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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[Joce640k]

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

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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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..

[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.

Another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

[dougisfunny]

Soylent green is Poodles!

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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

Sounds like you have a lot of pets...

[rtilghman]

I think I know where I'm having dinner tonight! :)

-A Committed Environmentalist

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.

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 ?

[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.

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.

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.

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

[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

[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"

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.

I hear their next release is a cook book

[hyades1]

"Two Hundred Interesting Ways to Wok Your 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: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.

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: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.

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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

[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: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: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?"

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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: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.

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: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.