John Whitehead: Libertarian?
Arnold King at EconLog picked up on John's dog poop post and raises an interesting question about banning dogs:
John Whitehead discusses environmental taboos, including plastic bags and not cleaning up after your dog.
Actually, I think that where I live, at least 10 percent of dog-owners do not clean up after their dogs. But I want to raise an even larger question.
Which do you think takes a bigger toll on the environment, owning a dog, or owning an SUV? My bet would be on the dog. I'm thinking of all of the resources that go into dog food.
You could argue that children also consume a lot of resources, but that is different. A dog does not have the potential to discover a cure for cancer. A dog is not going to provide for you in your old age.
I personally have nothing against dogs. But it does seem to me that environmentalism inevitably points toward a policy of extermination of pet dogs. Unless environmentalism is simply hatred of industry.
Note the first comment at EconLog from Spencer, which makes the very cogent point that an SUV is considerably more expensive to buy and maintain than a dog. If we accept that prices reflect the scarcity value and underlying costs of a good, then it seems likely that an SUV has more impact.
Also, what is the comparison here, absolute or marginal? Is this owning an SUV vs. owning no vehicle, or an SUV vs. a small car? And since the car is an SUV does the dog have to be a German Shepherd?
Is Kling considering the impacts of production and disposal? It doesn't sound like it from his post.
I am skeptical a thorough life-cycle analysis would back Kling up.
More thoughtful comments at the MR post.
Posted by: Daniel Hall | February 11, 2008 at 02:05 PM
A dog does not have the potential to discover a cure for cancer. A dog is not going to provide for you in your old age.
So i am going to get a woman pregnant and i am going to make sure that kid never grows up to cure cancer and i will forbid her from visiting me after age 60...
Is it OK for environmental laws to kill her now?
Posted by: joshua corning | February 11, 2008 at 06:40 PM
But it does seem to me that environmentalism inevitably points toward a policy of extermination of pet dogs. Unless environmentalism is simply hatred of industry.
This is the only statement that made any sense.
Everything above it either is totally wrong or does not support it.
It is like using the side label of a parody of cereal box to prove newtons third law.
Posted by: joshua corning | February 11, 2008 at 06:47 PM
Libertarian? I'm the guy who refuses to put Ron Paul on our President's poll.
Posted by: John Whitehead | February 11, 2008 at 07:07 PM
Perhaps having a dog reduces the likelihood of having children. This would be a huge environmental benefit. Of course this has never been studied (?) and the hypothesis can never be proven. The dogs impact is mostly due to food consumption. How much land is required to feed that dog? I would guess that all the dogs in the country could be fed on the extra land required to accommodate the extra size of the SUV's. Now this could be determined (but I'm not willing to spend time on such a worthless pursuit.)
Posted by: Robert Flanary | February 12, 2008 at 07:48 AM
Perhaps having a dog reduces the likelihood of having children. This would be a huge environmental benefit. Of course this has never been studied (?) and the hypothesis can never be proven. The dogs impact is mostly due to food consumption. How much land is required to feed that dog? I would guess that all the dogs in the country could be fed on the extra land required to accommodate the extra size of the SUV's. Now this could be determined (but I'm not willing to spend time on such a worthless pursuit.)
Posted by: Robert Flanary | February 12, 2008 at 07:49 AM
We do not have a dog but we do have 4 kids. The marginal value of a dog when feeling somewhat frisky is clearly very high.
Posted by: Glyn | February 12, 2008 at 09:21 AM