Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on October 23, 2009, 10:24:24 AM
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My alternate solution? Feed the enviros to my dog.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/2987848/Save-the-planet-time-to-eat-dog
Save the planet: time to eat dog?
By TANYA KATTERNS - The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 22/10/2009
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.
Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living.
The couple have assessed the carbon emissions created by popular pets, taking into account the ingredients of pet food and the land needed to create them.
"If you have a German shepherd or similar-sized dog, for example, its impact every year is exactly the same as driving a large car around," Brenda Vale said.
"A lot of people worry about having SUVs but they don't worry about having Alsatians and what we are saying is, well, maybe you should be because the environmental impact ... is comparable."
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.
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.
They found cats have an eco-footprint of 0.15ha – slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf. Hamsters have a footprint of 0.014ha – keeping two of them is equivalent to owning a plasma TV.
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.
"The title of the book is a little bit of a shock tactic, I think, but though we are not advocating eating anyone's pet cat or dog there is certainly some truth in the fact that if we have edible pets like chickens for their eggs and meat, and rabbits and pigs, we will be compensating for the impact of other things on our environment."
Professor Vale took her message to Wellington City Council last year, but councillors said banning traditional pets or letting people keep food animals in their homes were not acceptable options.
Kelly Jeffery, a Paraparaumu german shepherd breederwho once owned a large SUV, said eliminating traditional pets was "over the top".
"I think we need animals because they are a positive in our society. We can all make little changes to reduce carbon footprints but without pointing the finger at pets, which are part of family networks."
Owning rabbits is legal anywhere. Local bodies allow chickens, with some restrictions.
YOUR PET'S MARK
The eco-footprints of the family pet each year as calculated by the Vales:
German shepherds: 1.1 hectares, compared with 0.41ha for a large SUV.
Cats: 0.15ha (slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf). Hamsters: 0.014ha (two of them equate to a medium-sized plasma TV).
Goldfish: 0.00034ha (an eco-finprint equal to two cellphones).
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One hectare of land can produce 135 gigajoules a year...
This makes my American brain hurt.
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Awesome! I have three Great Danes. That means I cancel out three hippies! Whoo hoo! Doin' my part to stave off the ice age! :laugh:
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Our chickens aren't pets.
The dogs help protect the chickens from predators.
The cats mostly live off the land, and keep us from being totally over-run with vermin.
The horses I expect to be our primary transportation in a few years after the enviro-nazis get done. :(
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Awesome! I have three Great Danes. That means I cancel out three hippies! Whoo hoo! Doin' my part to stave off the ice age! :laugh:
Three Great Danes can eat three hippies. A week! How's that for sustainably living? =D
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Three Great Danes can eat three hippies. A week! How's that for sustainably living? =D
Nah, I wouldn't want my dogs to catch something nasty. Besides, can you imagine the cleaning those must require?
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I think it's very interesting that an SUV supposedly uses less energy than a doberman. I also think their concepts are seriously flawed to get such a result. I get the idea that they are using the energy costs at the factory and not adding in the mines where they get the iron ore, or the places they get the vinyl and whatnot for the seats, etc.
Oh wait. That 10,000 KM comes out to about 6300 miles a year, 525 miles a month, 17.5 miles per day.
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Their numbers are skewed, I believe. Even my biggest 100lb. Loafenpinchenhund probably emits less waste than a given rabid environmentalist. ;)
(Says the APS resident semi-environmentalist/conservationist...)
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Three Great Danes can eat three hippies. A week! How's that for sustainably living? =D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zZZpZvpDnM
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(Says the APS resident semi-environmentalist/conservationist...)
No sir, you are not one of THEM. I used to always describe myself as a conservationist until the meaning was usurped by people that shove their view down the throats of others, often for political, versus true conservation reasons.
We need another name for people who like self-reliance, alternate energy, conserving resources, etc. but as a choice, versus ramming the concept down people's throat in a regulatory and snooty "Prius owner" kind of way.
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Sweet I have a labrador and weimarener and I drive a SUV.
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Their numbers are skewed, I believe. Even my biggest 100lb. Loafenpinchenhund probably emits less waste than a given rabid environmentalist. ;)
(Says the APS resident semi-environmentalist/conservationist...)
Ah... you misunderstand. It's not the waste he emits, but the food that he eats.
Their problem is that to produce the food that he eats, it is more costly than to power your car... at least, according to their reckoning.
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Assuming their numbers are correct, why do cats eat so much less? Aren't cats even more carnivorous (by percentage of diet) than dogs? Is there so large an average difference in body mass that that skews that stats?
