There ’s no question that our furry friends are right for us . Studies have show up that live with a dog or cat can trim stress , boost our resistant systems , and increase ouroverall happiness . But what ’s right for human race is not always serious for the planet . A sketch issue in the journalPLOS Onefinds that meat consumption by petdogsand cats creates 64 million tons of carbon dioxide each year .
nub production ask more energy and resource than plant - base intellectual nourishment . It also bring forth more waste .
Gregory Okin of UCLA ’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability is a geographer by trade . He studies the way of life weather events and climate patterns can affect ecosystem , and frailty versa . One day he found himself puzzling over the ecological ramifications of the current furor for backyard chickens .
" I was think about how cool it is that poulet are vegetarian and make protein for us to wipe out , whereas many other positron emission tomography eat a lot of protein from heart and soul , " he order in a study . " And that got me suppose — how much meat do our PET eat ? "
Okin started by considering the number of cad and cats in the rural area — approximately 163 million . He then psychoanalyse the amount of heart in the most popularpet foodbrands , and compared this to the amount of meat American human race ingest each year .
The results evoke that our favorite stage a huge portion of the kernel we produce , eat , and excrete every year . Okin ’s calculations show that American dogs and catsconsume19 percent as many calories as the country ’s 321 million humankind — an inlet like to the population of France .
But British pound sterling for Egyptian pound , preferent nutrient also contains more heart and soul than human food . When Okin adjusted for this fact , he found that dogs and catsgobble up25 pct of our annual centre - base calorie aspiration . That results in the production of 64 million lashings of carbon dioxide a year — about the same outturn as 13.6 million human race drive their auto for a twelvemonth .
If our dogs and cats constituted their own country , they ’d rank fifth in spherical meat use of goods and services , behind only Russia , Brazil , China , and the United States .
" I ’m not a vegetarian , but eating meat does come at a cost , " Okinsaidin a assertion . " Those of us in favor of eating or serve kernel want to be able to have an informed conversation about our option , and that includes the pick we make for our pets . "
