OK, that might be stretching it, but your pet’s carbon pawprint is probably larger than you think. We’re not barking mad — take a look at the stats. A medium-sized dog eats about 360 pounds of meat annually — more than the average American human, who consumes about 200 pounds (and that’s still a lot). “Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat,” says John Barrett of the Stockholm Environment Institute in the U.K. Meat, as we all know by now, has a huge environmental impact.

“Two German shepherds kept as pets in Europe or the U.S. use more resources in a year than the average person living in Bangladesh,” writes David Biello in a recent article published by the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. 

From the yearly amount of meat and grain your dog consumes to the rancid runoff produced by doggy doo-doo, you might almost be convinced to jettison the pooch, as Brenda and Robert Vale suggest in their book Time to Eat the Dog?: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living, which takes a hard look at the ecological footprints of pets.

But we think that’s extreme.  Instead, how about downsizing from a Bernese to a beagle?  If the thought of owning a Chihuahua gives you pause (paws?), let us make a case for these underdogs:  Owning a small dog means less hair to clean up, less food to buy, and let’s just say that doggy duty becomes less of a … handful. So punt your preconceived notions about seemingly puntable pooches and solve your environmental pet peeves with a small dog.

We offer some suggestions: 

Recycled island — paradise upon piles of plastics?Photo courtesy of WHIM architecture

WHIM architecture, a cutting-edge company based in the Netherlands, has a new proposal that’s anything but garbage — they want to create a habitable, floating island in the Pacific made from the mounds of plastic waste that swirl around in the Pacific Ocean’s currents.

WHIM has three goals for their so-called Recycled Island: Clean the ocean of all that pesky and permanent plastic, create new land, and construct a sustainable habitat. The island will not only make a statement against trashing our oceans — it is designed to be a completely sustainable system, using everything from renewable energy and compost toilets to green urban planning.

And who would live on this recycled refuge? According to Greenpeace, in 30 years climate change could result in at least 200 million “climate refugees.” WHIM claims Recycled Island would give them a sustainable and safe place to start over.

With such innovative ideas to reimagine trash and other recyclables for our living spaces, it’s time to redefine what we mean by trailer trash.

So, how about it. Would you live on a heap of trash in the middle of the ocean?

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Photo: Republican Conference via Flickr

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)

“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation [BP] can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown — in this case a $20 billion shakedown.”
– June 17, 2010  

Barton has received more than $1.4 million from the oil and gas industry since 1989.

(Check out more choice words from Barton.)