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How your pet is killing the planet (Enviro-nuts say dog = SUV)
Salon ^ | 10/26/09 | Andrew Leonard

Posted on 10/26/2009 8:51:16 AM PDT by Callahan

New book -- "Time to Eat the Dog" -- claims golden retrievers have the same carbon footprint as SUVs

As provocative titles go, "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living," is a doozy, guaranteed to ensure outrage and oodles of provocative blog post headlines. As summarized in The Telegraph, New Zealand-based authors Robert and Brenda Vale have calculated the carbon footprint of pet-ownership and arrived at some disturbing conclusions.

A medium-sized dog has the same impact as a Toyota Land Cruiser driven 6,000 miles a year, while a cat is equivalent to a Volkswagen Golf....

[The authors] base their findings on the amount of land needed to grow food for pets ranging from budgerigars to cats and dogs.

They say an average Collie eats 164kg of meat and 95kg of cereals a year, giving it a high impact on the planet.

(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: eco; enviromentalism; green; kittyping; pets
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To: Callahan

My 120 lb rottweilers both crapped at least 15 pounds in the corn field earlier today....thats gotta be helping the planet....somehow :)


21 posted on 10/26/2009 9:04:15 AM PDT by Snurple (VEGETARIAN, OLD INDIAN WORD FOR BAD HUNTER.)
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To: Callahan

My dogs do more to improve life on this planet than these two fools from New Zealand. Imagine the irony if someones large dog attacks these idots and chews them to shreds. Now that’s recycling!


22 posted on 10/26/2009 9:04:46 AM PDT by Harley (Life is Tough, But It's a Lot Tougher When You're a Liberal. Stop Global Whining Now.)
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To: shibumi
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
23 posted on 10/26/2009 9:07:58 AM PDT by delphirogatio (Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness)
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A clever person could use this "information" to determine the carbon cost (in Golden Retrievers) per mile flown by Obama.

"To offset the carbon wasted on his failed attempt to win the Olympics for Chicago, Obama will put X thousand Golden Retrievers down."

24 posted on 10/26/2009 9:10:25 AM PDT by whd23
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To: Callahan

What is the average cabon footprint of a whining enviro-wacko?


25 posted on 10/26/2009 9:11:47 AM PDT by Redleg Duke ("Don't fire unless fired upon, but it they mean to have a war, let it begin here." J Parker, 1775)
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To: Callahan

These idiots need to get real.


26 posted on 10/26/2009 9:15:09 AM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: Callahan

This just gave me a great idea for a new tagline.


27 posted on 10/26/2009 9:15:36 AM PDT by VeniVidiVici (Keep your dog. Get rid of a Liberal.)
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To: Callahan

There is this wholly made up number “350”, which I suppose is meant to refer to “350 parts per million” of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Brief aside note: Plants begin to starve, and consume their own tissues, when the concentration of CO2 falls below 200 PPM. Worse, they begin to compete with animal life forms (humans included) for the available oxygen.

But this is a self-correcting situation, because as the plants go the respiratory consumption of oxygen they produce - CO2. Thus restoring the previous balance.

The atmospheric content of CO2 could go to ten times, its present level, to 3,500 to 4,000 PPM, with absolutely NO ill effects on any animal life, but plant life? It would literally EXPLODE with growth, forming new variations of carbohydrates and more importantly, much more oxygen. The heat absorption of CO2 as an atmospheric gas, is much overrated, as it has about the same rate of heat absorption potential as water vapor. Water vapor combines with CO2, to form a weakly ionized acidic compound, carbonic acid (the “fizz” in your Pepsi), and the heat absorbed by the carbon dioxide is readily given up to the water molecule.

The REAL heat pump in the atmosphere is water vapor, which has a heat carrying capability that far exceeds most of the other atmospheric gases, and for that matter, greatly exceeds that of most other elements. Which is why they use water as a coolant in internal combustion engines, and as the medium of exchange in hot-water heating of homes and offices. Water vapor performs exactly the same way in the atmosphere, conducting heat from lower levels up to the tops of clouds at 60,000 feet, where the heat is radiated off into space, and the cooled crystals of vaporous ice descend and melt, reforming into water droplets, and fall to earth as rain. For those who may not follow this line of reasoning, didn’t they teach you ANYTHING in the sixth grade?

Runaway overheating of the atmosphere, and the earth as a whole, is impossible so long as we have our hydrosphere that lies beneath the atmosphere and above the rocky mantle of the planet. And that is not going away anytime soon.


28 posted on 10/26/2009 9:17:35 AM PDT by alloysteel (....the Kennedys can be regarded as dysfunctional. Even in death.)
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To: Callahan

So, if the environmental whack-a-doos don’t want to have pets, there’s nothing stopping them.

The rest of us will own the dog or cat of our choice, and we will continue to pay for their care.


29 posted on 10/26/2009 9:18:37 AM PDT by Darnright (There can never be a complete confidence in a power which is excessive. - Tacitus)
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To: Callahan

I’d rather put down 2 environmentalist greenies than any dog or cat.


30 posted on 10/26/2009 9:20:25 AM PDT by BuffaloJack (Ali Obama and the 40 Czars must FAIL.)
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To: Callahan

Personally, and just speaking for me, I think all enviro-nutjobs should just kill themselves. This solves problems on many levels.


31 posted on 10/26/2009 9:22:37 AM PDT by alarm rider (The left always tell you who they fear the most. What are they telling you now?)
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To: Callahan
Yawn. Just another issue for liberals to get their panties in a twist and feel guilty over.

The authors can follow-up this book with something like “Veganism for Dogs.”

32 posted on 10/26/2009 9:22:43 AM PDT by mojito
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To: Callahan

To make up for the dog and 2 cats I think I’ll go out and shoot 5 spotted owls, a couple of wolves and one or two polar bears. Oh yeah, a few clubbings for some seals. After all, wild animals are no different than pets when it comes to carbon feetsprints.

Oh, maybe a whale. What the heck, I live on the coast. Might as well do everything I can for the en-viro-mint.


33 posted on 10/26/2009 9:22:54 AM PDT by NewHampshireDuo
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To: Callahan

HOWS THIS FOR A CARBON FOOTPRINT?

34 posted on 10/26/2009 9:23:33 AM PDT by Outlaw Woman (We know who wins; We have read the 'Book')
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To: Callahan
So I guess that my boarding kennel is roughly equivalent to this:

What a bunch of maroons!

35 posted on 10/26/2009 9:24:08 AM PDT by Malone LaVeigh
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To: Callahan

And each envirowacko pollutes as much as a pick up truck. Each envirowacko then should walk into a restaurant and offer him/her/itself up as dinner. Rids the planet of a big polluter.


36 posted on 10/26/2009 9:24:10 AM PDT by Leftism is Mentally Deranged
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To: Slings and Arrows

As always, ty you for the ping hon. :)


37 posted on 10/26/2009 9:24:24 AM PDT by Outlaw Woman (We know who wins; We have read the 'Book')
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To: Callahan

The carbon footprint of the liberal population is shocking. I can’t understand how they can go on living, with the knowledge of what they’re doing to the environment.


38 posted on 10/26/2009 9:30:12 AM PDT by AZLiberty (Yes, Mr. Lennon, I do want a revolution.)
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To: Snurple

My German Sheperd made a couple of Jehovas Witnesses crap more poundage than that...


39 posted on 10/26/2009 9:31:36 AM PDT by Farmer Dean (Don't blame me,I voted for the American)
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To: Outlaw Woman

Always a pleasure.


40 posted on 10/26/2009 9:32:21 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows ("When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom." --Charles Krauthammer)
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