My intentions with this train of thought are for conversational exploratory purposes only. Although I personally conclude our historical use of resources would have been better allocated in other ways I wouldn’t expect anyone to euthanize their pet after reading this and I wouldn’t want them to. Personally, I believe that would be futile. Such significant precedent for collapse is already established that I have little confidence anything this far along could stop what we stand to face. I am certainly not proposing a “final solution” where pets are mass murdered or laws regulating anything. I simply wish to question that our actions have served us and future generations well, to entertain the thought that with what we know now we could have made more effective use of resources we invested in the relative short term rewards of pet ownership.

What I love about movies like Back To The Future and The Butterfly Effect is the way they capture this innate curious fascination with time as a living document where historical changes influence downstream events. I love to apply this “what if” lens to things we accept at face value and people openly welcome this vein of conversation when we use it to dissect cultural staples like money, violence, and even religion. I do it frequently, I am seldom forgiving with my words or careful to avoid revealing my stance on any issue I take the time to address but I recently discovered that the same approach paired with my usual inflammatory language was received with much less tolerance when it came to pets. The typical cricket chirps of ambivalence (save the few I count on for regular debate) were replaced with emotionally charged conversation from a much larger and more diverse pool of people responding than usual when I told my Facebook friends:

‘All the energy and resources humans have wasted on domesticated animals would’ve been much better spent on other humans, clean renewable energy, or fighting human trafficking.’

In light of global hunger, looming energy crisis, and sexual exploitation of people unable to protect themselves I stand by this statement knowing full well that these domesticated pets were once species that either didn’t exist before human intervention or they exist now in a state dependent upon it. This doesn’t mean I hate animals, pets, or pet owners.I’ve had dogs in my life that meant a lot to me and I wouldn’t expect anyone with the resources at their disposal to forgo any such luxuries in life but let’s be sure not to mistake pet ownership as anything less than a luxury.

Our planet is finite in resources. Access to and use of these resources is at best poorly distributed among earths inhabitants but this doesn’t impede the rapidly growing rate of consumption. This world might be hanging in the balance of dumb luck at Fukushima or ironically exterminated by the effects of a decimated honey bee population. When you see yourself and everything you know standing at the edge of existence it’s only natural to look back and wonder in which baskets our eggs fared best. In this imaginary game of editing history the ripple effect applies and the footprint of a thing will determine its impact over time.

Abysmal failure to prioritize as a species is illustrated by ongoing conflict, prevalent rape culture, and our derelict stewardship of this planet as the most universally obvious indicator. I call this awareness being “Collapse Conscious” and find my self drawing from this perspective to dissect cultural staples. The collapse conscious mentality makes it difficult to justify applying scarce resources to most things that aren’t purely utilitarian, energy efficient and of critical importance. Some would argue that we’ve long been squandering resources borrowed from future generations. Regardless of how, why, or who’s responsible the world’s lack of regard for sustainability has jeopardized life on earth as whole.

In 2013, $55.72 billion was spent on our pets in the U.S.

Breakdown:

Food $21.57 billion

Supplies/OTC Medicine $13.14 billion

Vet Care $14.37 billion

Live animal purchases $2.23 billion

Pet Services: grooming & boarding $4.41 billion

To end world hunger $30 billion

To feed the 600 million hungry kids $3.2 billion

Sources:

http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp

http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats

http://borgenproject.org/the-cost-to-end-world-hunger/

American consumers spent over a billion dollars more on pet grooming and boarding in 2013 than is needed to feed all 66 million hungry school age children worldwide. People who are born into poor countries may not realize that American dog food is made suitable for human consumption because some poor Americans will survive on it through hard times but you may not realize that either and probably for much different reasons. When it is estimated by the UN that world hunger could be eradicated for $30 billion per year while consumers in the US spent almost double that on their pets in 2013 it has got to be a lot easier to depict your pet as a family member on the internet than it is to look a starving kid in the eye and tell them that your precious pet Fluffy likes her fancy feast on a people plate and that she deserves it. Starving kids from the forgotten corners of the world probably don’t worry much about how fancy feats is best served, the ASPCA, or PETA because they’re too weary from hunger, they never heard of such things, and they have bigger fish to fry like not getting stolen into sex slavery leaving the house for whatever meager sustenance they can scare up.

Cognition and communication are among the qualities that make the human race unique. They give value to our experiences and allow us to pass down traditions for generations. The short term benefit of the pet that felt instrumental in your life is hard to compare with traditions of compassion that echo through several generations. Traditions shouldn’t simply be accepted because they are tradition though. Most things in life should be subject to periodic evaluation. What was once an indispensable hunting companion and family protector has become the anonymous demand for puppy mills and the pets that once helped us bring home dinner are now depending on us to feed them. Today you can’t really say that our failure to support ourselves as an entire species demonstrates a means to provide for that additional mouth at the global table.