Comments leysha has made

On Pets and Other Environmental Hypocracies

Maybe owning pets isn't the greenest choice in the world, but what is?  I say if environmentalists were REALLY honest, they'd tell you straight up that the great green future is one of no humans. But they won't admit that, since it would lose a pretty much all of their support from, well, everyone who isn't suicidal.

All environmentalists make some concessions, (just being alive is a big one).  Some of us own pets because they give us companionship and fill emotional gaps in our lives.  Others turn on the AC in the summer rather than use fans to be comfortable.  The point is there are no perfect environmentalists, we all have non-green things we do for our health or sanity, and no activity is completely exempt from some sort of environmental impact.  Everyone posting or reading these comments is using computer that is consuming electricity.  We could all save power by shutting our computers off right now and never turning them on again, but for one reason or another we've decided that the benefits to ourselves of using a computer outweighs the environmental costs.  Pet owners are no different, and shouldn't be made to feel guilty about the life enrichment they get from their animals.  Just as we focus on lessening the impact of our computers and AC units rather than getting rid of them, we can do the same for our pets by feeding them a healthy but more vegetarian diet, getting them spayed and neutered, avoiding needless pet product consumerism, etc.On Umbra on fans versus AC posted 1 year, 4 months ago 19 Responses