Your dog is part of the problem of climate change: “I can adopt 100 rabbits that will not be close to the emissions of a dog, because my dog is a carnivore”

A study recently published by the National Academy of Sciences revealed that when it is invited to classify actions, such as the exchange of a car which uses petrol for a carpooling or reduction of food waste, the participants were not very precise when evaluating the quantity of actions that climate change and coal is mainly burned.

“People are over-attributing an impact on actions that are in fact fairly low impact such as recycling and underestimating the real impact of the much more intensive carbon behavior, such as stealing or eating meat,” said Madalina Vlasanu, co-author and professor of environmental social sciences at the University of Stanford.

The three main individual actions that help the climate, in particular by avoiding flights by plane, choosing not to obtain a dog and using renewable electricity, were also the three that the participants underestimated the most. Meanwhile, the weakest actions turned into more effective devices and exchange bulbs, recycling and the use of energy to wash clothes. These are three of the four main overestimated actions in the report.

There are many reasons why people are mistaken

Vlasanu has said that marketing focuses more on recycling and the use of energy efficient bulbs than the reasons why the flights or the adoption of dogs are relatively bad for the climate, so participants were more likely to give these actions more weight.

How the human brain is wired also plays a role.

“You can see the recycled bottle. It’s visible. While carbon emissions, it’s invisible to the human eye. This is why we do not associate programs on the spot,” said Jiaiying Zhao, who teaches psychology and sustainability at the University of British Columbia.

Zhao added that it is easier to make the minds of the actions that we do more often. “Recycling is an almost daily action, while the flight is less frequent. It is less discussed,” she said. “As a result, people give a higher psychological weight to recycling.”

Of course, there is also a lot of misleading information. For example, some companies praise the recycling they make without speaking to the public about pollution that comes from their global operations.

“There has been a lot of deliberate confusion to support policies that are really obsolete,” said Brenda Ekwurzel, a climatologist at the Union of Scientists concerned, a non -profit organization.

Why dogs have a big climate impact

Dogs are large meat eaters and meat significantly contributes to climate change. Indeed, many of the farm animals, which will become food, release methane, a greenhouse gas which contributes to climate change. The beef is particularly impactful, in part because world cattle are often high on land that has been illegally deleted. Since the trees absorb carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas, cutting them to increase cattle is a double blow.

“People just do not associate pets with carbon shows. This link is not clear in the minds of people,” said Zhao.

However, not all pets are the same. Zhao has a dog and three rabbits.

“I can adopt 100 rabbits who will not be close to the emissions of a dog, because my dog is a carnivore,” she said.

The owner of a meat eating pet can reduce his impact by looking for foods from sources other than beef. Zhao, for example, tries to minimize the carbon footprint of his dog by nourishing his protein sources less with high carbon intensity, including seafood and turkey.

Air trip pollution

Aircraft emit a lot of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, as well as greenhouse gases. In addition, planes emit subcontracts or steam trails that prevent warming gases from the planet from escaping in space. An round-round economy class flight on a 737 from New York in Los Angeles produced more than 1,300 pounds of passenger emissions, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency.

According to UN estimates.

Other decisions, both impactful and minor

The transition to energy from renewable sources, such as solar energy and wind, has a significant positive impact because such sources do not emit greenhouse gases. Some of the biggest climatic decisions that individuals can make include how they heat and cool their homes and the types of transport they use. The transition to renewable energy minimizes the impact of the two.

Recycling is effective in reducing waste -led waste to discharge, but its climatic impact is relatively low because the transport, treatment and reuse of recyclables generally rests on fossil fuels. In addition, less than 10% of plastics are really recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Other decisions with an overestimated impact, including washing clothes in cold water and the transition to more effective bulbs, are relatively lower. Indeed, these devices have a relatively low impact compared to other things, such as airplane flights and dogs, therefore improvement, although beneficial, has a much more limited influence.

Experts say that the best way to combat the human trend to calculate climate -related decisions is with information more easily available. Zhao said people are already more precise in their estimates than they would have been 10 or 20 years ago because it is easier to learn.

The study supports this hypothesis. Once the participants have finished classification the actions, the researchers corrected their mistakes and they changed the actions they said they would take to help the planet.

“People learn from these interventions,” said Vlasanu. “After learning, they are more willing to commit to actually more impactful actions.”

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