Soylent Green Is Fido?

Thursday morning's Washington Times has an editorial about some New Zealand scientists who recommend something straight from the annals of science fiction (or SyFy):

Want to save the planet? Kill your pets. Or better yet, eat them. This radical new suggestion comes from New Zealand professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialize in sustainable living. Their research has found that pets create tremendous strains on the environment and that a truly green world would have no place for these carbon-emitting parasites.

The Vale duo found that a medium-size dog has a carbon "pawprint" equal to that of about two Toyota Land Cruisers. A cat has almost the same environmental impact as a Volkswagen Golf, and two hamsters somehow equal a plasma TV.

Could two hamsters be anywhere near as entertaining as a plasma TV?

No doubt any objections to eating house pets -- or companion animals, as they are now known -- will be dismissed as manifestations of Western, patriarchal oppression of the differently-cultured.

Will French restaurants now specialize in poodle cuisine? Or, using the example of acorn-fed pigs and grass-fed beef, will we be treated to menu items like "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"?

Or, as Conan O'Brien suggested on The Tonight Show, at the new Disney World in China, "the 101 Dalmatians exhibit will be called 'the food court.'"







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