Ecological pawprints
Nov 25th, 2009 by max
I wonder if you have been following some of the news articles in the media recently about animal pawprints. No, not real ones (which, by the way and especially good in this wet muddy weather) but “Ecological ” ones sometimes called (by humans) carbon foot prints.
There was an interesting article in the Guardian recently which I salvaged from the paper recycling collection today to read properly while my humans were out working. It describes some research done into the environmental impact of us animals and says that us dogs have a surprisingly high ecological footprint, which is a way of quantifying demand on the planet’s ecosystems using a measure called global hectares. All very complicated I know.
Anyway, the authors of this book say it takes 0.84 hectares of land to keep a medium sized dog fed, whereas a Toyata land Cruiser (a big car) requires just 0.41 hectares. So I am over twice as pawprinty than a car! That is aparantly a bad thing, but I think it just shows my superiority.
If you are intertested, the ecological pawprints are:
large Dog (and the Guardian used a photo of a lovely GSD here, though not me sadly!) - 1.1
medium dog - 0.84
small dog - 0.56
cat- 0.15
Hamster 0.014
Goldfish (like Rob the pointlessfish) - 0.00034
The article compares this to an average citizen on Vietnam who in 2004 had an ecological footprint of just 0.76 hectares, and challenges the amount of the world resources us pets use, implying that we pets in the West are spoiled! It gives examples of organic dog food, grooming tools, pet fountains, and even a treadmill for obese dogs!
Tim, my intelligent male human, found some letters on the subject in one of his many magazines pointing out the many proven benefits of what humans quaintly call “pet ownership” and how much we add to the lives of our humans!
I think I am well worth it!
One Response to “Ecological pawprints”
Well you could say I have been ‘adding to the life ‘ of my humans as this afternoon I have been helping my Female Human. She was doing lots of printing from her computer and I helped her alot. I watched every single copy come from the printer and checked each one to make sure it was correct. She did say I didn’t have to sit on top of the pile already printed so I just sat in the chair and did the work from there. She told me it was very important and said it was an ‘order of service’ for something called an Advent Carol Service which is to be at somewhere called ‘the church’ on Sunday evening. I have a feeling it is something to do with that noisy crowd that come here on Tuesday evenings. Anyway I was really pleased to have such an important job.