[p2p-research] Slashdot | Save the Planet, Eat Your Dog

[Paul D. Fernhout]

I don't necessarily agree with this: :-)
   "Slashdot | Save the Planet, Eat Your Dog"
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/26/0321245/Save-the-Planet-Eat-Your-Dog
"New Zealand's Dominion Post reports on a new book just released, Time to 
Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living. In this book, they 
compare the environmental footprint of our housepets to other things that we 
own. Like that German Shepherd? It consumes more resources than two Toyota 
SUVs. Cats are a little less than a Volkswagen Golf. Two hamsters are about 
the same as a plasma TV. Their suggestions? Chickens, rabbits, and pigs. But 
only if you eat them."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/2987821/Save-the-planet-eat-a-dog

But it has some interesting discussion about calculating environmental 
impacts. I agree in general that meat production is resource intensive (and 
often cruel):
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
"The real message here is that we can afford to restore hundreds of millions 
of acres in the U.S. if we simply shift our diets away from meat. Many 
organizations spend their time fighting sprawl and championing agriculture 
as a benign use of the land. If a similar amount of effort were directed 
toward reducing agricultural production, we would produce far greater 
protection and restoration for declining species, endangered ecosystems and 
ecological processes. When critics suggest that we don't have the money to 
buy land for wildlands restoration, they are forgetting agricultural 
subsidies, which amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. For what we 
spend to prop up marginal agricultural producers, we could easily buy most 
of the private farm and ranch land in the country. This would be a far more 
effective way to contain sprawl, restore wildlands, bring back endangered 
species, clean up water, slow the spread of exotic species and reduce soil 
erosion."

(For the record, we have more than one dog. And we try to feed them more on 
the vegetarian side of things. And we have chickens, but don't eat them 
either. :-)

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/