Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Pets worse than SUV's

During my extensive dating life, I noticed a direct correlation between the number of cats a woman owned and how liberal their politics were.

What will these women do when the read this........
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.

More.....

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That settles it, I am getting a dog...liberals and muslims are sure to hate me.

bbeq said...

Hmmm. Does the dog and 2 guinea pigs balance out the 2 cats? I'd hate to be labeled as a liberal.

gordon gekko said...

For the record, I'm not anti cat guy.

But it did seem quite odd that the most liberal women I've ever been involved with had unusual relationships with their cats.

I don't think it was a coincidence.