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There is a new enthusiasm for all things green when it comes to our pets. This girl has one green eye, but something else is meant by my question in the title. There are web sites, books and news articles touching on everything from organic pet food to natural flea powders. I have had a few dogs in my life that have lived to a very old, but very healthy age. Did they have a big carbon footprint? Could they have contributed more to all things green if, instead of bags of dry dog food, I had served them an organic breakfast every day?
Maybe I am uninformed as to the contribution our pets make to global warming, but I find it a little amusing to think that dogs and cats might be contributing to the shrinking of the polar ice caps. I have know a few dogs who could compete with the best of the flatulating cows, but other than peeling the wall paper in a few living rooms, I doubt if their emissions did much damage to the atmosphere. But who knows? Add up the millions of dogs and cats world-wide and we may indeed have a need to green our pets.
I guess this is an example of no harm, no foul. If people who are doing their best to make their own contributions to healthy living want to take their pets along for the ride, what harm can be done? The only thing I would caution is to remember that pets, especially cats, have dietary needs that are quite different than our own. Make sure their diets meet those needs.
So, if you have the desire and the financial means to go green with your pets, there is a lot of information available these days. I recently saw a book titled “Eco Dog”. Maybe that is a good place to start reading up on what you can do to reduce the carbon footprint of your best friend.
What do you think? Is your pet green? Do you think trying to reduce the carbon footprint of our pets is worth the effort? Do natural flea control products work? Is “healthier” pet food worth the extra cost?
August 27th, 2008
Posted By:
Will |
One Comment |
Categories:
Environment
Trackback: http://willtaft.com/environment/how-green-is-your-cat/trackback/
I am back after a final week of camping with the kids before they go back to school. Hopefully I can get quickly caught up on posts, visits to my favorite sites, and other things that took a back seat for a few weeks. We had a great time with all kinds of weather, lots of campfires, and good food. Sad to end the summer, but I am grateful that our kids still like to go camping as they get older.
I have enough photographs from the past two camping trips for several Wordless Wednesdays, so expect to see a few of those coming up. I also have a great series of photographs of a previously endangered bird that has made an amazing comeback and I’ll put those together in a post also.
I saw and heard a couple of things recently that has made me wonder about the big media outlets as compared to us little bloggers. A show on CNN titles “Earth in Peril” or something like that, focused a segment on the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. On the one hand it is great to see a big media outlet like CNN bring attention to this issue. O the other hand it is distressing to see how far behind they are on reporting it. Even little old me wrote about the problem of ethanol killing all life in the Gulf of Mexico over 8 months ago. Another newspaper story focused the hormonal changes being inflicted on fish by soap and detergents going down our drains. I, and others, wrote about these hormonal changes over a year ago. Then last night I heard a few minutes of a radio show discussing the dangers of plastics, including of all the chemicals that we absorbing from our use of plastic containers to store our food and beverages. They also went into the dangers of using Teflon pans to cook your food. Ever read anything about the dangers of plastics this on this site? LOL!
It seems that bloggers are often at the forefront of reporting stories, but too often don’t get enough reader penetration to bring the issue to the masses. But, we still need to soldier on. With enough people writing about the same issues, maybe awareness is indeed raised. I just don’t know if, from a personnel standpoint, it is frustrating or rewarding to see an outlet like CNN come so late to reporting on something many of us have been writing about for ages.
Now a question. I get a number of requests for healthy recipes. I have always thought there were so many sites with recipes that I only rarely post any of mine. I am currently helping a cook set up a site where she will focus on healthy food and recipes. What do you think? Are there as many of these sites as I think? Or should I be more generous in sharing mine once or twice a month? The few I have posted in the past get a lot of readers and some of those email me asking for more. Recipe posts are a bit more work than a normal post, but if popular, are kind of fun to do.
August 25th, 2008
Posted By:
Will |
11 Comments |
Categories:
Contemporary Issues
Trackback: http://willtaft.com/contemporary-issues/monday-miscellany/trackback/
This week’s unusual search phrase is: “a really interesting fact about myself”.
This may seem unusual at first glance, but if you read this post titled “I’ve Been Tagged, Sort of…8 Facts About Myself“, I think it makes more sense.
August 24th, 2008
Posted By:
Will |
One Comment |
Categories:
Just For Fun
Trackback: http://willtaft.com/just-for-fun/sunday-search-of-the-week-8-24-2008/trackback/
It won’t make quitting any easier, but if a person needs another reason to stop smoking, here it is.
A couple of recent studies have reached the conclusion that smoking can increase the risk of Alzheimer’s by up to 50%. One of the studies excluded people with any known genetic link to Alzheimer’s. Again, like so many summaries of studies I find, this one did not actually give the numbers involved. If the risk for people without the genetic link went from 1 in a million to 1.5 in a million, that would be very different than if it went from 1 in 100 to 1.5 in 100 people, but maybe I am thinking of that incorrectly? What ever the numbers, a 50% increase is significant.
There is another post here that along with the comments has some further Alzheimer’s information. There are also many sites dedicated to this cruel disease. Deb at Bird on a Wire is working on “1 Million Memories“. Check that out for a way to publicize the search for a cure.
August 20th, 2008
Posted By:
Will |
4 Comments |
Categories:
health
Trackback: http://willtaft.com/health/another-possible-contributer-to-alzheimers/trackback/
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