My old dog Quon was killed and baked for his grease
"China, with one dog for every 26 people, will have an easier time halving its herd than Japan or the UK, with one dog for every six people"
Earlier I made the detailed and referenced calculation that to reach net zero and beyond by mid-century and thereby save humanity from climate-induced extinction, we would need to reduce the global population of domestic dogs from 1 billion to less than 2.5 million, or about one dog for every 300 people. Given that the dog population in many countries greatly exceeds that ratio, this is no minor undertaking. As recently as 2012, the world population of dogs was estimated at 525 million. It nearly doubled in the past decade. Canine population needs to halve now at a rate more than twice as fast.
Estimating how many dogs there are and how many need to be phased out is not a simple matter because, by some estimates, 75 to 85% of worldwide dogs are free-range, feral, or strays having no family home to go to. So, for instance, the usual number given for India is 10.2 million dogs. But that is just those included in the census of family owners. It is estimated that India has 6 times more homeless street dogs than family pets, so a truer number could be 70.2 million.
My old dog Quon was killed and baked for his grease, which yielded 11 lb.
—Diary of a Dorset farmer, 1698.
It will be much harder for some countries than others. China, with one dog for every 26 people, will have an easier time halving its dog population than Japan or UK, with one dog for every 6 people. Culled will be 48 million Pekingese, Chow Chow, Shar Pei, and Tibetan Mastiffs. By contrast, it is difficult to imagine the pain for dog owners in the USA and Brazil (1:4). Collectively those three countries will need to shed 21 million best friends. And yet, imagine what Mexicans, living in a nation with more dogs than people (146 million to 131 million), will have to carry out to save civilization.
In 1877, the city of New York rounded up 762 stray dogs and drowned them in the East River, shoving them into iron crates and lifting the crates by crane into the water.
Since the average lifespan of a dog is 14 years, the change could be phased in over time. Nonetheless, governments will need to outlaw puppy mills and shut down shelter adoptions and rescue dogs. Imagine the uproar from that.
I’m sorry for my dog barking. She got up on the kitchen table to watch. She has never done that before. I’ve only had her for a year. She is a rescue dog.—MSNBC Correspondent, live on the air, March 13, 2024
During the pandemic, Americans turned to pets for comfort. In a survey, 15% of Americans said that they had acquired a dog during the pandemic in some way, including through a pet shelter, welfare, or rescue organization.
Petfood Industry, 2021
Still, giving up Fido is not without benefits. Dog owners love their pooches so much that USAnians spend on average $1,201 on dogs yearly—$16,814 over their lives. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a US household earning an average income of $94,003 before taxes in 2022 allocated annual spending on average to:
Food at home: $5,703
Food away from home: $3,639
Apparel and services: $1,945
Vehicle purchases: $4,496
Gasoline, other fuels: $3,120
Personal care products and services: $866
Entertainment: $3,458
Cross off the new car and its gas and you can pay for the rest with the cost of one dog-life and still have $3000 left for bus and subway fare.
Veterinarian turned philosopher Bernard Rollin recalls pet owners in the 1960s putting their dog to sleep before going on holiday, reasoning that it was cheaper to get a new dog when they returned than to board the one they had.
To reach a carbon footprint of net zero by 2050, the US will need to cut its pet population by some 10 million dogs and 10 million cats every year for a decade and then by some 200,000 per year in the out years towards mid-century.
The saving grace in all this dog destruction is that the race of their ancestors can safely be returned to Middle Earth as we breed more wolves into ever-expanding re-wilded ranges.
There is a growing recognition that a viable path forward is towards a new carbon economy, one that goes beyond zero emissions and runs the industrial carbon cycle backwards — taking CO2 from the atmosphere and ocean and burying it in the ground. The triple bottom line of this new economy is antifragility, regeneration, and resilience.
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