Eat your dog - because its carbon footprint is bigger than a Toyota Corolla's.

That's what Wellington city councillors have been told by Victoria University
research fellow Brenda Vale, who is an authority on sustainable architecture.

Her latest co-authored book, Time to Eat the Dog, investigates ways to modify
behaviour to save energy. It will be published next year.

She told a city council briefing last week that all pets should be edible
because their carbon footprints - or pawprints, as the case may be - contribute
to global warming.

Acting mayor Ian McKinnon said she explained that "a big dog can have a carbon
footprint that is the equivalent to a small car and therefore the best way
forward, if you are going to have a pet, is to make sure it is edible".

To enable this to happen, the council would need to ensure that it was legal for
humans to eat cats and dogs. Or it could ban traditional pets and let people
keep conventional food animals, such as chickens and pigs, in their homes.

Mr McKinnon said neither option was palatable. "With at least half of the
councillors owning at least one dog, I think the idea would lapse ... but it
would be an interesting change to our dog policy."

If Professor Vale's carbon-busting argument was taken to the extreme, "the only
safe way forward was for mankind to stop breeding", he said.

"That is the problem with these types of arguments. It you take them to their
natural conclusion, then you end up in an extraordinarily illogical situation."

German shepherd breeder Olive Sargent, who bred eight-year-old Danny, said: "As
long as it is all tongue-in-cheek then it is not a terrible thing to have edible
pets so that they can be reused and eaten. But it doesn't really make sense."

The council plans to reduce carbon emissions in the community to 30 per cent
below 2001 levels by 2020. It also aims for its operations to be carbon-neutral
by 2012.

Professor Vale could not be contacted yesterday for comment.
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