-
Money, Money, and Trump
February 2, 2012 | 20 comments
-
A Tale of Two Schemers
January 18, 2012 | 11 comments
-
A One-Hit Wonder
January 3, 2012 | 93 comments
-
Economic Libertad?
December 22, 2011 | 20 comments
-
Craving Another Great Depression
December 12, 2011 | 3 comments
Among the Intellectualoids
Gang Green Going to the Dogs
The sky-is-falling greenies are getting progressively batty.
The sky-is-falling greenies are getting progressively batty.
It's not enough that we shut down our oil, gas and coal industries, bike to work, switch our light bulbs, take cloth bags to the supermarket, smash our clunkers, take low-water showers, and turn our thermostats down and sit in our mittens and tossel caps. Now they want us to cook our dogs.
Not hot dogs. Real dogs -- the furry ones that live in our houses.
According to authors of a new book, Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living, it takes 0.84 hectares of land to keep a medium-sized dog fed.
A hectare is 2.471 acres, so they're saying it takes more than two acres of the planet's limited surface just to keep one midsized dog supplied in food at any one time.
Bad as cars are alleged to be for global warming, that single dog is about twice the environmental burden of a Toyota Land Cruiser, according to New Zealand writers Brenda and Robert Vale, husband-wife professors at Victoria University, specialists in sustainable architecture and co-authors of Time to Eat the Dog.
Driving a 4.6-liter Toyota Land Cruiser 10,000 kilometers a year (that's 6,214 miles) requires 0.41 hectares, they claim, slightly less than half the 0.84 hectares that's eaten up by each midsized dog. And that supposedly includes the energy required to build the car.
Dump the Earth-burdening dog and get a midsized cat and the eco-footprint falls to "slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf," say the Vales. The cat downside is that there's no one to fetch the morning newspaper and you end up with a pet that acts like a paranoid instead of your best buddy.
Downsize further from the cat to two hamsters and the eco-burden becomes "the same as owning a plasma TV" -- still negative, according to the eco-profs.
A bug as a pet is probably the only guilt-free answer to satisfy the more hysterical element of the global warming activists. Just pick up a log and find a nice thousand-legger to bring inside as a companion. Even with all those feet, it's gotta have a smaller eco-footprint than a single M&M.
The Vales recommend that our pets be "usefully recycled" either by us eating them or turning them into pet food when they expire.
"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," explains Brenda Vale.
Adds co-author Robert: "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."
Get a cat, in short, and go down to one car. Get two St. Bernards and walk to work. Get a Great Pyrenees and some super-sized parrots and go directly to jail.
Like the sharing of wealth that steadily appeals to the redistributionist left, Robert Vale advocates the sharing of pets, the collectivization of Fido, like Mao with the farms, thereby eliminating man's pesky desire for individualism, personal sovereignty and private ownership. "Shared pets are the best -- the theater cat or the temple dogs," he says.
A temple dog? Shared? It's all starting to look like a watermelon -- green on the outside, red on the inside.
About the Author
Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise and an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (43) | Leave a comment
Leave a Comment
More Articles by Ralph R. Reiland
More Articles From Among the Intellectualoids
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/03/gang-green-going-to-the-dogs
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- Barney Shuffles Off
- Madison vs. Obamacare
- Bowling Alone
- Digital Subscription (Save 78%)
- Buy a single issue (Save 50%)
- Send Spectator as a gift
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Jim O'Brien| 11.3.09 @ 8:29AM
If a dog is that big a threat, just think how much the world could be improved by curtailing the propagation of humans! We could "save the planet" by mass suicides.
How abysmally ignorant, these dimwitted Obama socialists! (Sorry for the redundancy.)
Pingback| 11.3.09 @ 9:07AM
The American Spectator : Gang Green Going to the Dogs Wiky Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Richard Baker| 11.3.09 @ 9:07AM
Been to New Zealand and it's a very beautiful country. These two "intellectuals" forgot sheep of which there are 30-50 million in NZ. The sheep must be sucking all the air that these two dimwits breath. The solution: Kill all the sheep in New Zealand!
John Navratil| 11.3.09 @ 12:30PM
Evidently all the sheep do not have curly hair.
Anthony| 11.3.09 @ 9:47AM
This is simple human nature at its worse. These leftist loonies must continue to push the envelope in order to satisfy some perverse sense of "look at me". Yes, these folks are sick, and they have been pampered and tolerated like an out of line adolescent for way too long.
It's way past time these preening jerks were slapped upside the head, hard. Maybe even waterboarded, perhaps that would wash out the detritus from their pea brains.
cindy, Fallbrook| 11.3.09 @ 11:21AM
I'd cook a liberal before my dogs any day.
Marc| 11.4.09 @ 10:24PM
cindy,
Liberals should be cooked, but not eaten.
And Martinis should be shaken, not stirred.
Heh
Martin Owens| 11.3.09 @ 11:25AM
Don't underestimate these people! There are a thousand " can't happen here" scenarios that have already come true- taking away choices for food and clothing and housing and transport and kids toys and anything else this bunch can get their hands on. And more are coming.
Remember the line from Ayn Rand's FOUNTAINHEAD : " We're after power, and we mean it."
