Have you ever filled out one of those semi-detailed surveys designed to tell you how ruinously you consume our planet’s natural resources? On Earth Day, my boyfriend gifted me a website that computes my exact contribution to the our demise. After confessing to my AC, gasoline, shipped food and miscellaneous other consumer needs, the site calculated that we would require 3.2 planets were every human to generate carbon waste the way I do.
Which, in this veterinarian’s animal-addled brain, immediately begged the question: how many planets do my pets need? Is my pet-keeping keeping me from going truly green?
The answer is not immediately intuitive, in case you were expecting some pithy response. I had to think hard on my pets’ needs and expenditures to come up with a reasonable approximation of their “carbon pawprints” (or “hoofprint,” in the case of my goat).
While my goat (should she begin to earn her keep by producing milk) nets a negative score (by offsetting my human need for high-tech, shipped-in milk, cheese and soap), traditional pets can’t boast the same effectively decarbonating properties.
So I sat down to detail my dogs’ green and not-so-green ways. And the major issues came down to these: food, AC and services rendered.
Food was by far the biggest carbon emitter for my pets. Because they go where I go, their AC and heat usage was identical to mine…ditto their fuel consumption (I make no extra trips to the groomer or the vet--that’s me!). So the only additional carbon expenses come from the store bought food I’m now feeding once a day (Solid Gold, I must admit). They still eat my own home-cooked food at their other feeding (which is mostly locally grown and doesn’t have to be trucked in from California).
But I got to thinking, vet services leave a sizable footprint! Even our small hospital gets AC 24-hours a day. And though it gets divided by the 5,000 or so pets we see every year, the energy expenses on the lab driver, the electricity, and all our supplies must be huge! And groomers are just as bad—worse if you consider all that back-and-forth gas it takes to keep Fluffy’s coat looking so fab all year long!
What if having pets is terribly un-green of me?
So I thought I’d come up with the ultimate, green pet (aside from my negative-hoofprint goat). The pet would have to be small (so that the food consumed would be minimized). It would have minimal veterinary and grooming needs (hence a short coat with almost no need of bathing and excellent genetics). And it would require no AC or extra heating (it would thrive out of doors—no bulldogs or hawk-bait Yorkies). As an added bonus, which could even negate its carbon presence, the pet should be capable of taking on a household task (like herding sheep or killing rats).
Finally, I came up with two ideally green pets:
1-an indoor cat with short fur and a penchant for cockroaches
2-a Jack Russell terrier in a large, rodent-infested yard
Rest assured that unless your pet is one of the above (or another working sort), you’ll be adding to your own carbon footprint with each additional pet you take on.
Since undertaking this mental task, I’ve realized that my own coddled Frenchies are…well…useless. But I already knew that. The best I can do is work to offset their carbon-guzzling ways with my own contributions. Does that mean I should get another goat?
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Get a long-haired pet and learn to spin the hair.
Georg May 10th, 2007 07:43:00 AM
My Long Coat chihuahua requires no grooming. Her coat is naturally soft and smooth, and I only comb her once a week. She looks fabulous all on her own! ;)
I like the spnning idea too!
BTW- I recently discovered this blog, and it's wonderful. I sure wish you were my Vet, I think you're great!
Amy May 10th, 2007 08:38:00 AM
"Because they go where I go, their AC and heat usage was identical to mine"
But at least if you take your dogs with you, you get to split it with them and reduce your own footprint. Is that cheating? One thing about the goat though - as they're ruminants - how about methane production?!
James May 10th, 2007 08:41:00 AM
James: Excellent question on the methane. Pound for pound, goats produce far less methane than cows. Still, it's an issue we're concerned about. It is a greenhouse gas, after all. Question is, is it significant given their other offsets? Stay tuned.
And I love the spinning idea, too. Too bad my Frenchies shed teeny-tiny hairs too sharp to spin.
