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Who says you can't eat cats or dogs ?

Tallgeese wrote:

You're getting a little worked up about what a pair of architects think.

You have to nip this crap in the bud fast, or it spreads like a cancer. There was a time when the "carbon market" was ludicrous, and now they are springing up in Europe and the US. It's still stupid, but now it's real.

Sure, this time it's a couple of fairly obvious idiots. However, we have an entire legislative branch full of idiots, and this could appeal to some of them.

It would also be more "environmentally friendly" to raise a ficus than a child but that really misses the point.

It would be indeed. I'm not saying people shouldn't have kids or shouldn't have dogs or shouldn't drive. What I'm saying is they need to be aware of the impact their choices have. Perhaps one or two kids is enough. Maybe one doesn't need a large SUV to shuttle them to soccer practice. Perhaps a small dog or just one pets instead of many. Or even kids instead of the dog.

We still must face the fact that we live an incredibly wasteful lifestyle. If we're going to live more sustainably, we need to make tough choices. We can rely on technology to a point, but on some level we're going to have to change the "American way of life". Either because we're going to kill the planet, or we simply can't afford it anymore...

We're not going to kill the planet. The planet will survive us quite readily, and recover fully in the blink of an eye. We'll kill ourselves, though, if we continue as we have.

.tsooJ

We taught a lion to eat tofu!

Tallgeese wrote:

dv wrote:

Dogs are omnivores: bagged dry dog food is mostly grain. They like meat, but they can live on damn near anything.

Cats, however, are carnivores. They must east meat or they will die, regardless of what extreme vegans may try to tell you.

Yes, and dry cat food is formulated accordingly. The first couple ingredients should be animal (by)products of some sort. Although the fewer qualifiers they use (pasteurized process cheese food ftw!) when describing the ingredients, the better the food tends to be nutritionally.

Still, a lot of the cheaper dry cat foods have a fair amount of grain, lard, or other filler in them. (Forcing the animal to eat more food for the same nutrition, and contributing to feline obesity. I'm always a little freaked out when I see the photos in a Fark Caturday thread.) Supposedly, you should avoid anything that claims to give your cat a glossy coat - that's just oiling them up from the inside out.

At least that's what the vet said when I got my cat. IANAV, and my primary qualification in this field is that my cat isn't dead. (Apparently they're easier to take care of than fish. Who knew?)

The OP and article mentioned dogs. Which, pound for pound, because of their dietary flexibility, are probably "greener" than cats - at least from the hamburger-in-a-Prius perspective.

Tallgeese wrote:

dv wrote:

Dogs are omnivores: bagged dry dog food is mostly grain. They like meat, but they can live on damn near anything.

Cats, however, are carnivores. They must east meat or they will die, regardless of what extreme vegans may try to tell you.

Actually cats can survive on a vegan diet, but unfortunately what would happen to a domestic cat kept on a vegan diet is that they will go blind. While humans and other animals can process beta-carotene (from carrots and other vegetables) into retinoids, cats cannot and must get retinoids from eating meat. I'm not sure if this applies to felines other than the domestic cat.

Note I did write "survive." I suspect not very happily.

Last edited by D'Eyncourt (2009-10-26 2:59 pm)

Daddyo wrote:

D'Eyncourt wrote:

Actually cats can survive on a vegan diet, but unfortunately what would happen to a domestic cat kept on a vegan diet is that they will go blind.

Most cats can and do supplement their diets with various forms of meat (mice, lizards, scorpions etc) unless they are trapped indoors by their evil human captors.

Perhaps, but Res points out that outdoor cats are an ecological disaster, so we are back to square one...

Frankly, I see outdoor cats as a cheap form of pest control - but that's just me.

I think we should follow that article to its logical end and start eating children.

Tallgeese wrote:

resedit wrote:

This demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of things like the carbon cycle.

Driving a car adds carbon to the system because it takes carbon out of the ground to burn.
The carbon etc. added by cows, dogs, whatever they are complaining about comes from their food, which is grown and thus took the carbon it has out of the air.

Deforestation for livestock production is not negligible.

What about livestock raised on natural grassland?

What about deforestation to grow your tofu?

Last edited by resedit (2009-10-26 5:04 pm)

resedit wrote:

Tallgeese wrote:

resedit wrote:

This demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of things like the carbon cycle.

Driving a car adds carbon to the system because it takes carbon out of the ground to burn.
The carbon etc. added by cows, dogs, whatever they are complaining about comes from their food, which is grown and thus took the carbon it has out of the air.

Deforestation for livestock production is not negligible.

What about livestock raised on natural grassland?

Got any numbers on that?

What about deforestation to grow your tofu?

Got any numbers on that?