Which is worse: A dog or an SUV?

Arnold Kling asks this thought-provoking question:

Which do you think takes a bigger toll on the environment, owning a dog, or owning an SUV? My bet would be on the dog. I’m thinking of all of the resources that go into dog food.

You could argue that children also consume a lot of resources, but that is different. A dog does not have the potential to discover a cure for cancer. A dog is not going to provide for you in your old age.

I personally have nothing against dogs. But it does seem to me that environmentalism inevitably points toward a policy of extermination of pet dogs. Unless environmentalism is simply hatred of industry.

Note: I am not arguing for or against this position. Just wanted to point out that this is something that most people wouldn’t have thought of this. Had you thought about the fact that somebody with no children (and does terrible, terrible things to the environment) is much more environment friendly that someone who is very “green” but has children?

(I found the article via the Cafe Hayek blog.)

Scientists Create See-Through Fish, Watch Cancer Grow

Through cross-breeding, scientists have created a zebra-fish with a transparent skin so that they can actually see the insides of the fish. Zebra fish are genetically similar to humans in a number of ways, and hence serve as good subjects for experiments like this. These are now being used to understand cancer. Excerpt:

White created the transparent fish, which he nicknamed Casper, by mating two existing zebrafish breeds, one that lacked a reflective skin pigment and the other without black pigment. The offspring had only yellow skin pigment, essentially appearing clear.

In one experiment, White and his colleagues inserted a fluorescent melanoma tumor into the abdominal cavity of the transparent fish. By observing the fish under a microscope, they found that the cancer cells started spreading within five days. White could actually see individual cells spreading.

See full article. They also have a picture of the fish for you to ogle.