Your pet is ruining the planet, says UCLA study

Who, us? A new UCLA study points to pet dogs and cats as significant contributors to global warming.

You may drive a hybrid car, recycle every plastic bottle and obsessively compost food scraps, but if you own a cat or dog, you're feeding the world's greenhouse gases, according to a new UCLA study.

And if you're a millennial who has a cat or dog, you're likely making things even worse. More on that later.

The study "Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats", published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, found that the nation's pooches and felines each year indirectly account for some 64 million tons of methane and nitrous oxide, two powerful climate-warming gases, mainly because of their meat-heavy diet. That's roughly equivalent to driving 13.6 million cars for a year.

The environmental impact of meat production is well-known. It "requires more energy, land and water and has greater environmental consequences in terms of erosion, pesticides and waste," according to researchers. But the study notes that furry consumers of agricultural products are rarely included in calculations of the environmental impact of dietary choices even though more than 60 percent of U.S. households have pets.

The study estimates pets are responsible for 25 to 30 percent of the overall environmental impact.

Millennials are exacerbating the problem because they tend to demand better quality chow for Fifi than older Americans.

UCLA geography professor Gregory Orkin, author of the study, explains:

"As a possible consequence, there is a trend toward increasing meat quantity and quality in pet foods, which results in further increases in consumption of animal products by pets. There is evidence that this trend may continue as younger people are more likely to purchase premium pet food that includes more desirable cuts of meat."

With an estimated 77.8 million dogs and 85.6 million cats (2015 figures), the United States has more pets than any other nation. Orkin does not dispute the social or emotional benefits of pet ownership. He says the study is aimed at building awareness of the impact that pets have on meat production and its environmental effects.

In terms of dietary energy, the nation's pets consume about as much as one fifth of the U.S. human population.

"It is clear that a transition to pets that eat less meat, and therefore have less environmental impact, would reduce the overall U.S. consumption of meat," Orkin wrote.

The study also examined what was coming out the other end: U.S. dog and cats produce 5.1 million tons of feces a year. That's about the same as the total amount of garbage produced in a year by everyone in Massachusetts.

Let's block ads! (Why?)