So I read an article today, here:
www.thestar.com...
Article is about the ecological footprint of your dog. Or should I say big dog. Little ones I guess don't count. Two researchers from New Zealand
Robert and Brenda Vale, claim that your family dog chews up more resources than an over sized car.
They apparently have written a book on this subject:
"Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living"
Here are some details from the article on their findings:
According to their figures, feeding a medium-sized dog for a year has twice the environmental impact of driving a luxury SUV for 10,000
kilometres.
The Vales based their calculations on the amount of acreage needed to sustain the dog's diet of 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereals in
a year – both figures measuring food weight before it is dried and processed into kibbles.
The Vales based much of their research on work done at the University of British Columbia in the early '90s. Researchers there created the framework
to gauge a person's ecological footprint. Called a "global hectare," it measures how much useful land each of us – and now our pets – use to
sustain our lifestyles.
According to the Vales' inputs, your chowhound requires the produce of 0.84 global hectares (gha) to sustain him for one year – either as food or
feed for livestock. A larger dog, say, a Labrador, might require as much as 1.1 gha of space.
A Toyota Land Cruiser, by contrast, requires 0.41 gha of biocapacity in year. A North American uses about 9 gha.
The book’s playful title, and serious suggestion that pet animals may be usefully “recycled”, by being eaten by their owners or turned into
petfood when they die, may not appeal to animal fans.
blog.miragestudio7.com...
As a dog lover, find this completely appalling. These people have, in my opinion, gone over the edge of environmental insanity.
How long is it before this type of logic is used for calculating the environmental footprint for individual humans? First your dogs have to go, then
your kids, then you.
The carbon footprint craze has completely gotten out of hand and must be stopped before it consumes us all! Umm...I mean our dogs.
"Some people have said maybe we should eat academics instead," Vale said, laughing.
In the case of these two academics, I would have to agree.
[edit on 27-10-2009 by kommunist]
