly omnivorous diet is healthier than a purely vegetarian one... it's tricky. I think in principle you could be right, but there are two ways we can mean "healthier". If we're comparing like for like - the perfect omnivorous diet eaten by an educated, health-conscious person with access to whatever they want to eat alongside a similarly educated, health-consciouse person with the same freedom to eat whatever they like... I don't know if you could call either healthier as they would both have access to all the nutrients they needed and wouldn't eat an excess of anything they shouldn't. So to distinguish in that case, you'd have to go to risk factors in which case I think the vegetarian would come out ahead. There are fewer food-poisoning risks for example. But it's pretty much the same on both sides. If we move into a more realistic example, perhaps talking statistically... then I believe that I could make a stronger case for the vegetarian diet being healthier. A healthy vegetarian diet is going to be very rich in complex carbohydrates, lots of fibre, etc. The slippery slope for a vegetarian is, I think, less steep than if you eat meat. But anyway, if we're talking about individuals, then all bets are off. Only statistically is vegetarianism provably better for your health.

Incidentally, the sources of protein... A lot of people simply don't know how to be vegetarian. Protein comes in two general groups. The advantage of meat is that it gives you both at once. The same is true of dairy sources, e.g. cheese and eggs. But if you're trying to source protein from vegetable sources, there are very few that give you both at once (though there are a few). As a general guideline, grains give you one group and pulses give you another. So you should always try to mix both in a meal. For example, lentils alone might feel a little lacking. Mix in rice and your stomach will feel as sated as it ever has. Beans on toast for example. If you look at the traditional combinations, you'll realise that a lot of them work on the principle of these combinations. Presumably people just worked it out for themselves based on what felt good. And regarding soy, I've been vegetarian for my entire life and aside from occasional soy source in Japanese cooking, I never touch the stuff. Don't even like tofu. :D

If you're in the UK (or if they sell it wherever you are), you might try Quorn. It's pretty nutritious, can be used in place of meat in dishes and really soaks up flavour if you marinade it. Seriously, if you want to go vegetarian (not saying you should but if you do) and you're struggling, email me and just remind me you're from that conversation on Slashdot.

Regards,
H.

Stupid is as Stupid does.

[pubwvj]

This sort of report is asinine and sensationalistic.

If you really want to save energy, eat a Politically Correct Greenie.

By the way, the planet doesn't need saving. It will continue on as if nothing happened when we are extinguished.

Wild animals are destroying the enviroment!

[psithurism]

Wait, what about all the wild animals running around out there? They should have nearly the impact that pets do. Will no one send out the population control specialists to keep their numbers down?

In fact, I adopted my cats from a feral colony, sure I enhanced their lifespans with immunizations and proper nutrition, but really whats the difference between my pets now and the wild animals they were?

Sure one eats food farmed by humans, but the other either steals food farmed by humans (my cats' previous diet) or legally eats from the bounty of nature that humans are trying to preserve.

Huge savings!

[psithurism]

They calculate the environmental impact of fish in their book; fish are part of the problem!

You should be thanking by-catch practices for saving us from the environmental impact those huge numbers of fish obviously had.

Self solving problems

[symbolset]

Malthus.

yes

[zogger]

Yes, just way way WAY too much bullcrap comes out of the one world all humans are evil and must be controlled agenda driven "watermelon" side of the environmental movement. The public facing green with the solid red core. Been seeing it for years, main reason I stopped joining and participating in the more mainstream big enviro orgs. To me, the ones that do the best job are the ones lead by sportsmen, like trout unlimited and ducks unlimited, etc. Just those two orgs do more for nature, good science and a good environment inside the US, without bankrupting anyone or forcing people out of work or any of that other rank stuff that happens, then all the other more well known big orgs like the sierra club and WWF combined. So, when I see a chance to expound a little here on something I know about, I do so.

Another one that almost caught me in the beginning was climate change. Yes, the climate changes, and always will, sometimes faster sometimes slower. Yes, humans pollute and can be wasteful and we sure can be smarter about how we go about things. I am all for cleaner environment, alternative energy (own my own solar panels and windcharger, unlike 99.99% of self professed enviros out there, grow a lot of our own food organically here, don't use GM seeds, heat with natural wood instead of fossil fuels, etc) and etc, but as soon as I heard the first faint whisperings of a new trillion dollar a year wall street scam skimming effort called "cap and trade", the stealth negatax on the productive middleclass, I knew 3/4ths or better of the crap we would see "academically" and from government officials and NWO connected think tanks/foundations after that point would be garden fertilizer of the more natural kind. And it has been.

