Theo Theophanous: Here’s how your pets are helping to ruin the planet
They might look furry and cute, but your pets are a driving force in the degradation of our vulnerable planet — and pet owners should be made to pay a carbon tax, writes Theo Theophanous.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Recently I argued Australia must consider nuclear power as a way of providing base load power with zero emissions. Nature has provided power within the atoms that are the universe’s building blocks and man has found ways to use it to destroy the planet but also to save it.
But we should also be brave enough to address other ways of tackling climate change. So let’s talk about a major contributor to global carbon emissions: cats and dogs. Most Green Party supporters I know hate nuclear power but they love their dogs or cats.
Conscious of the environment, they pick up their dogs’ faeces and deposit it in bins. If someone is watching, they do it with a display of self-congratulatory pride that has become a feature of modern inner-city living.
They also have bikes to minimise their carbon footprint. Of course, most also own cars, often SUVs so they can go bush and experience nature’s immediacy.
But studies of the carbon footprint (or paw print) of dogs and cats have revealed some surprising results. Sustainable living experts Robert and Brenda Vale have calculated that a mid-sized dog has about the same environmental footprint as an SUV.
UCLA geography professor Gregory Okin recently concluded cats and dogs were responsible for 25 to 30 per cent of the environmental impact of meat consumption in the United States.
“If Americans’ 163 million Fidos and Felixes comprised a separate country, their fluffy nation would rank fifth in global meat consumption,” he said.
To produce this amount of meat, 24.1 million ha of arable land is needed.
Not only do dogs and cats produce methane directly, they also produce five million tonnes of faeces that goes into landfill and produces more methane, a greenhouse gas that has 23 times higher negative affect on the environment than CO2.
Methane is also produced by the millions of extra pigs, cows, chickens and other animals we use to feed our pets. Of course not only Green supporters own pets. In Australia, there are about nine million cats and dogs.
Based on the US figures, that equates to two to three million hectares of arable land that is required to feed them. And then there’s the impact on the environment. Producing a kilogram of cow meat creates as much CO2 as driving 100 kilometres in an SUV.
For those who want to argue that the meat consumed by animals is just the leftovers people cannot consume, US studies have shown that more than 35 per cent of pet food could be eaten by people.
I am not suggesting we should get rid of pet dogs and cats. But people should be aware of their impact on the environment. I also think government should consider a carbon offset tax on pets. Would inner-city Greenies be happy to pay to offset the impact on the environment of their family pet?
We pay tax in the form of registration and petrol tax for the SUV in the garage, but nothing for our pets. A tax on a mid-sized dog of $200 each year. would raise money that could be used to take other carbon reduction initiatives.
For example, paying for energy efficient lighting and appliances for poor people and renters, many of whom can’t afford to keep a pet.
If we want to get serious about carbon offsets, we should make them compulsory — not just for dogs and cats but also for airline travel and any other human activity that produces carbon.
The chances of the Greens supporting a pet carbon offset levy is about the same as them supporting nuclear energy. But they do support subsidised rooftop solar panels which help reduce their power bills.
MORE NEWS
VETS WARN OF DANGERS OF VEGAN PET DIETS
FAMILIES AT WAR OVER VEGAN LIFESTYLE
CONSUMERS CHUCK ANOTHER PLANT ON THE BARBIE
Prominent Green Bob Brown has said he did not support wind farms because of their effect on the visual environment and noise. Others have ruled out gas as yet another fossil fuel and still others have expressed concerns about the effects on plants and small animals of covering large areas of ground with solar panels.
So what’s left? Well, just use less power, buy a battery and solar panels for your house with subsidies from the government, ride a bike between driving the SUV and go vegetarian or vegan.
And if you still feel guilty, feed your dog vegetables to cut its carbon footprint.
— Theo Theophanous is a Herald Sun columnist and former state minister for Energy and Resources