“People often miscalculate climate choices, a study says. One surprise is owning a dog.”
Alright, I’m here to take a whack at this.
There are many factors listed in Caleigh Wells’ article for the AP, People often miscalculate climate choices, a study says. One surprise is owning a dog which she attributes to negatively affecting climate change. But one factor that she did not mention that may be the most impactful of all … is having children.
She makes a lot of great points: recycling does not actually impact climate change as much as we like to think, eating meat is a heavy strain on the environment, and flying–particularly with private jets of the one percent–is devastating our planet.
What set me on the path of responding however, was the inclusion of owning a dog. With our politicians constantly putting people down for not wanting children–and particularly in a misogynist way, labeling women without children “childless cat ladies”–the inclusion of having a dog or cat because they are carnivores was a bit too far for me. This is not to mention how people like myself and many of my generation choosing not to have kids were also subject to suggestions that we should have limited voting capabilities in the United States. In Russia, childfree media was legally deemed “illegal propaganda” and subject to fines and possible jail time.
In life, we all make choices to survive and live a happy, fulfilling life. Many people–with and without children–choose to have pets for a myriad of reasons: pets lower blood pressure, pets can help mental health, and that’s not even considering pets with jobs like guide dogs and seizure warning pets.
If we’re going to discuss how much dogs and cats eat, UCLA’s study states “that dogs and cats consume about 25 percent of the total calories derived from animals in the United States”. The Institute of the Environment and Sustainability also included the fact that most of the pet food created for these pets are derived from parts of the animals that people will not eat, regardless. In this way, you could argue that pet food is reducing food waste leftover by us.
So if pets only eat 25% of the calories, what about people? What is the cost of having children in the United States, environmentally and economically?
From the USDA’s infographic (prior to the deletion of most major agencies’ publicly available information), the average cost of raising a child in the United States is 230,000. However, some financial offices report the cost is much higher than that, with estimates around $375,000.
All of this is to say that none of this matters. The reality is that despite making people feel better about their choices by giving them something tangible to make change, individuals are a drop in the bucket compared to the real issue: oil and other large companies producing waste. The Guardian’s article citing The Carbon Majors Report, “just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions and from the same report, highlighted by an article by Fast Company, “25 corporations and state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global industrial emissions in that same period.”
Ultimately, you can make choices to help the planet. But your individual choices have virtually no impact when compared to major companies in the fossil fuel industry. People click on articles like the one about individual climate decisions because they want to feel in control in a world slowly slipping out of control. Nothing more than clickbait.
Nicolette, MPH 