Eat your dog (or cat) and save the planet?
So say Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, a pair of university based architects who specialize in topics related to sustainable living.
A friend, who begged to remain unnamed and will so as she has private land connections to a little known regional spring creek, and who holds a major university post (University of Utah) in environmental biology, sent this email and link to the following article –
…check this out – Bozeman is such a dog crazy town what the heck do you think the Prius driving dog owners will think of this? I can hear the gasps as I write this note, and can imagine the defenses that are rippling around the world as their book and premise gains some traction this week. Interestingly their book is available on Amazon but neither B&N nor Borders carries the title as of this morning. Somehow I doubt the independents in Bozeman will have it either…..
From today’s Dominion Post in Wellington, New Zealand comes a provocatively titled article – Save the Planet, Eat a Dog? Here’s an excerpt:
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.
My first thought in reading the article was to see if the more “enthusiastic” proponents of anthropogenic global warming would be willing to, pardon the irony here, “put their money where their mouth is” and follow the admonition proffered in the book.
In the interest of complete disclosure, my family has over the years owned a number of dogs and cats, in addition to a number of horses, chickens, turkeys, fish and birds, and unwillingly sponsored the livelihood of legions of gophers, moles, ground hogs, mice, elk and deer who trespassed upon the grounds of our various residences. With livestock roaming the place we couldn’t hunt the game; the tropical fish were too small to eat as were the songbirds.
We happily ate the chickens and turkeys although never went as far as contemplating horse, though there were a couple of times I’d have sent a stubborn steed to a boucheries chevalines had one been readily available.
Now that I think about it, my favorite grad school Chinese eatery (San Antonio) was busted years ago for serving meat predominantly harvested from stray neighborhood felines; well seasoned in the various Chinese dishes we enjoyed it was just another white meat. Friends in the food industry suggest that the practice still survives and in places thrives today. Yum, and pass the chicken kitty curry please. The eatery, remodeled and renamed, is still in business today.
Finally, the bold band following Lewis and Clark across the nation were apparently particularly fond of dog for dinner and were introduced to what they often wrote of as a delicacy (roast dog) by more than one of their Native American hosts. The Vales would call the behavior of these men well ahead of their time in terms of environmental stewardship.
Food for thought by a couple of rational, forward thinking scientists? Maybe.
Likely to happen in our neighborhood? Not a chance in hell.
Tags: Culture, Books, Art
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Eat the dog, pet the kitty.