Goldfish equals 2 mobiles
By Ria Sharma

The New Scientist magazine was launched in 1956 "for all those men and women who are interested in scientific discovery, and in its industrial, commercial and social consequences".  Today, the New Scientist website gets a staggering 3 million users every month.  After all, technology and science help explain the mysteries of life, and its applications make our life easier.

New Scientist has just published research which works out the eco foot print of the important things in our lives.  And apparently one Goldfish has the same eco foot print of two cell phones. And your dog  uses up more of the earth’s resources than a big four wheel drive.

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According to the authors of the new book Time to Eat the Dog, it takes 0.84 hectares of land to keep a medium-sized dog fed. In contrast, running a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser, including the energy required to construct the thing and drive it 10,000 kilometres a year, requires 0.41 hectares. Dogs are not the only environmental sinners. The eco-footprint of a cat equates to that of a Volkswagen Golf.

If that's troubling, there is an even more shocking comparison. In 2004, the average citizen of Vietnam had an ecological footprint of 0.76 hectares. For an Ethiopian, it was just 0.67 hectares. In a world where scarce resources are already hogged by the rich, can we really justify keeping pets that take more than some people?
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