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Pets' Carbon Pawprint Cause for Alarm
Fido, Fluffy fetch bad news for environment
By Mary Papenfuss
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Posted Oct 27, 09 3:38 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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Forget the gas guzzler—it's Fluffy and Fido who are delivering a carbon blow to the global environment. That's the odd warning from a pair of New Zealand professors who claim the carbon pawprint of a large dog delivers twice the impact of a Toyota Land Cruiser driven 6,000 miles a year. A cat is more akin to driving a Volkswagen Golf, while a hamster is like owning a plasma TV.
Some scientists whine that the profs are barking up the wrong tree, but the duo reached their conclusion in their book, Time to Eat the Dog, by calculating, among other things, how much growing space it takes to raise the food to sustain a pet. One spot for wiggle room: the smaller the pet, the less the impact. Meow.