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Writer's pictureCrone

Pets. Who'd have them?

So, I think I mentioned Unnatural Companions? The book about pets? Well, turns out that have a pet is really bad for the planet's health.


One dog leads to the same emissions per year as 10,000 miles in an average car.


One in every five trawler loads of little fishies (sardines and the like) goes into pet food. And those fishes are needed by other fish and whales and seals.


Humanity spends four times as much on pets as on conservation of ALL THE WILD species.


Making pet food has an emission total per annum equal to a small country, say Sweden.


Cats and dogs have caused or contributed to many species extinctions. They still kill many wild animals every year and their diseases kill even more. African wild dogs are extinct in some African countries after catching canine distemper from domestic dogs. It also kills lions. Iberian lynxes are threatened by feline leukaemia. I think I've said this already.


Basically, we say, "I love animals!" But we express our biophilia for the very animals who essentially cause as much damage to other animals as we do ourselves.


We value the individual lives of the feral dogs and cats and forget the out of sight, out of mind individual lives of the many animals that the numbers of our domestic animals threaten, endanger, sicken or kill.


It's like the only individual lives that matter are those we can literally grasp.


It is all about us.



Having been puked on in bed last night by one of my pets, I am beginning to think that friendships with wild animals are infinitely preferable.


Did you know that producing four burgers takes a whole water tanker of water??? And the "pure meat" pet food that's now so popular (keto diet for dogs) means that even more animals have to be bred and grown and killed to support our pets - whose numbers also continue to increase.


Everywhere I look, there's this bad shit that we ignore or try to justify. There is no justification. We just continue to take from the world, because we and our loved ones matter more than anything and everything else.


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maplekey4
Jan 28

Yes, expensive in many ways but I miss mine very much.

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