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New cause for Global Warming - Ashock - 12-22-2009
As some of you already know, I am a huge proponant of curbing the causes of Global Warming. Yes, caps and all. This must be stopped and we need to pull all our Global Resources (capped also) together to combat this mighty threat.
Now, disturbing new evidence has come out:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091220/sc_af...minganimalsfood
PARIS (AFP) â 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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In light of this new and very sobering information, I propose that all dogs are destroyed on sight. The bigger the dog, the more threat to Our Children (yet again, caps) they represent.
I am serious about this and I practice what I preach. Sure, the kids are crying in my house. However, I believe the drowning of our family dog, Stalin, was totally justified and my kids will thank me for this act in the future.
His new puppy playmate, Engels, is patiently awaiting his fate.
Wake up, people. The dogs are killing our planet!
New cause for Global Warming - --Pete - 12-22-2009
Hi,
Quote:The dogs are killing our planet!Often, when I say that the world population should be between one and ten percent of what it is now, some fool asks me who I think should be killed. Now, at long last, I have an answer -- pet owners!
"Are you now, or have you ever been, . . . "
:lol:
--Pete
New cause for Global Warming - kandrathe - 12-23-2009
The dog days of summer are a cat-astrophe!
New cause for Global Warming - --Pete - 12-23-2009
Hi,
Quote:The dog days of summer are a cat-astrophe!In Xanth, that's "cat-ass-trophy" and it grows on trees. :lol:
--Pete
New cause for Global Warming - DeeBye - 12-23-2009
Hang on a second, I don't think Ashock is entirely serious here.
New cause for Global Warming - Jester - 12-23-2009
Yet another problem that could be solved immediately by a moderate tax on greenhouse gases.
-Jester
New cause for Global Warming - Ashock - 12-23-2009
Quote:Yet another problem that could be solved immediately by a moderate tax on greenhouse gases.
-Jester
I agree wholeheartedly. I am all for taxing feces. Anything to save the planet from imminent destruction.
Speaking of that, ten minutes ago I payed my first installment.
New cause for Global Warming - Jester - 12-23-2009
Quote:I agree wholeheartedly. I am all for taxing feces. Anything to save the planet from imminent destruction.I'm afraid I don't give a crap. But I'm glad you do. :whistling:
Speaking of that, ten minutes ago I payed my first installment.
-Jester
New cause for Global Warming - Vandiablo - 12-24-2009
Ashock, if you're killing your dogs, you should be eating them.
Now, on to the knuckleheads:
(Warning: whilst humor permeates most of this post like a tuna by-product, some comments are humor-free... your risk.)
Quote: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."Meat". Yes. I just checked the cat food can and almost all the "meat" is "meat by-products".
What does that mean? It means that there's very little impact of pets eating "meat" until people stop eating meat. We're just giving the parts we don't eat to animals.
So most pet food has no impact. Now if yer buying some rich lady brand that doesn't use by-products, by all means, take out her lapdog and 40-pound longhair smashnose cat.
Quote: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.So, the Machines could have replaced Neo with a school of goldfish?? Then they wouldn't have had to make an alternate reality net thingie. They could have just had a treasure chest blowing bubbles.
Quote:"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?"That's backward. Meat eaters get to have animals because they caused the by-products to happen. Getting a pet is just cleaning up your mess if you're a meat-eater.
Quote: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.This woman could be a model Republican. You're not a polluter if you don't feel like one, and everything outweighs environmental considerations.
I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations."
Quote: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.Rodent feces is much nastier than that of cats or dogs. How many of these 188 million wild animals are mice? Both my cats kill mice and I'm damn happy that they do.
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.
I'm sorry, but I've never known a cat to kill a frog. Cats trying to kill toads will get a dose of poison. Did these knuckleheads get any naturalists to confirm their assumptions? And if cats could kill Cane Toads, that would be a good thing, right? (Or do kiwis like Aussies to suffer?)
I think there should be more cats out there. Especially where pigeons live. People who feed pigeons should be made to scrub public parks.
People bemoan loss of birds too much. When the starlings pass through, it's like a cloud of bird-pooping locusts. The effin crows wake me up some mornings, not with songbird niceness, but with an angry cacophony.
You can't walk in the field next to our nearby lake without stepping in Canada Goose poop. Damn ferner Canadians fowling our sacred American Ground! Golf courses in my area solve the goose problem with dogs. The dogs will chase off the geese and eventually the geese go elsewhere. A better solution of course involves the fact that geese are delicious.
Quote: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.I don't know about New Zealand, but around here, the dog poop goes to the landfills because people pick it up and put it in plastic bags. As long as they use the non-biodegradable plastic, and tie a good knot, no problem. Better to worry about disposable diapers.
Again, this is Dogs Are a Problem Only When People Stop Being the Problem. (Caps for you.)
Quote: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.Wouldn't this just be a treatment problem then?
Quote:"If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower."Okay, like I said, only change "lower" to "minimal until people do better".
Quote:Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areasIn part I agree with this, but, again, it's the human doing most of the biodiversity reduction
Quote:and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals' blood.Hell no. Go out there and kill the damn rodents. I will not cry about reduction of biodiversity because the local mouse population is being kept in check. Also, my cats kill the effin chipmunks, who dig tunnels in the ground around my house's foundation. Alvin must die.
Quote:"Rabbits are good, provided you eat them," said Robert Vale.They are indeed delicious a la moutarde.
Quote:In light of this new and very sobering information, I propose that all dogs are destroyed on sight. The bigger the dog, the more threat to Our Children (yet again, caps) they represent.You've got the wrong emphasis. It's not Save Our Children, it's Save the Planet. So, it's a bigger impact to drown the kids instead. (That will stop their crying.) Just remember to eat them. [edit:] Or feed them to the dog.
I am serious about this and I practice what I preach. Sure, the kids are crying in my house. However, I believe the drowning of our family dog, Stalin, was totally justified and my kids will thank me for this act in the future.
His new puppy playmate, Engels, is patiently awaiting his fate.
Cheers,
Van
New cause for Global Warming - Taem - 12-25-2009
Well, by that logic, humans must leave the biggest carbon footprint of all life on Earth, so if I really wanted to be the next big Green-Hero, I guess I should take up murdering people in my spare time (sarcasm). GG Saddam, Stallion, Hitler, and all other mass-murderers. Oh wait a minute, the methods Saddam and Hitler used probably put more carbon into the air, you know with poison gas and burning bodies et al. Oh well - damned if you do, damned if you don't.
New cause for Global Warming - kandrathe - 12-29-2009
Quote:So, the Machines could have replaced Neo with a school of goldfish?? Then they wouldn't have had to make an alternate reality net thingie. They could have just had a treasure chest blowing bubbles.Or, dogs. Alternate reality of a doting human doing ear scritching, perpetual ball fetching in the park, getting fed some awesome dog chow, and a nice sunny cozy nap spot. Dogs would never see through the illusion, so no need for humans or Zion in the first place.