Save the planet, eat your pets

In their unfortunately titled book Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living, New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale — self-described specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University in Wellington — charge that the carbon paw-print of a pet dog is double that of an SUV driving 6,200 miles a year, while a pet cat has an eco claw-print slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year. Confirming these results, John Barrett of the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, said, “Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance.” Pets’ detrimental impact on the environment is not limited to their carbon footprint, the Vales insist; if permitted to roam, predatory dogs and cats devastate wildlife (squirrels, birds, frogs) while their fecal matter spreads bacteria and disease in rivers and streams, killing aquatic life…

Incidentally, the Vales recommend rabbits as pets because they don’t eat meat — and add that when you tire of caring for Bugs, you can just cook him and serve him forth for supper! “Rabbits are good, provided you eat them,” Robert Vale has said. What kind of lesson in commitment and compassion does that teach children? What kind of heartless, unfeeling, Vale-like adults do such children grow up to be? Certainly not ones I want to know. Scrooges like the Vales overlook a simple fact: Pet lovers are among the most environmentally minded residents of the planet. Without them, and the economic incentive to create non-toxic products for their animal companions, the Earth would be a very toxic planet indeed.