  Which really is a shame, really, a crying shame, because we COULD do a lot better with some more sane and not based on junk science policies,like pushing superinsulation-real energy conservation, and telecommuting over physical commuting for office jobs, as the top priority over taxed this or that or expensive new centralized powerplants of any kind, or offering 100% tax credits for new solar installs, anything better over "cap and trade", but they are bound and determined to come up with another huge ripoff scam now that they got busted with their mortgage frauds pants down around their ankles and needed bailing out to cover their bad derivatives bets. I mean, can't folks read the news and see where all this economic ripoff crap comes from in the first place?

  So that's the next boondoggle and pocket picking conjob, sold to people with the slickest possible PR and propaganda money can buy to save the planet, tax yourselves out of existence and into perpetual and muyltugenerational serfdom so that the billionaires can become multi billionaires. And they'll get legions of followers to cheer on this mass lameness. Freakin sad really.

There's an old adage that is almost always true, "follow the money". You do that, it eventually leads right back to the same posse of crooks and thieves in DC and on wall street, just never fails.

Over there where you are, have you gotten nailed with any of their "rewilding" wolves yet? We don't have that yet here,(they keep trying but no dice for them yet) but just the coyotes and wild dogs are bad enough.

Re:yes

[hairyfeet]

We don't worry about the wolves here, like our ancestors we just call 'em pets! Most of the "dogs" I've had have been half wolf or better, and many strays end up mixing wolf into their gene pool. I've found wolves make some of the best family dogs you can have, they are VERY territorial and as long as you don't have little kids that'll pull on their fur they are easy going animals. We just recently lost our 16 year old wolf collie mix, he just decided it was his time, went out into the woods and never returned. I'm gonna miss that dog, never had to worry about thieves as long as old Jack was there.

As for all that "cap and trade" bullshit? Two words- Goldman Sachs. You look at just about every scam that has been pulled upon this country since the turn of the 20th century and you will find Goldman Sachs right in the thick of it. That one company has caused more misery and suffering than the dozen worst companies put together, but thanks to treasonous bribery they get away with it time and time again. You watch no matter what the science says Goldman Sachs WILL get their cap and trade, which will cause plenty of suffering but fill their pockets with gold.

But sadly I'm afraid you are correct, as I too once was a "greenie' until one by one I saw the platforms taken over by total extremists, like PETA and their 'sea kittens" bullshit, and the scary part? You dig deeper into these people's agenda and they are all for culling the herd alright, as long as that herd is human. Of course it won't affect their families or friends just those filthy poor and middle class, like the AlGore pushing carbon credits while he flies around in his personal jet blowing through more fuel than a dozen middle class families do in a year. Total elitist bullshit. Which frankly is why this country has gone to hell in a handbasket, too much corruption and bribery driving out even the smallest shred of common sense in pursuit of more scams and the "mighty mighty dollar bill" which should probably be our national anthem.

So while I hope things change, I'm personally predicting we got another 20 years tops before a complete Soviet style collapse. As you have pointed out things like "carbon credits' are gonna be just another incredible middle class screwjob by the Goldman Sachs money men, and you can't keep shipping everything overseas and expect to stay afloat. What will happen after that? Who knows, but we can't keep going the way we are, with the extremists and financiers controlling the country. As you said we could be doing MUCH better than we are, from nuclear to weatherproofing to wind and solar, but those aren't as easy to line your pockets with for the money men so they will get shot to hell. But at least here in the south the rest of the country can go to shit and we'll be alright. In the days of the depression we just bartered, grew our own and hunted, we did it before and can do it again. To quote an old Hank song "A country boy can survive".

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

The issues is over population. We are willing to sacrifice everything around us but us. Get rid of a bunch of us and the planet will find equilibrium. I love it, it's the cows, now the dogs, how about us? We are the cancer, devouring and destroying everything in our path. Long live them!

On a similar note...

[Anonymous Coward]

Save the planet, eat your children.

Good thinking, wrong target group..

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, a better solution to saving the planet would be to stop humans from procreating. This would also solve the problem of pets, cars, and those little annoying things that run around screaming.

Re:"No Dog On Board" sign Makes SUV's Safe From EL

[Anonymous Coward]

Better idea: dump your SUV and buy a car that is not ugly, slow and overly polluting.

You just don't get it

[zogger]

Their-government-science and economic rules are HARMFUL, wasteful, they do not work and haven't worked for so long now that it has resulted in vast loss of sea creatures, it has resulted in LESS fish in the sea, not more, and higher prices for what seafood we get, and long range it has near destroyed the fishing industry. It's been way more bureaucratic insane bull than not. It is not "science" at all.

The biggest single positive change they can do is recognize the HARD SCIENCE,(and this is an exact example of where a simple law change would really work) completely verifiable, repeatable, absolutely zero debate, not opinion, real fact, real data, that fishing with nets results in a "variety" catch in multi hundreds of thousands of fishing trips a year, all over the planet, and it should NOT be illegal to bring that catch in and sell it. In fact it should be near required, and sort it out at the docks and fishhouses better.

