I agree that the personal actions part of the equation is not as important as those climate bill coal loopholes. I was really just having some fun with this post.

To your second point about people’s lavish affections for their dogs: I suspect that my post might have been subliminally motivated by disgust at this, having family members who show more concern and love for their dogs than than anyone else. Then again, if that’s all they’re capable of, perhaps that’s better than not being able to not connect on any level…

I’m not a fan of this sort of environmentalism–though it’s so important to keep track of our personal actions, and I’m as turned off by families of, oh, 18 as anyone else, I think worrying those poor Boulderites about their dogs is a bit ridiculous, and obscures the really big problems causing climate change (loopholes for coal businesses in the new climate bills, for example, or our lame transportation systems).

Then again, I’m thinking of that 70s novel Ecotopia; I seem to remember one detail of that narrative was that once people really reconnected with one another, they no longer needed pets.  Pets became “animals” again, rather than friends.  That sort of appeals to me.  But we’d have to cordon off California and protect it with nuclear weapons to have an ecotopia.  So there you go.

Full disclosure:  I have two cats and two kids.  So I can’t be self-righteous on this one.  I’m just not fond of this sort of story.

Jen
Colorado School of Mines