A contributor to the Country Squire has got himself wound up with a load of nonsense about plans to do away with pets because of climate change. Wilfully misinterpreting proposals by his local council and Colorado State. They are NOT coming for your cats and dogs.
Niall McCrae spends most of his time railing against anything that might make an impact to reduce carbon emissions. In his latest rant he is trying to convince himself and the readers of the Country Squire that the government is about to abolish cats and dogs. That they are coming for Fido and Tiddles.
Such a weighty accusation must surely have some compelling evidence. In his piece item number one is a proposal by Rother District Council to ban dogs from parks.
Rother District Council – Dog Control in 2023
a proposal by my local council in Sussex to banish dogs from parks. Constituents didn’t call for this; there was no spate of dog bites or mess strewn on the paths.
https://countrysquire.co.uk/2024/02/13/theyre-coming-for-your-cats-and-dogs/
A look at the proposals shows that the consultation is suggesting that of the seven areas being looked at, they be banned from sports and recreation fields and banned during the summer as one option for a beach area. To be honest dog mess on sports fields is a reasonable step. No one playing sports want to be dealing with dog shit. For one of the beach areas they are also consulting on whether dogs should be on leads in the summer. In some other areas no changes are planned or dogs are to be on leads.
So they are not even proposing an outright ban of dogs except from sports fields.
As to his opinion that no one wants these measures, presumably he has no contact with the local community. The responses on a local Facebook post about dog poo were very supportive of additional measures to tackle what is a significant local problem. As to there being “no spate of dog bites”, in the six years from 2017 there were 376 dog attacks on people recorded by the police. McCrae does not seem to have any awareness of the community he lives in, or he just likes to make stuff up.
Colorado House Bill 24-1163
His next under-whelming bit of evidence is a proposal for pet registration in Colorado (Colorado House Bill 24-1163) which was withdrawn. Neither the Bill, the sponsor, the local media or any of the people objecting make any mention of climate change or carbon. However Niall MaCrae with his staggering arrogance knows better.
Councillor Mark Howell
McCrae attempts to add weight to his non-existent contention by quickly referring to one independent councillor, Mark Howell ,who suggested that “pet owners should consider ‘scaling down’ and getting smaller dogs in the future.” That really does not translate into official policy. One bloke making a suggestion, albeit with some dodgy made up numbers on carbon impact.
Only in a paranoid reductive mind does the fact that one person making a suggestion automatically mean that there is a concerted plan.
Pet eugenics
In a masterstroke of ignorance he then diverges into pet eugenics. This either demonstrates a total ignorance of the meaning of the word eugenics, or a banal attempt to invent a plausible sounding thing for right wingnuts to make themselves angry about. A bit like a furry version of the culture wars they entertain themselves with.
Let’s remind ourselves what the word eugenics means…
Eugenics – the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations (as by sterilization) to improve the populations’ genetic composition
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eugenics
Ignoring the bit about human populations, it is essentially about control of breeding. Isn’t that what dog breeders have been doing for millenia? As someone who self identifies as author he doesn’t seem to be have a very good grasp of words.
climate denialism is a deliberate act of ignorance.
He then gets overexcited about one person, Donnachadh McCarthy, who wrote an article in 2021 tabulating the impacts that the pet food industry has on the environment. In the childish rhetoric of the author presenting the figures is translated into bombarded the reader with statistics. So in the realm of the wingnut presenting data is an act of aggression. This perfectly defines how climate denialism is a deliberate act of ignorance.
So from this flim-flam McCrae has concocted the paranoia that ‘they’ want to take away all the cats and dogs. This is the perfect example of the type of ignorance, misrepresentation and hysteria that is the bread and butter of climate change denial.
Think his essay gets a D. Apparently McCrae has written a book which is likely to be lacking any credible facts based on this essay.