Dr. Patty Khuly May 10th, 2007 02:56:00 PM
However, this could be looked at another way. I am a huge advocate of trying to reduce our carbon footprint. But key to me seems to be if you adopted your companion animal from a shelter or from a breeder. I think the huge problem with pets is not so much that they use a particular amount of resources - but that there are so many unwanted companion animals that use so many resources. I think if you adopt from a shelter - where the animal would have otherwise been killed - you are balancing death against increased greenhouse gases. In that case,it seems like taking on an extra furry friend is acceptable. The problem is creating more companion animals by intentional breeding. We already kill millions of unwanted and abandoned animals each year - so it doesn't seem to make any sense to breed anymore until we can love and care for all the ones we have.
Another thought is to think about the greenhouse gases and pollution produced by the animals we eat. Perhaps a compromise, if you want to bring more furry (or hooved or scaled as the case may be) into your home, particularly those that will be euthanized if not adopted, you could offset that by eating fewer animals which could be thought of as breeding - only for the purpose to eat, rather than to cuddle. Just some thoughts. It is great to be thinking of these issues. Challenging, too.
Elizabeth May 10th, 2007 05:13:00 PM
My two spoiled cats are (by definition) useless, but they reduce my stress level enough that I haven't throttled my 15 year old and also useless son. Do they get credit for that? (Nice Mother's Day message, I know. I really do love him, but it's been a long week.)
Diane May 10th, 2007 08:39:00 PM
Diane: Happy Mother's Day to you, too! I see we have the same thoughts on children (I have a throttleable one as well). Removing this odious holiday from our calendar would probably save a forest in Mother's Day cards and bring flower-growing lands back to their former non-pesticidal glory. On the more relevant point of your pets, though: If your pets keep you at home more often (as mine do) then the amount you'd save on gas alone might offset their carbon waste. Similarly, if they keep you out-of-doors or unattached to the boob-tube then perhaps they're saving you energy as well!
Dr. Patty Khuly May 11th, 2007 08:46:00 AM
Wow, this carbon footprint seems to me like an argument PETA and the like would use for eliminating pets. Yes, pets probably do add to the carbon load on the planet. I could argue that I'm spending the carbon allotment my children would've had on my dogs. My guess is that since I will probably stay at 2-3 pets at a time, my siblings' children probably have a much greater carbon footprint than my pets do.
Elizabeth, if a breeder had a policy of euthanizing every puppy they produce by a certain age if they weren't sold because the cost of caring for the puppy would be too high, would that make it okay to buy from the breeder? After all, the puppy becomes an "animal [that] would have otherwise been killed" and the purchaser would be "balancing death against increased greenhouse gases." I have a huge problem with people who say no one should breed a litter deliberately. If I want to be reasonably assured of certain traits in my animal, I'm going to go to a breeder who is breeding for those traits. If I choose a random-bred dog, the odds are lower that it will have the characteristics I want/need. And then I'm stuck with what to do with the animal if it can't do what I want/need it to do. Start a collection of animals to see if one will work, euthanize the one(s) that don't, give up and hire a human? You want a rescue animal, great. Don't lecture the people who are breeding for specific traits in their dogs -- I need those people so I can get what I want without breeding for it.
kabbage May 11th, 2007 11:55:00 AM
Kabbage, Thanks for your thoughts. I think that I understand where you are coming from, but that we just basically disagree about what companion animals are all about. I think for me, having a pet is more like having a child - you build a relationship with them, learn to love each other, adjust as needed. Like with kids, if the child doesn't "have the characteristics you want or need" you just work around that. Since there are a very wide range of animals in shelters, including a wide range of breeds, for me, you just do your best to find an animal that likely has the "characteristics you want or need," and do your best with it. I understand that a lot of people want to be surer and have someone breed the right kind of animal, but for me, that is sort of the problem because when we think about companion animals as meeting our needs in really specific ways - needing to have particular attributes or characteristics - often they don't and then end up in shelters and euthanized. So I do understand that you want a dog that meets your specific needs and you want to be assured of that by someone who breeds well and produces the right sort of animal. I just feel like that isn't fair to all of the animals that end up not meeting needs well enough and are sent to shelters and end up dead or lonely in a cage their whole lives. For me, it is about both the animals and the humans, not just the animal meeting the needs of the human.
Just my two cents. All the best, Elizabeth
Elizabeth May 13th, 2007 11:49:00 PM
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