All of the fish with airbladders die from the bends when you haul them up, but official pseudo science regulations *make believe this doesn't happen*, that if you "throw them back" they go on their merry fish way. They just don't.. Please see my reply here as well, my direct observations as a commercial shrimper before, and this was decades ago and the-governments- are still enforcing "throw it all back in except the target fish" and it is still utter complete rubbish junk science.

There is simply no way possible at all to have some sort of artificial intelligence driven nets (or "longline" rigs) that only catch one single target species of a correct size and gender, or any other ridiculous notion like that. They can try and regulate that into existence all day long, using as many laws and words as possible, and it still will not change reality.

And there is just example after example of this sort of insane regulatory mindset that has infested governments and well meaning but totally naive enviro orgs where reality doesn't even come close to their theories. The freakin spotted owl crap is another prime example there of total Agenda 21 style driven rubbish junk science that caused huge loss of jobs and incomes, and did *nothing* at all whatsoever to either increase or decrease the spotted owl populations. It has been proven without any doubt at all that they do not absolutely require virgin old growth forest, they find nests in barns and second growth forests, and that the main reason their numbers were in decline is because of competition from other more aggressive owl species.

Not saying all regulations are bad, of course not, I'd be the first to admit that and am in favor of true scoience based regs, but tons of them are so far into being counter productive as opposed to the stated goals that you have to wonder what other purpose is behind them,* because they have nothing to do with hard science or legitimate best practices, even though their words may claim they do.

*Well, I don't winder at all about it, I'll leave it for "debate", but in the past when I was "in the movement" I have heard personally dot org enviro so called leaders and organizers bragging and discussing "off the record" about their long range political power goals, which are pretty disgusting totalitarian crap and have little to do with saving the environment and a lot to do with having a major global two class society with masters-order givers, and serfs-order takers who have been herded into selected mega cities by overlapping and ridiculous laws that make rural living about impossible, even when they use normal "left wing" styled soothing words and noises.

I no longer would work with or be affiliated with most of the large "enviro" orgs out there, even though I am fairly and honestly "green" myself, and walk my talk with my lifestyle choices, nor do I trust any of their tame politicians who go along with that nonsense, including the upcoming co2 cap and trade world new wall

Bah, Bollocks.

[delire]

Well, while vegetarian humans may have a seemingly lower environmental impact, everyone seems to forgetting the impact of all the supplements that they have to take, because the human body is evolved as an omnivore and thus needs various things we cannot get from a vegetable diet.

I have friends that have been vegetarian since birth. I have been vegetarian most of my life. I've never taken supplements, very rarely get sick and have been a competitive runner.

More drag-and-drop propaganda from Meat Corp. We've never killed animals with our own hands or with our teeth. We invented a technology called The Weapon to do so, the same used to kill (and, on occasion eat) other humans.

Bollocks I tell ye.

Obligatory Pratchettism

[RockDoctor]

Cut-My-Own-Throat Al-Dibblah in Small gods, IIRC : "Pets can be source of great comfort in times of turmoil. And in times of famine too, of course." Or words to that general effect.
I'll try to pick up a Korean cookbook - on my way out of the country.

Quite an achievment

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is by far the mos stupid and biased thing i've ever read on slashdot... and that's quite an achievment.

Re:Oh, please - Oh, please yourself

[BranMan]

Very nice points. Though I probably wasn't too clear with my own words - I believe the point I was trying to make was that we evolved as omnivores, to eat like omnivores. And while one can eat vegetarian, you have to consciously eat a wide variety to get the nutrients you need - with an omnivorous diet it comes a lot closer to 'just happens'. Vegan, while it can work, is to some extent 'unnatural' for the human animal.

My comments on 'environmental cost' were just that cattle or herds can be herded, and fed on unimproved lands. Crops need to be cultivated. If we can leave the land alone - isn't that a lesser environmental cost?

Re:Oh, please - Oh, please yourself

[h4rm0ny]

I agree with both your points. A purely vegtarian or vegan diet is mildly unnatural. But less unnatural for an omnivore than it would be for a carnivore. Vegetarian is a sub-set of omnivore, after all. Interestingly, veganism is less unnatural than vegetarianism. I'd never thought about it that way until your post just now, but cutting out meat is a minor change in evolutionary terms whilst eating milk and derived products post infancy is quite drastic. It results in far more health problems than anything else in a vegetarian diet. And it runs counter to the general scale of perceived extremism: meat eater -> vegetarian -> vegan. Maybe I should swap to being vegan. :o

Regarding the use of land unsuitable for crops for meat animals, agreed it makes sense from an environmental point of view. It's just that in practice, it never stops at that point, with a lot of crop-suitable land given over to feeding meat animals.

Anyway, thanks for a civilised discussion,
H.