Global warming has made environmentalism the “hottest” trend in America. While global warming may or may not be real, global greening sure is – and just like Al Gore, the Nature Conservancy and Toyota, I aim to cash in on it.

So far, people are going green in the cars they buy, the food they eat and the products they purchase. Madison Avenue, Wall Street and Hollywood are abusing the green movement these days worse than a handicapped parking space. But so far, citizens have not gone green in the pets they own. That’s where I come in.

Along with Al Gore, two other big movements in America are environmentalism and animal rights, but – so far, anyway – no one has profitably married the two together. Until now.

I am in the process of forming a tax-exempt, nonprofit green animal group (GAG) that shall be known as Really Environmental Pets for the Ethical Treatment of America (REPETA). The primary function of my group will be to issue a list every year of the greenest pets people can own, kind of like Blackwell’s annual listing of the world’s worst-dressed (a list, by the way, I truly deserve to be on).

There are three ways I plan to get rich quick with this scheme. First, I will sell green faux-leather ribbons to owners of “green” animals so they can wear them, feel smug and look down on everyone else. I will also sell animal Individual Offset Units, or IOUs, to Hollywood stars, Commie pinkos, left-wing liberal politicians and other idiots who own pets that are not green, but who wish to offset their fatally-pawed pets by purchasing animal offsets.

Lastly, I will issue my green animal list. Speaking of which, here are the green animals I’ve identified thus far:

Horses. They get better gas mileage and look better than a Prius, have leather upholstery, emit fewer emissions and are made in America.

Dogs. If you think I am going to offend a huge potential source of income by not naming dogs green, you are dumber than a box of Milk-Bones. Admittedly, a Great Dane may leave a rather large carbon footprint, so to speak, but dog owners are usually there with a plastic bag to pick it up. (This reminds me, I am also selling green baggies for this purpose. They are $9.95 and can hold up to five pounds of carbon.)

Cows. They turn the sun’s energy into food and fiber and fertilize the landscape. Cows are greener than Al Gore, without blocking out nearly as much sunlight.

Chickens. This designation may surprise you, considering it came from the guy who wrote the I Hate Chicken Cookbook, but the oil used to fry all that Kentucky Fried Chicken can actually be used to fuel cars.

As for animals that are clearly not green, I would include the following:

Raccoons. They don’t obey laws and they dig in the trash, spread disease and beg almost as bad as a House full of Congressmen.
Mountain Lions. They attack and eat bicyclists, hikers and other greenies.

Prairie Dogs. First of all, they are not dogs; they are rats. They denude the landscape and scar the earth worse than an open pit copper mine. They have nearly turned some parts of Wyoming into a Superfund site.

Wolves. They kill green animals like dogs, elk, moose, cows and ewes, too.

As yet I have not made up my mind about the degree of green of:
Cats. On the plus side, they rid the world of non-green pests like mice and rats and their owners give big contributions. But their cat litter is clogging up our landfills.

Hogs. Due to their smell, at this time I am leaning toward listing hogs as sort of a blue-green. But, this designation is not set in concrete, and is not something a large contribution of green stuff from the National Pork Producers Council could not readily remedy. (Hey, why should I be any different than the other green groups?)

Readers with questions or comments for Lee Pitts may write to him in care of this publication.