A call for the killing of dogs to depopulate them and save the world!

[Nathan Janes]

Dogs use up more energy resources than a car, authors claim
"In their book Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable
Living, New Zealand-based architects Robert and Brenda Vale say keeping
a medium-sized dog has the same ecological impact as driving 10,000km a
year in a 4.6 litre Land Cruiser."

Dogs use up more energy resources than a car, authors claim
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26248145-5009760,00.html

Not only now are babies killing the world, but the family pet is too.
I can't believe people really put up with this crap! Insanity. Don't people understand all this propaganda is doing is leading us to the slaughterhouse. It is not that hard to go from condemning humans and animals for our natural processes and basic needs with decent living standards to saying we must kill off a swath of the population to "sustain" our planet.
Eugenics...plain and simple...Eugenics.....

Adopt a dog today make the world a better place for you and your children. :)

[Darrell]

Could it be that the authors are merely trying to make a point? (the point being that everything has a footprint into our collective resources which we need to better understand in order to make wise decisions)

[Belles]

Nathan, hang onto your hat.. for once I agree with you. These people have nothing better to do with their time than this? Let's see... how large was their ecofootprint when they published and printed this piece of garbage book.. and did they use a jet to ship containers of the book? Or better yet.. how about they go ride their bicycles down to the local dock and just keep peddling when they reach the end of the long pier... they sound like a couple of nut jobs.. point or not, it's beyond belief what some people think up when they have nothing better to do with their time:

Instead they recommend keeping "greener", smaller, and more sustainable pets, such as goldfish, hamsters, chickens or rabbits.

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.

Offputting as the idea may be, the question is valid given the planet's growing population and finite resources, Robert Vale said.

"Issues about sustainability are increasingly becoming things that are going to require us to make choices which are as difficult as eating your dog. It's not just about changing your lightbulbs or taking a cloth bag to the supermarket," he said.

"It's about much more challenging and difficult issues," he added.

"Once you see where (cats and dogs) fit in your overall balance of things - you might decide to have the cat but not also to have the two cars and the three bathrooms and be a meat eater yourself."

[Eli's Dad]

poor way to make a point .Do I agree we all need to change . . . YES ! But as with most things , You have extrenists on both side of the debate and both are inflexible and out of line.

[Belles]

You said it in a nutshell, Eli's...

Don't forget to recycle that nutshell though.. lol

[Darrell]

"Keeping a medium-sized dog has the same ecological impact as driving 10,000km a
year in a 4.6 litre Land Cruiser."

Lets' make a crude test using dollars as the measure of the footprint (just for fun):

approximate annual car total cost at 55 cents per mile = 10,000 km*0.6 mi/km*$0.55/mi = $3,300 (per IRS 2009 rate)

my dog's daily food bill:
meal 1 .. 1/4 lb organic barf ($1.35) + half apple ($0.25) + dollop of organic yogurt ($0.75) = $2.35
meal 2 .. 1 organic carrot ($0.30) + 2 raw chicken thighs ($1.00) = $1.30
snack .. 1 pretzl sized rawhide chew ($0.10)

$2.35 + $1.30 + $0.10 = $3.75

$3.75 * 365 days/yr = $1368.75

pet insurance = $27/mo * 12 mo = $324
annual vet visit, shots and tests = $200
annual supplements = $120

Thus $1368.75 + $324 + $200 + $120 = $2012.75

(And this doesn't count any unexpected vet emergencies due to injury or illness. average surgery is about $1000 each and that even an antibiotics subscription can exceed $100.)

So I can readily see that my dog's dollar footprint can easily compare to or even exceed that of an average car driven 6000 miles per year.

[Belles]

LOL, a little to advanced perhaps?

I'm not being a smarty.. but there are numbers and equals signs.. and I felt like my brain was on fire.

[Belles]

Darrell...

I just love your posts. You don't have to worry about lower life forms understanding it or not. In fact, I'm sure you don't care whether some people can't come up with anything more brilliant than to call you names like "idiots" - (which by the way is extremely offensive to me and last I checked, we were to refrain from name calling on these boards, Reid). I see your point and I see how your intellectual side could come to those conclusions.

You did, however, leave out other elements.. like the cost of shipping all of the products you use to feed and care for your pet. For example, what is the carbon footprint of a jet transport that carries all of those supplements, shots, dog treats, etc.?

Perhaps if there is merit to the study of animals and carbon footprints, then maybe that smacks in the face of so called "armchair conservationists" who prefer to rally to the battle cry of conservation - only when it suits them.

No matter.. I figure I donate my fair share of carbon footprint (if there really is such a thing) in other ways.. so if I didn't have my dogs, I'd be doing some other damage that someone can try and blame me for. Frankly, I'll keep the dogs and continue to pollute with dog poop.

[Darrell]

belles:

Actually I didn't leave that stuff out. I simply made the assumption that the dollar cost of an item was proportional to its carbon footprint. For example, consider Jenny's chicken thigh from inception to market. Someone used energy to hatch the chicken eggs and to keep the chicks warm. Someone used energy to plow, plant, harvest, package and store the chicken feed the chicks will be fed during thier lifetimes. Someone used energy to maintain the chicken buildings at proper temperature. Someone used energy to pump and purify the water they consumed. Someone used energy to kill, defeather and butcher the chickens at harvest and someone used energy to make the packaging materials they are placed in to be safely displayed at market. And someone spent energy to store the product properly and to deliver it to market, when it must continue to be stored properly at the expense of still more energy. When you get right down to it, that chicken thigh is almost pure carbon footprint. From a business perspective, labor, energy and profits are the main components of a chicken thigh -- energy (most from carbon fuels) being by far the largest of the three.

As I'm sure you are aware, in order to make sound decisions one must compare "apples to apples." Comparing carbon footprints is a perfect way to do this when what one wants to understand is the carbon fuel usage required to have or maintain each element in a system such as what a family annually spends money on. How else would we know that cutting back on A is more fruitfull than cutting back on B or C?

[Barbara]

Darrell, compared to a kid, $2K is nothing. I spent three times that in one day on my kid's braces. So, if we use the author's logic that keeping a dog is more expensive than the Land Cruiser driven 10,000 km and thus should not be kept, then having a kid is the most ecologically unsound/expensive thing humans can do. We should all be sterilized and/or eat the kids we have (for recycling purposes). Problem solved. Keep the dogs; they don't talk back or want cars or sneak out of the house.

[Darrell]

barbara:

Don't get me going on kids. I am against them. Two thirds of my real estate taxes go to public education for kids that don't want it, threaten their teachers and attack their fellow students. When not doing that, the little brats are out vandalizing property, doing drugs and entertaining themselves with driveby shootings.

Yes, more kids are good than bad. Perhaps we should take the bad ones and turn them in to shelters as non-adoptable, like some folks do with their pets? It sure would make sense from a carbon footprint consideration, huh?

[Strega]

Ha! That is funny. You said "Don't get me going on kids. I am against them."
I cannot tell you how hilarious that was (really- you have me cracking up over here!!)! "I am against them." Darrell- you never cease to amaze me. You are against kids. 'Anti-children'- I love that! (And I half-way agree with you, too!)

[Barbara]

Darrell...I am against all kids but the ones I have. I'm serious. I only like my own and sometimes I'm not too crazy about them. I agree that many kids are ungrateful little cretins that are of little use to anyone. We seem to have a high concentration of them in my neighborhood, too...the same ones who like to spray paint the f bomb on the playground equipment and the sidewalk. Parents don't give their kids enough chores, if you ask me. Keep those hands busy and they won't have time to hold a joint, gun or paint can.