Random Thoughts - A dog is for life not climate control

 I'm writing this post in a bit of annoyance.   You see this morning Mrs E was watching Good Morning Britain ( no that's not why I am annoyed) and there was an article with some 'expert' (quite probably self-appointed) Donnachadgh McCarthy on the impact of household pets on climate change (no I haven't really heard of him before either).  What annoyed me was the claim that an average dog contributes as much to climate change as two SUV cars, and a cat does as much climate change damage as a small family car!  No statistical evidence was put foward to support the claim.  So as a researcher by nature (and in some respects by profession) I went data hunting.

I started by looking for evidence of the speaker's credentials.  He is a columnist who has written green columns for a couple of newspapers and runs an environmental consultancy advising on how to green up client's businesses.  What I couldn't find online were any hints as to his credentials or qualifications.  in fact he has a minimal footprint on social media.  So while he could possess a Phd in environmental statistics on the other hand he may only have a CSE in woodworking I can't tell.  So i turned to looking for the factual basis to his claims.

The first thing I found (quite quickly) was that the initial claim comparing dogs and cats carbon footprint to cars comes from an article which was released back in 2017 and was not peer reviewed.  There was a second study (also not peer reviewed as far as I can see)  carried out at the same time which came to almost diametrically opposite findings.  Finally I found a peer reviewed paper also released in 2017 by Gregory S Okin on the 'Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats'.  This looked to be on firmer ground but only covered part of the claim the carbon cost of raising meat animals for inclusion in our pet's food chain.  A second more popularist article by the same author (it was a graphic novel layout for god's sake) included the costs of disposing of animal facies (that's dog and cat poo to you and me) and the plastic used in poo bags and toys, clays in cat litter and materials in packaging.  The first article is here if you really want to check it out Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats (plos.org)

While I'm confident that pets have a carbon footprint and that it is larger than it perhaps needs to be I still cannot see a direct proven link to equate my two dog's carbon foot print to four Chelsea Tractors.  Certainly I don't see the evidence to equate to the guest's call for a ban on dogs and cats.  The evidence does support a conclusion that smaller dogs have less impact than bigger ones (who knew!) but doesn't really look at the balancing impact of pet ownership (especially with dogs) of owners taking low carbon dog walks and other offsetting activities.  Part of the peer reviewed paper suggests that a large proportion of the meat in pet food is by products of processing for human consumption but that it shouldn't be ignored as with more processing it could be made fit for human consumption, but doesn't ask what would be the carbon cost of the additional processing.

My conclusion while this is an area worthy of research our man on Good Morning Britain is an Eco warrior jumping on the next available bandwagon to stir up debate about climate change rather than a someone who has actually considered the evidence in any great scientific detail..