We have big box stores for pets.
We have semi trucks burning diesel to bring pet food and pet supplies to all parts of the world.
We devote some amount of farm land and livestock to feeding those pets.
It’s interesting when people suggest to reduce global human population but I have never heard anyone suggest to reduce pet populations as a method for combating climate change or for simply reducing resource usage.
The worldwide dog population is estimated to be 900 million.
There are 600 million to 1 billion cats living in the world today.
You aren’t wrong. Good luck trying to get people to acknowledge this AND change.
I’ve had rescues for decades and love them as much as most people in my life. But I would be completely fine if the pet trade stopped existing, from a moral and environmental standpoint.
Cats in particular are devastating to bird populations, and we should make every effort to spay and neuter as many as possible.
But as far as climate change goes, we can start with us. Go vegan if you care about the environment. We contribute far more than the world’s pet population, and changing ourselves is our responsibility.
Cats aren’t devastating to bird populations when they’re kept inside.
Of course. Yet far too many aren’t kept only inside. And once they get out and breed, the damage has already been done and will only get worse.
Sure, but you’re ignoring the fact that it is possible to keep them inside and many people achieve it easily.
It’s possible to do a lot of things, but too many people don’t/won’t.
There are millions of cats being let outdoors because their owners think they’re doing them a favor.
In some countries, indoor cats are rare.
It’s a massive problem that we can only solve by sterilization and ending the pet industry.
Trap, neuter, and return programs (which I’ve been a part of for many years), helps control the “wild” cat populations, but it starts with not bringing more cats into the world.
The ice caps are melting people; do your part and shoot the family dog.
Congratulations on your unpopular opinion. It’s an interesting point that clearly has hit a nerve with people. There’s a lot of “what-about-ism” in these comments.
I think the important take out of climate change is individually you don’t have to do everything (i.e. compost, put solar on, sell your car, avoid showering) but it is important that you do something that you can adjust in your life. If that’s deciding to not buy another pet after your current one passes, good for you. If pets are a fabric of your being, then maybe looking for carbon reduction solutions elsewhere would be beneficial.I don’t argue this position I act on it like many others. We only get rescues and we neuter or spay them.
Best way to help is to not support breeders or pet shops who sell pets.
Breeders are the ones who ethically breed the next generation of pets and working dogs. They are not the same as puppy mills/backyard breeders, who do not take animal health and welfare into consideration.
resisting the urge to down vote after seeing the community
you’re a rare Lemmite. Hats off to you.
Realistically we need an equivalent to the ttenth dentist where we upvote if we disagree.
Yeah there’s a lot of ways to reduce carbon emissions. The important thing is to choose the ways that fits your life the best. It’s all about making an effort and not about some kind of purity test.
I mean everything you have and everything you do is putting carbon into the air. Literally breathing puts carbon in the air.
But we probably should be prioritizing here. Could go crazy thinking of every activity that produces carbon. Take transit, have a plant burger. Most important thing is that everyone makes an effort rather than having a small number of people taking extreme steps to reduce only their own carbon emissions while looking like nutjobs to everyone else.
Sure if you don’t feel like you need a pet, then don’t have one. It helps. If you already have four cats, then you really don’t need to get a fifth cat. Like come on, Janet, you already have enough cats FFS.
But no, nobody should suggest reducing the pet population as part of a carbon reduction plan. That just makes it all sound oppressive and crazy and will be rejected by a majority of the people. That will result in people not doing anything to reduce carbon emissions, which has a net negative result.
It’s good to think in this kind of way though. But it’s better to go with “take public transit, maybe try a plant burger, and think of other ways to reduce carbon emissions!” And let people reach the conclusion themselves about whether or not they need another pet.
My favorite part of this unpopular opinion is just how far you could go with “reduce human population” before you get to the level of unpopular this opinion is. Assuming it ever gets that far.
Birth caps? Fine. Kind of works in an ideal world I guess
Neutering people? Eh… I get it, not for me but I get it.
Death camps? Ok, no, but like Thanos did have a point…
No more dogs or cats? That sir is a bridge too far!
We don’t need birth caps or forced sterilization or any of that. We need comprehensive sexual health education and universal access to all birth control methods including abortion. Imagine a society where the only babies born were ones that were planned for and wanted.
As for the pet thing… I’d love to see legislation that prevented breeding for profit.
If you want pet breeds you need to breed them.
Some people do actually still need a working dog as well.Do puppymills still exist? Somehow targeting that explicitly would probably be good.
Sister, it’s already an unpopular opinion when you point out that all pets are a luxury. Bringing up pets like this is going to tip half the pet owner population into firmly far right voting cause “they’re coming for snugglewuggie”
I mean, most pets are a luxury but not all, depending on how you define pet.
Many service dogs and emotional support animals are absolutely necessary for physical and mental health, but then you could also define those as not necessarily being “pets” but rather “tools” for healthcare. Anything where the human is not dependent on the animal is definitely a luxury though and not necessary in the slightest.
There was a study that looked at this. IIRC 3 medium sized dogs equals one kid (adjusted to be per year because dogs don’t live as long).
Footprint causes by pets is likely nothing even compared to just the beef industry, lol.
Also probably nothing compared to how much meat each individual pet owner eats.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Price is Right but one of Bob Barker’s things was talking about getting animals neutered and spayed.
Drew Carey even carries it forward and it’s not like it’s a taboo topic.
An even more unpopular idea is that we need less people.
We have the resources for every human on this planet to live decently luxuriously, if, there weren’t so damn many of us
We have the resources for every human on this planet to live decently luxuriously,
if, there weren’t so damn many of usWe just need to figure out how to move from late stage capitalism and nationalism to early stage post-scarcity
Trying to be as neutral and objective about this idea as I can:
People who own pets are very emotionally attached to them. Even if pet ownership was the #1 contributing factor to climate change, it would still take an extremely terrible climate for the majority of pet owners to be willing to live without their pets.
If you were to try to introduce some legislation to make this happen, I think that at a minimum and currently owned pets would have to be grandfathered in.
A bit off topic, I have heard some calls to make it mandatory that all pet cats would have to be indoor cats, due to their predation of certain species
Upvoted, because this is an incredibly unpopular opinion.
First up the three biggest CO2 producers are planes shipping and cars. And by a long shot. I agree that there are some corrupt activists the ones that are really trying to make a change are promoting non car centric infrastructure.
Planes and shipping are ‘only’ about 2% each, they’re far from the biggest polluters. For the big polluters you’ve got road transport, agriculture and industry etc…
banning non ZEV cars and trucks, nationalizing, improving, and electrifying the rail network, and shifting all the highway widening money to protected bike lanes and public transit would do a lot and none of it is individual scale