One hectare of land can produce 135 gigajoules a year...
This makes my American brain hurt.
Your humor makes my metric brain hurt.
I truly do not understand the rationale for griping about metric. It's one thing if you want to use English units yourself, if you can get away with it in your line of work, or if you simply use them casually. It's entirely another to subtly impugn someone else for using world standard (even in the U.S. for many industries' scientific or engineering purposes) units.
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Try living in the quality world, Chris.
Everything comes at you in both Metric and SAE. Ouch.
And I still stand by the carbon footprint numbers on the extrusion side of my dawgs vs. those "environmentalists" who would recommend we raise rabbits and chickens. Ya gotta poop sometime... ;)
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We need another name for people who like self-reliance, alternate energy, conserving resources, etc. but as a choice, versus ramming the concept down people's throat in a regulatory and snooty "Prius owner" kind of way.
Prepper. Survivalist. Hunter. Redneck. Bitter-clinger. There's probably a few more. :angel:
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Prepper. Survivalist. Hunter. Redneck. Bitter-clinger. There's probably a few more. :angel:
:laugh: :laugh:
The problem is, "conservationist" is really the right term. It's just that it's been twisted into something else. I grew up in an immigrant household where being a conservationist was simply a common sense way to live and was taught to me in a "waste not want not" kind of way (my dad still stores nuts, bolts, etc in empty cans he started using in the 60's). Now "conservationist" is a term you drop at the Starbucks or a wine and tofu party.
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Nah, I wouldn't want my dogs to catch something nasty. Besides, can you imagine the cleaning those must require?
A dog will eat anything, and has. No cleaning of hippies is necessary. If it makes you feel better you can hose them down first.
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Prepper. Survivalist. Hunter. Redneck. Bitter-clinger. There's probably a few more. :angel:
Someone who leads by example?
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so if i shoot inner city pit bulls
from the seat of a hummer
its good for the environment?
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Maybe, but if you drive into Asheville, Berkeley, or anywhere in Vermont and cast the hounds out of the Hummer to go eat hippies now you are really helping. :)
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so if i shoot inner city pit bulls
from the seat of a hummer
its good for the environment?
[/quote
Only if you gut them on the sidewalk and then take them home & eat them.
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can we calculate the green house impact of housing death row inmates as an incentive to reset their karmic spin?
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so if i shoot inner city pit bulls
from the seat of a hummer
its good for the environment?
[haiku]Shooting ghetto dogs
from the seat of a hummer
environmental[/haiku]
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See, truly environmentally minded people have both cats and dogs. You just have to look the other way when fido partakes of the kitty litter buffet. This way you feed two animals and decrease fido's carbon pawprint. It's the ultimate in recycling. =D
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Speaking of crunchy tootsie roll treats in a litter box, I once knew a dog that enjoyed cleaning up after pigs on the farm. I wouldn't let him lick me afterwards, but I guess he was at least an environmentally-friendly creature. =D
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Unfortunately, our dogs recycle their own waste. I wish they didn't.
I'm so sick of hearing about what I can do to be green and save the planet that I just don't care anymore. I believe in sensible conservation, but I'm so tired of hearing about it. The media need to just shut up about it already.
If a dog has a big carbon footprint, just think about a child. Pretty soon the environmentalists will start calling people with children "Breeders" and stuff and saying we need to control the human population.
Oh, wait...
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Speaking of crunchy tootsie roll treats in a litter box, I once knew a dog that enjoyed cleaning up after pigs on the farm. I wouldn't let him lick me afterwards, but I guess he was at least an environmentally-friendly creature. =D
I can go you one better than that. =D
When we lived in logging camp and had an outhouse back in the trees, the huskie puppies would ... well, you don't want to know what they did, but I didn't have to dig a new hole for quite a while :O
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We need another name for people who like self-reliance, alternate energy, conserving resources, etc. but as a choice, versus ramming the concept down people's throat in a regulatory and snooty "Prius owner" kind of way.
I think it used to be "smelly hippie". :D
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Back at home our dogs liked to eat the horse poop sometimes, :lol: I wonder how big of a carbon footprint a horse makes.
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Kelly Jeffery, a Paraparaumu german shepherd breederwho once owned a large SUV, said eliminating traditional pets was "over the top".
Rin Tin Tin, a retired German Shepherd cinematic "personality," said eliminating eco-architects would be a good start but difficult to achieve because they are mostly skinny little [bleeps] and not especially tasty, so there's little incentive to eat them.
