pet connection

Interesting read from Stan Cox on AlterNet, about the impact of the pet-products industry:

Biologists have devised metabolic formulas that relate the body sizes of animals to their rates of energy consumption. Humans are unlike other animal species in that we have access to vast amounts of energy from sources other than food. Only one percent of the energy consumed by the average American comes from simply digesting what we eat. The other 99 percent is used in the many other activities, including agriculture, that burn fossil fuels and deplete natural resources.

It is as if our bodies were connected by invisible wires and hoses to a global resource-supply network. Based on those metabolic formulas, it has been calculated that over a 24-hour period, the average American consumes as much energy as would a 66,000-pound primate not living on that network (pdf).

And each step taken to “humanize” pets — each next-size-larger car or SUV that’s bought to accomodate the family dog, each section of a jet’s baggage compartment that’s heated and pressurized for pet transport, each spa treatment or Atlantic-salmon-with-capers dinner to which the family’s smallest member is treated — is another burden on the planet’s resources.

Weigh up all the members of one of those other big populations of domesticated, industrially supported animals — the nation’s 42 million cattle or 59 million hogs — and it would come to a lot more body mass than does the pet population. But the physical weight of increasingly humanized cats and dogs and ferrets is becoming much less important than all those invisible wires and hoses to which we’re hooking them up.

The rest of the piece is here. You can imagine how I feel, having just had these week’s test vehicle delivered, the massively luxurious Land Rover L3. Except, well, there are allll kinds of things people spend money on that use natural resources to make, transport, run and dispose of. Maybe it’s because so much of what I read is about pets, but I just don’t see people getting so judgmental about consumer electronics, or craft supplies, or collecting whats-its on eBay.

I think we could all do with a little less spending and collecting of worthless stuff, no matter what kind of junk it is. But hey, I’ve been on that kick for years. After all, I’m the person with the 30-year-old stainless steel dog dish. Buy high quality when you need to buy, take care of it, and use it almost forever. That’s true, whether you’re talking about pet supplies or anything else.