Pet ownership is an overlooked driver of carbon emissions
axios.com
axios.com
In a recent post, airlines are burning thousands of gallons of fuels flying empty planes in order to keep their “slots” and how organizations literally destroy goods to keep their “use it or lose it” budgets: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22511488
Then there’s other news about how tons of food is just thrown away every day, or how presidential candidates are blowing millions of dollars on political ads just for the heck of it.
Some people actually defend that kind of blatant waste, in the name of Mammon, but you want to tax pets?
It’s bizarre how a small part of the population is so out of touch and so anti-human.
In any case, why is it about taxing pets and not just taxing pet food?
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/4/16094674/cats-dogs-meat-di...
https://www.dailywire.com/news/environmentalists-save-world-...
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/the-truth-about-cats-and-...
Huh? Why should I risk my pet's health?
>Owners can also feed their pets lower-quality proteins, as dogs and cats can happily chow on meat byproducts, such as marrow, kidneys and spleen, left from processing meat for humans.
Us humans don't choose what parts of animals we eat based on any kind of health-centric metric. It just based on what parts we deem distasteful to eat. So the bits that are deemed undesirable/low quality are not necessarily any worse for the consumer. Some amount of organ meat may even be beneficial to health. Arguably meat eating humans would do well to include some amount of kidney, liver, marrow etc in place of some of the muscle tissue that we tend to eat a lot of.
There are many problems with modern industrial agriculture and mass produced food, but efficiency is not one of them. There is very little waste in these operations and those kidneys, livers, and marrow bones are already being put to good use, whether its for human consumption or animal.
I won’t pretend to know what proportion of pets are fed standard, ‘low quality’ food (ie. food made from corn, grain, and what most would consider as low quality meats and byproducts) but if I had to guess I would wager its >90%.
Maybe modern industrial agriculture is efficient, but modern food consumption isn't. Over a third of all available food is wasted in the USA. How much of that food waste would be OK to be re-processed as pet food?
I don’t mean to sound like an apologist (or even a fan) of industrial agriculture, but I think its important to acknowledge the reality that while its an imperfect system, it is also a modern marvel that enables us as a society to feed an enormous amount of people at extraordinarily low costs to the consumer.
I don't see why not, with a correct definition of "quality". See below.
> Arguably meat eating humans would do well to include some amount of kidney, liver, marrow etc in place of some of the muscle tissue that we tend to eat a lot of.
Sure, if those items are all processed with the same level of care and attention to detail, cleanliness, etc. But because they are treated as "by products", they're not.
For the record, I don't think that everyone is feeding steaks to their pets. This was just an example. But the article does point out the worrying trend of pet owners giving them high-end foods.
As far as I can tell, what the article means by "lower quality" is "processed as by-products instead of as primary food". Which means they're going to be less healthy because they're not processed with the same level of care and attention to cleanliness and other important factors. That's the issue I have. (Well, that and the issue of what the animals that will supply the products are fed on--see below.)
> A ribeye-steak is very high-grade protein, but it doesn't mean it's healthy
I don't think a ribeye steak from a grass fed, free range, antibiotic-free animal is particularly unhealthy. But it's probably not easy to find such in many grocery stores, at least in the US.
It's unhealthy as in "not bringing enough diversity in nutrients". Kidney, liver meat are much richer sources of nutrients. Nothing wrong with indulging with a nice steak once a week, as long as you're having lots of plants/seeds/fruits-based meals as well.
Same goes for pets, but since you can't feed almonds to your cat, it's better off eating a mix of muscle, liver, bone marrow, etc.
I wouldn't worry too much about the cleanliness of pet food - it's been thoroughly cooked and processed to guarantee a long shelf life.
The best generic metric for how much CO2 you produce is simply the amount you spend, which is highly correlated with how much you earn.
Fixing that is hard...
Walking 10 minutes down any quiet street usually results in me seeing at least a cat or two. Cats are very common if you're looking for them.
Unfortunately as long as people feel entitled to let their cats outside, I'm not sure how we ever solve it.
It's really kind of sad we are so casually sponsoring such destruction, for so little purpose. The grandparent speaks truly.
(I realize the effects of cats upon other animals, but your logic..)
But certainly, if the meat industry meets the bar of criminal animal cruelty then I don't see why they shouldn't be held liable.
My initial comment was whether existing animal cruelty statutes should be extended to cover pet owners instead of only direct actions by people, assuming they don't already do so.
I made no statement wrt. my personal opinion whether A is true or not.
But even rolling with the argument for a moment that the meat industry meets the bar and manages to evade the law anyway. That is no justification for letting pets do the same. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that, so for the purpose of this conversation that would seem like an unnecessary deflection of responsibility by pet owners and the better answer is to improve both.
Money well spent.
On the flip side, pet owners are more likely to get parasites, cat-scratch disease, or toxo.
Taxes for everyone!
Also, the lack of analysis in this article doesn't help. There is nothing in this article, for example, that says how much of the meat protein that goes into pet food would essentially be waste from meat production intended for humans.
As for suicide, that probably has a lower utilitarian balance than producing fewer pets.
If everyone could just leave this shitshow on their own terms, whenever they wanted to, how would the people who want to tax pets get their money?
And the majority of pets worldwide are not “produced”, they’re adopted from the pool of animals who already exist.
If I’m poor does this mean I shouldn’t be able to get help from a pet because people want it to be taxed?
I’m getting pretty tired of all these empty and worthless sensationalist articles.
Of course people who enjoy something are more likely to define whatever they enjoy as basic need, that doesn't mean we let everyone use the definition that suits them.
First of all, arguments that we ought to have fewer kids are being made when it comes to environmental footprint. But even ignoring that the the birth rate is already below replacement rate. So unlike pets the government does not exactly have to go out of its way to incentivize people to have fewer of them. Then there's the issue that for society to continue to work we have to keep up the inter-generational contract, so at a larger scale having children is a basic need for society while pets are not.
And last but not least this conversation is not about forbidding pets or children but factoring in externalties so people can make better resource tradeoffs, perhaps they could still have a kid or a pet but decide it's too costly to have both or abstain from some other luxuries to afford either. In that regard children and pets are similar.
Meanwhile, the economy is "better than ever" and "everything's fine," if you're rich and self-interested to defend the status quo.