It’s an environmentalist-eat-dog world where the treehuggers’ latest target is not the hummer or Texas oil men, but poor defenseless pets. That’s right – now they’re saying that you should eat your pets rather than take them on vacation.

Dog's day out

A book by Robert & Brenda Vale, called ‘Time to Eat the Dog?: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living,’ suggests that dogs and cats have very big eco-paw prints. The book says that the amount of food a dog eats in one year takes up around 1.1 hectares of land.

Measure that against a 6,213 mile (10,000 km) road trip in a 4.6 liter Land Cruiser, which only takes up .41 hectares of land. Basically, what they’re saying is that you can take 3 roadtrips of 6,213 miles each every year, if you stick a fork in your pet.

The Vales suggest in the book that pets should be recycled for pet food. Imagine the horror, if your precious Persian finds that you have turned it into a cannibal. It’s like something out of a Stephen King book.

And that’s not all. The authors would also have you give up your own vacations, shopping trips and other leisure activities, in addition to cooking up your pets. Apparently the authors are exempt from all this, and they describe their own lifestyle – which includes a trip to Japan and ownership of a cat.

The Vales are eccentric enough to suggest that you shouldn’t go through with a divorce until you find someone else, so that you don’t need separate homes. But the authors apparently have no problems buying a new house.

Hopefully, there won’t be people screwy enough to listen to this pair of nutjobs and actually give up their pets, vacations, or vacations with your pets to luxury dog hotels. These are not luxuries - once you get a pet, you’ll realize that they’re just as necessary as taking care of your grandma.

Photo by br1 ~ br1dotcom

Until a few years back, a vacation meant piling the kids into the back and hitting the road. But times change, and now you have a whole new bunch of requirements to fulfill before you can even think about the beach, a cold beer and some peace and quiet.

Beach Vacation

If you don’t want your neighbors and colleagues to look down on you, follow this list of ’friendly’ things that your vacation has to be.

1. Environment-friendly:- It’s bad enough that your vacation destroys your entire year’s savings. Don’t let your vacation be blamed for the destruction of the earth. Find a destination which cares about their surroundings, get a green hotel, try to avoid trips by air and don’t do stuff which will be harmful to the environment – like wasting water, and leaving trash and beer cans in the outdoors or on the road. Read More »

Griffith Park is to Los Angeles what Central Park is to New York City.  There’s a zoo, a miniature train, acres of green grass, a carousel, and a big fancy fountain, among other things.  And every year for over ten years now, there are holiday lights.  A million of them.

It’s a relatively new tradition in the city of angels.  The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power creates a Festival of Lights along a mile stretch of Crystal Springs Drive, reached by the southbound side of Interstate 5 (or “the 5″ as locals call it) or by turning north from Los Feliz Ave onto Crystal Springs.  Signs along the way declare how long the wait time would be if you were stopped there.  Luckily for us, we went at 5:30PM, shortly after the 5PM start time, so we didn’t have to wait at all.  It may be better after Christmas, because the festival runs through Dec. 30.

For the green-conscious, be aware that the DWP switched to LED lights to save energy.  Certain interests underwrite the costs of special displays.  There’s a toy collection drive at the entrance where you can donate a new unwrapped toy for needy children.

Like I said, go early, or prepare to make a night of it.  I’ve heard of people being stuck in line for 2 hours.  You can also park at the zoo and take a bus along the route, or walk.  If you want to take pictures, make sure your car windows are rolled down, and you stay still enough that the lights don’t make trippy patterns in your shot.

It was worth the 40 minute Friday evening drive.  My 3 year old, upon going through the entrace tunnel of lights, declared, “This is AWESOME.”  And he knows his holiday lights.

The 2008 Lodging Survey from the American Hotel & Lodging Association showed up that 20% of the more than 10,000 hotels surveyed have implemented LEED standards in the past year, and 21% are planning to do so in the next 12 months. New York has its fair share of these green hotels and eco-friendly lodging properties, and listed below are best of these digs, so you can enjoy guilt-free vacations in the ‘Green Apple’.

The City’s official tourism website NYCVisit.com has an excellent Go Green page, where you’ll find listings of green lodgings, organic restaurants, outdoors activities and other stuff which falls under sustainable tourism. The lodging suggestions include the Benjamin & Muse Hotels, Greenpoint Lodge, Sugar Hill Harlem Inn, West Eleventh Townhouse and the East Village Bed and Coffee.

Goes without saying that they don’t really update this list regularly, so there are a few more options worth considering. For starters, there’s the 70 Park Avenue, which, as a Kimpton Hotel, has a host of green practices and product use in place, including the free organic coffee served in the lobby. Then there’s the Moderne, which underwent a comprehensive green conversion last year, and now features things like recycled biodegradable paper products and, 100% bamboo unbleached linen.

Not to say that others, like the New York Marriott Downtown, are not eco-friendly (they are – to a certain degree), but if we’re talking about a top-to-bottom green experience, then this list is what you need to start with. One more green lodging option very much worth mentioning is 1 Hotel & Residences - It won’t be opening until 2010, but when it does open, it will rival the Orchard Garden in San Francisco as the nation’s premier uber-green hotel.

If you move Upstate and into the Adirondacks, the focus is more on weekend getaways at lodges and inns, and a prospective list of green lodging options in Upstate New York should include the DoubleTree Hotel Syracuse and the Golden Arrow Lakeside Resort in Lake Placid with its sprawling green roof and many green programs.

Another good green getaway option in the Adirondacks is the Stoney Lonesome B&B, about 10 minutes from Lake George, which utilizes solar energy to power its needs. Then there’s the Glen Lodge & Market, which uses 100% wind power, composts waste and uses vehicles running on biofuels.

Not to say that this is a comprehensive list, but I guess its enough to get you started. I’m writing this as New Orleans awaits Hurricane Gustav, fearful of a Katrina redux. Maybe you can’t go to the Big Easy to help rescue stranded people, but you can start saving the earth - one green vacation at a time.

Photo copyrights – Golden Arrow Lakeside Resort