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I'm so sick of hearing about what I can do to be green and save the planet that I just don't care anymore.
I'm with you, except I never cared much in the first place. Unless I become Amish or go live with an indigenous Amazon tribe, there will never be anything about my lifestyle that's even remotely environmental and, if you're reading this, yours either.
The bottom line is that I'm not willing to make those kinds of sacrifices. I enjoy my modern, convenient lifestyle, and I'm not dense enough to believe that throwing a few cans and scraps of paper in a bin once a week will even slightly make up for it. I know many people who live just as I do, who fill that silly bin once a week and feel gut-wrenchingly guilty about how they live.. ;/
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there will never be anything about my lifestyle that's even remotely environmental and, if you're reading this, yours either.
Easy, killer.
Some of us actually do a fair bit to recycle or otherwise keep that trash bin from overflowing each Thursday morning, whether mandated by municipality or a conservationist upbringing.
No need to denigrate us for that choice.
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Some of us actually do a fair bit to recycle or otherwise keep that trash bin from overflowing each Thursday morning, whether mandated by municipality or a conservationist upbringing.
Perhaps I should have explained better that the people I am denigrating are the ones who use just as many resources as I do, but get on their high horse about being environmentally responsible when the ONLY thing they do about it is throw a few cans and newspapers in a 2' X 1.5' box once a week.
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I meant my comment to poke fun at my own lack of flexibility.
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What would be the point of replacing a pet that is not socially acceptable to eat with another that is? We still wouldn't eat it. Also, how many people stop with just one rabbit? There would likely be more of them than the dogs and cats now.
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So basically, if I make a donation to the dog pound for euthanasia, I 'm good to go on that new Hummer? Vexing situation for sure.
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What would be the point of replacing a pet that is not socially acceptable to eat with another that is? We still wouldn't eat it. Also, how many people stop with just one rabbit? There would likely be more of them than the dogs and cats now.
They don't even get that right. Dogs, cats etc = pets. Cows, chickens, pigs = yummy food.
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They don't even get that right. Dogs, cats etc = pets. Cows, chickens, pigs = yummy food.
But they are not even yummy food if they are made into pets. Pets are pets. They are not generally eaten by their owners.
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But they are not even yummy food if they are made into pets. Pets are pets. They are not generally eaten by their owners.
What's a little childhood trauma compared with saving the planet? =D
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Maybe if we fed our dogs ethanol, we'd be more enviro-conscious.....
....either that....or stupid people...there seems to be a lot of those around lately.... =D
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(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpremium1.uploadit.org%2FdocZox%2F%2Fcow-gas-tank-404_686141c.jpg&hash=3c2f2cf405a690e859f6fd0528578ea6a2d86a37)
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You find the best pictures, Harold.... :lol:
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Easy, killer.
Some of us actually do a fair bit to recycle or otherwise keep that trash bin from overflowing each Thursday morning, whether mandated by municipality or a conservationist upbringing.
No need to denigrate us for that choice.
I read something a while back that said the techniques used to reprocess recyclables into usable raw materials usually consume more resources than producing those same raw materials anew. The reason was that we have much more/better capital infrastructure set up around producing new materials, and therefore the processes that produce the raw materials from scratch tend to be slightly more efficient in their use of resources.
It was interesting food for thought. "Recycling is good" may not be as axiomatic as we all think it is.
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Having been downwind from the rendering plant in Omaha, NE, I concur wholeheartedly. =|
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I have always found it interesting that the enviros push "recycle" the most from their mantra of "reduce, reuse, recycle". They actually have that in the right order regarding effective conservation of resources, but recycling gets all the advertising. Personally, I think it goes back to my Prius Owner theory that things like recycling are more "showy" of someone "doing something" so it's more popular than the other two.
I don't have the engineering background to give an expert opinion, but common sense seems to indicate to me that recycling things like certain paper, batteries, and some metals (like cash for clunkers cars) is going to create at least as much pollution and hazardous byproducts (maybe more) as producing them from scratch.
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Producing dogs from scratch isn't too difficult. =D
Though some folks do prefer to get recycled dogs from the pound ;)
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PETA has a lot to answer for ...
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I trust my Golden Retreiver more than most of the non-family humans that I have interacted with.
I will not be eating or selling her too soon............
Jamie
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I'm not dense enough to believe that throwing a few cans and scraps of paper in a bin once a week will even slightly make up for it. I know many people who live just as I do, who fill that silly bin once a week and feel gut-wrenchingly guilty about how they live.