This is not about cats or dogs or tofu or spotted owls, and never was. It's about power. The Ones Who Know Best aren't content with suggestion or advice. They mean to give the orders, and there's nothing they won't do to get there.
JimE| 11.3.09 @ 5:39PM
So true.
J G Wentworth| 11.3.09 @ 8:39PM
Well,
I wish it WAS about tofu!
That shit sucks!
I think we need to kill of of Rahm Emanuals gerbils as well!
And maybe Michael Moore should just quit breathing all together because that guy is a serious gasbag!
Matt Morehouse| 11.3.09 @ 11:53AM
I shot a bear last week, that's gotta be more than enough to offset the carbon footprint of my Black Lab, J. Buckminster Wadcutter the III (Bucky for short).
http:/conversationsaroundawoodstove.blogspot.com
Ray| 11.3.09 @ 12:10PM
Reduce your Dog's carbon footprint to that of a small cat!
The solution to the Dog CO2 Problem is simple: Feed your dog stray cats. Your dog will thank you for that! Details for trapping stray cats are listed in the book 101 Green Things to do with a Stray Cat, available at a Greenpeace bookstore near you
Jimbo| 11.3.09 @ 12:44PM
Why do you need to train your cat to get the newspaper? There won't be any newspapers soon!
Pete| 11.3.09 @ 1:58PM
I am waiting for a hard hitting study from these dummies on "The Paradox of Beans: How this vegetarian treat can be a Global Warming 'backfire'"
Cervantes| 11.3.09 @ 7:36PM
I have a solution to this problem.
When we get govt run health care we will get issued Beano with our soylent green and copies of Karl marks manifesto so we all can become non-flatulent atheistic cannibal socialist monks
See? I have it all worked out for everyone!
I am a genius like Bob the defeated pig!
John - TMF| 11.3.09 @ 2:36PM
Perhaps we should feed all the greenie Moonbats to the Tsavo Lion Prides. It cleans up the vapors being given off by the loonies. It feeds the endangered lion prides in Africa, and gives the Moonbat martyrs a noble place for their bent for human sacrifice.
My two dogs are worth infinitely more that the entire population of Greenies... AND my lab brings me a toy to play with every time that I see her.
r/TMF
DatsunMark| 11.3.09 @ 3:27PM
There we go...a new *Green* industry...Flex Pets.
Eat dog? What would the dogs say? "Soylent Green is made of DOG!"
macdaddy| 11.3.09 @ 3:31PM
I hope the Left continues to speak truth to power. They keep raising the level of outrageousness. Soon they will start advocating suicide. After that, they will need to advocate a lottery system in order for government to thin the herd. Unfortunately, I think they've already over-reached with the whole dogs-are-killing-the-earth thing. They can have my dog after they first pry the gun from my cold dead fingers. Oh, wait. The dog wouldn't let them.
Pete| 11.3.09 @ 4:19PM
Well, this is a relief.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200.....r_carbon_1
c. j. acworth| 11.3.09 @ 5:14PM
What these clowns will never understand is that the worst thing for the environment is poverty. Go to the poorest, most backward places in the world and there is where you will find eco-catastrophe. Tell them to take a trip to North Korea where they long ago ate the dogs, cats, gerbils, and as many bugs as they could catch. Then have them report on the state of the environment there.
Conservative Bob| 11.3.09 @ 7:41PM
You know this would be humorous if these idiots didn't get the traction to implement their lunacy.
Who would of thought that the water supply to one of the worlds most productive farm regions would be cut off in honor of a minnow.
I am up for the serious slap idea, say 125 grains at 3378 ft/sec... I'll give em a 250 yard head start. OR maybe 655 grain at 3029 ft/sec and they could ride together in their Prius.
How many hectors woudl that free up?
OK might be a little extreme but I am really tiring of the whole AGW rant and related eco disasters.
Pingback| 11.4.09 @ 1:14AM
The American Spectator : Gang Green Going to the Dogs | pawpawsg blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
brake unit| 11.4.09 @ 2:47AM
Shenzhen INVT Electric Co., Ltd.:
brake unit
EMI parts
brake unit| 11.4.09 @ 2:48AM
general
purpose frequency inverter low voltage 690V and lower
special
Pingback| 11.4.09 @ 10:54AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Gang Green Going to the Dogs [specta links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Richard Baker| 11.4.09 @ 9:08PM
Conservative bob:
Time to cull the herd!
Robohobo| 11.5.09 @ 3:13AM
Hmm, I guess I'll have to start feeding my dogs with environuts. Doesn't that work out to carbon neutral?
Russ| 11.5.09 @ 7:35PM
The mistake was giving these people the time of day in the first place. They just get progressively nuttier and there's nobody willing to tell them to shut up. They are insane and fanatical. Giving them the least little bit of credence only emboldens them to go farther.
www.us-bapeoutlet.com| 4.3.10 @ 10:25PM
www.us-bapeoutlet.com
lay123| 4.4.10 @ 1:46AM
Specific ingredients: clothing, accessories, and shoes, but most recently handbags have
become a cornerstone to the aura that is mainstream fashion www.handbagshunting.com