News Is Eating Dogs Better for the Environment than Driving SUVs?

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The discussion highlights the environmental impact of pet ownership, specifically comparing the ecological footprint of a medium dog to that of an SUV. A study indicates that a medium dog requires significant resources, consuming 164 kg of meat and 95 kg of cereals annually, resulting in a land use of 0.84 hectares, which exceeds the footprint of a Toyota Land Cruiser. Participants express mixed feelings about the implications of this comparison, with some emphasizing the social and emotional benefits of dogs that outweigh their environmental costs. The conversation also touches on broader themes of environmentalism and the complexities of human versus biological impacts on the planet. Ultimately, the debate reflects a tension between valuing pets and addressing environmental sustainability.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/2987821/Save-the-planet-eat-a-dog

..."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...
 
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What a sad idea. Duke loves children and is a constant source of affection and entertainment. He is also a very effective always-on alarm system and provides additional cohesion (as if more of that that were needed!) with our neighbors, who love him. He gets so much attention from one particular family (husband and wife, their daughter, and her two children and their dog) that he practically yanks me off my feet when we are approaching their house and he's on-leash. I had Duke with me when I went to borrow a post-hole digger to uncover my septic tank. The neighbor didn't have one (our soil is VERY bony!), but he came out to visit Duke, and jumped in my Forester, saying that he'd help me dig with spades. We dug down over 2' and finally hit concrete, and he said I should call our other neighbor who owns a very large Ford tractor with a backhoe to help remove that huge mass of soil and rock. He came right over, and using the backhoe and manual shoveling, we excavated the tank. That 2nd neighbor refused any payment, but asked me to tell him when the guy with the tank-pumping truck showed up so he could arrange to have his septic tank emptied, too. When the pumping guy showed up, I paid him $140 each to have my tank and my neighbor's tank pumped. Now the guy with the 'hoe wants to help me with additional ground-work to "get even" with me. Where can you get a couple of hours of skilled operator+large equipment for that minor price? Still, he thinks he owes me. Well-behaved attentive dogs are KILLER ice-breakers.

dukeondeck.jpg


Some "analysts" pretend to know how to compute the cost of something without an inkling of its value. BTW, I could easily feed Duke with home-grown produce and bartered meat - he has a an unexpected taste for green tomatoes, too. He hasn't helped himself to any of the late-fruiting chilies, so he may learn a bit of discretion in garden-grazing. :eek:

BTW, when I was a kid, our Heinz 57 dog Lady would cruise the garden eating green-beans. It was great, because she preferred the milder-tasting, more fibrous large beans that we had overlooked during previous pickings, and she got those off the plants, and we got more blossoms, and smaller, tender beans.
 
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Forget getting rid of dogs. We can just turn the dogs loose and stop having children. Children grow up and have a far greater impact on the environment than dogs (who will eventually adjust to their natural environment like the dingos). Soon we would have a beautiful world without people. But who would notice?
 
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Biological life in general tends to use up energy. If only we could get rid of all of it, the planet would be safe.
 
Galteeth said:
Biological life in general tends to use up energy. If only we could get rid of all of it, the planet would be safe.

You forgot your sarcasm tag. But, I agree. What we are looking for are the non-biological contributions to energy waste and greenhouse gas emissions. If the problem were purely from biological sources, I would argue that it's not a problem, just a natural process we just have to cope with or go extinct. It's when we hasten that process to the detriment of our own species that we have a problem.
 
We "wasted" energy on Duke today. My wife's shower went a bit long because we tossed Duke in there too, for a dog-wash. Then I used two over-sized bath towels to dry him off and those need to be laundered. I'll gladly "ruin" the world one dog at a time.

One of his new favorite treats is raw carrots from our garden.
 
It seems to me these authors represent a problem that people have with environmentalism. There are certain religious qualities to it, i.e., the concept of regressive utopia (man has fallen from some purer state), guilt over existence, etc.
I wonder if some of these things are instinctual (or an emergent psychological byproduct inherent to societies).
That's not to say that some points of theirs might not be valid, but I personally don't accept the concept of original sin, wheter its basis is a fictional garden or a metabolism that has carbon dioxide as a byproduct.
 

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