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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."

4 of 942 comments (clear)

  1. Re:More Pollution is Better by fractoid · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
  2. Re:Good grief.. by 1s44c · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:Good grief.. by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:Good grief.. by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.