Burning bunnies for energy

29Nov09

* Caution: This post really is about burning bunnies for energy.

I read an interesting article in Time today. Apparently hunters in Sweden have been hired to quell a rabbit infestation that threatens to damage the local ecosystem. However, the European Union has a law against disposing of raw meat in landfills, so alternative methods had to be found for disposing of the carcasses. The solution: incinerate the carcasses along with woodchips and other burnable materials, and use the resulting heat to generate power for the grid.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who are outraged by this, but I’m not one of them. I figure they are killing the bunnies to protect the ecosystem from an invasive species, and they are generating energy as a side-effect. I’m okay with that.

But what if the motivations were different, and we were actually farming bunnies to power our electrical grid? I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be okay with that. It sounds immoral, cruel, and I would hope that by the 21st century we would have found a better way to power our lights.

I decided to write about this issue because I realized that my views on burning bunnies are very similar to my views on eating meat: it just seems cruel and unnecessary. So I’m curious – what are your views on burning bunnies, and how do they differ from your views on eating meat?