Cats and dogs have an outsize carbon footprint, mostly because of their carnivorous diet. If the pet food industry, which mainly feeds dogs and cats, were a country, it would rank as the 60th-highest greenhouse gas emitter, equivalent to the Philippines.
When I was an RA at Ohio State my senior year, me and a few other RA’s got a bunny. We named him Travis. I don’t recall how or why we got a pet rabbit. Lisa, an RA in Barrett, was very sweet and loved animals, so it was probably her idea. Scott and I liked spontaneous dumb ideas, so we were in, and Barb liked being in on the secret.
Like dogs or cats, rabbits can be easily trained to use litter boxes, answer by name and may affectionately “nose-bump” your ankles.
Travis was easily trained. The RA rooms had bathrooms, so Travis was trained to pee in the shower. We’d just sluice it down the drain. He would mostly poop there, but not entirely. Dropping a pellet for a rabbit is like farting for a human. There is some discretion, but it’s usually a casual event. Rabbit poop is pea sized and not gooey. It’s like some of the bits in Sparky’s dog food. Sparky would be happy if that was rabbit poop. Everybody wins.
Since dorm policy forbid pets, we trained Travis to run into the bathroom when we thumped on the floor. Being RA’s, floor residents would often come by. If someone knocked, we’d thump and Travis would scurry. Being subversive by having a pet was part of the fun. It worked great until one of my residents came by asking to urgently use my bathroom because his roommate was occupying his. The kid couldn’t understand why I would allow him to go in there.
“It’s like having a vegan cat,” says Anna Reynoso, the manager at a shelter run by the House Rabbit Society in Richmond, Calif.
Having a bunny is nothing like having a vegan cat. Cats are predators and behave like that way. In general, predators are great pets because they are independent and active. For classroom pets, I’ve had a king snake and piranha. Both were interesting to watch. If analogies are necessary, then having a bunny is like having a small, furry cow. People choose the pet that suits them.
But it’s their diet that gives them an environmental edge over cats or dogs.
Screw Washington Post columnists and other environmental busybodies who tell us how to live. We get pets because we love them, and as long as the pets get proper care and are not disrupting the neighborhood, it’s nobody’s business.
If WaPo wants to help the environment, then get the federal government to stop screwing everything up. We’d all have more freedom and live more comfortably. Some things the federal government could do or not do.
Streamline the process to build more nuclear power plants. Cheap, reliable and safe energy helps everyone.
Remove incentives that encourage niche energy technologies be adopted as general solutions. The battery-powered car fad is already declining. We don’t need to subsidize virtue signaling for rich people. If they want a Tesla, they can buy one and put a charger in the garage. Solar and wind power work well in very limited circumstances.
Remove inefficient regulations all over the place. My 12 year-old Tacoma pickup has eight airbags. None of them are likely to ever be used. A driver-side airbag is a threat to shorter people and is superfluous in a collision if the driver is wearing a seat belt. Those airbags add $4000 to the price of that truck. Money represents resources.
Stop letting in millions of illegal immigrants. At best, they are unskilled and incompatible with modern civilization. At worst, they are agents of foreign governments who will wastefully degrade our country.