I recycle all of my plastic, metal, and glass. Either I run it down to the collectors for a little gas money, or I leave it in the alley "for the homeless". ;) I don't do it out of guilt or for self-righteousness, but because it seems sensible. It seems so normal that when I go somewhere where recycling bins aren't available I find myself carrying my containers home.
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"A lot of people worry about having SUVs but they don't worry about having Alsatians and what we are saying is, well, maybe you should be because the environmental impact ... is comparable."
My dog has already put in a call to Cass Sunstein about a lawsuit.
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Polluting pets: the devastating impact of man's best friend
PARIS (AFP) – Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.
But the revelation in the book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.
The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.
Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.
To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.
"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said.
Other animals aren't much better for the environment, the Vales say.
Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.
But Reha Huttin, president of France's 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says the human impact of eliminating pets would be equally devastating.
"Pets are anti-depressants, they help us cope with stress, they are good for the elderly," Huttin told AFP.
"Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don't eat meat, so why shouldn't I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?"
Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs -- the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars -- says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all.
"I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.
"I don't want a life without animals," she told AFP.
And pets' environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.
With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.
Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faeces cause high bacterial levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.
And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo -- owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.
But despite the apocalyptic visions of domesticated animals' environmental impact, solutions exist, including reducing pets' protein-rich meat intake.
"If pussy is scoffing 'Fancy Feast' -- or some other food made from choice cuts of meat -- then the relative impact is likely to be high," said Robert Vale.
"If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower."
Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areas and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals' blood.
As with buying a car, humans are also encouraged to take the environmental impact of their future possession/companion into account.
But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.
"Rabbits are good, provided you eat them," said Robert Vale.
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Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs -- the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars -- says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all.
"I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.
"I don't want a life without animals," she told AFP.
ohjesus they are interviewing cat ladies.
I love animals.... as long as they don't live with me.
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Merged duplicate threads. ;)
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>>bumpersticker.....
I ran over your dog who bit my honor student.
...bumpersticker>>
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Your humor makes my metric brain hurt.
I truly do not understand the rationale for griping about metric. It's one thing if you want to use English units yourself, if you can get away with it in your line of work, or if you simply use them casually. It's entirely another to subtly impugn someone else for using world standard (even in the U.S. for many industries' scientific or engineering purposes) units.
Pfff. The metric system is so slide-rule era. With the ubiquity of electronic calculators and conversion, everyone might as well go back to units that are used because they are handy, not because they are divisible by ten.
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One hectare of land can produce 135 gigajoules a year...
This makes my American brain hurt.
I just want to know where the socket to plug-in is located.
And is that enough energy to charge the flux capacitor on a specially modified DeLorean time machine ???
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See, truly environmentally minded people have both cats and dogs. You just have to look the other way when fido partakes of the kitty litter buffet. This way you feed two animals and decrease fido's carbon pawprint. It's the ultimate in recycling. =D
A dog-trainer friend of ours calls this "Kitty Roca". Think chocolate & nuts type treats...
I have always found it interesting that the enviros push "recycle" the most from their mantra of "reduce, reuse, recycle". They actually have that in the right order regarding effective conservation of resources, but recycling gets all the advertising. Personally, I think it goes back to my Prius Owner theory that things like recycling are more "showy" of someone "doing something" so it's more popular than the other two.
Yessir... after all, doing good doesn't count, unless people know how virtuous you are :(
I don't do it out of guilt or for self-righteousness, but because it seems sensible. It seems so normal that when I go somewhere where recycling bins aren't available I find myself carrying my containers home.
Likewise. Paper, glass, and cans(however many are left after a trip to the shooting berm) get bagged up. We don't yet have recycling service, so we take it all to my parents' house and use their barrel. I'm not a fool, but it's something small I can do. If nothing else, it's a good portion of my trash that would otherwise go to a landfill. In other words, it makes sense :)
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The term "the dog did it" didn't just pop out of the blue..........I have 5 cats and eat alot of beans. What does that come out to?...chris3
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I was wondering if any of you had eaten your dogs yet. I mean, if dog meat is good enough for Barack Obama...
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Wow!
Thread necro much?
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Seren and I will gladly eat the researchers.
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It was a while back that Dogbert from the Dilbert comics had a power plant that burned environmentalists. Might even be older than this thread.
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Seren and I will gladly eat the researchers.
Animal cruelty.
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Seren and I will gladly eat the researchers.
Careful, you don't want to end up like Lrrr... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYhF79vIlws)