Survey: Can Fur Be Green?

Murder is never green.

I respect (while not sharing) people's ethical stance on fur, but we need to make one thing clear: Ethical does NOT equal green. It does us no good to conffuse the two issues.

I also understand that some people have adopted a green philosophy that mates ethical treatment of animals with green issues. Again, that's fine; that's your choice. But you ought to respect the choices of those who see these as separate issues, or who have a concept of interspecies ethics that is different from yours.

well i think mixing natural fibers mixed with synthetic fibers kinds of misses the point, it can't be completely recycled or composted at the end of its useful life what MBDC would call a "monstrous hybrid"

i would say that our native fore fathers who hunted and used every bit of their kill, including the fur, could be considered "green" so in that sense...yes.

"Concept of interspecies ethics"?

Try concept of life.

if you are going to eat meat then you should use all the body for its resources, Fur is a big one.
there is no such thing as a ethically good cold winter coat. that is what the Vikings found when they reached America and later western settlements. it takes high tech meterials to do what nature does with ease.
you may not like meet but don't force your personal prefrences onto others.
this site is about making things green and fur, if done right is.
that's not to say that fur coats used as a fashion item is OK, but in the right environment, like Scandinavia or areas that live in long periods of sub -10 temperatures, fur is much better than the alternatives.

I would never support the fur industry because I have a respect for animals....

but on the concept of "green", fur is biodegradable and synthetic fur made from oil is not....

In my opinion though, stay away from both, fur is tacky whether its real or not!

Look at it this way: consider an extremely green culture, the native americans. Did they use fur? of course they did! They utilized everything from the animal's they killed and by doing so minimized their footprint. So I say, in today's world, is fur necessary? no! but, should we be utilizing the fur of animals which are already killed for other purposes? why not?

so. . . if a person is not a vegetarian or vegan, and eats meat (which humans are evolutionarily designed to do), what do anti-fur people think should be done with what they have then classified as waste material?

isn't it more 'green' to use everything? to generate as little waste as possible? if you eat a cow and use it's skin and hair(fur? what's it called on a cow??) to make a beautiful leather chair, and use various other in-edible bits in other useful (not an expert but I know they exist) ways, isn't that better than throwing away all that stuff?

The comment:
'i would say that our native fore fathers who hunted and used every bit of their kill, including the fur, could be considered "green" so in that sense...yes.'
The sadder reality:
ScienceDaily (Jun. 8, 2001) — (Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- Woolly mammoths, giant armadillos and three species of camels were among more than 30 mammals that were hunted to extinction by North American humans 13,000 to 12,000 years ago, according to the most realistic, sophisticated computer model to date.
Most of humanity regard slavery as unacceptable; we should regard the killing of animals for sport or fashion as equally unacceptable.

Fur is not green. Some have made comments that fur is simply using all of the animal - umm when was that last time anyone ate a "fox burger" or "mink sandwich" the meat from fur animals is not eaten - typically not even rabbit since it is a different breed that is raised for meat than is raised for fur.

Fur farms are like any other factory farm they produce lots of waste in a concentrated area - who wants too fertilze with mink manuer its not good for gardneing and the cost of transporting it off the farms to be used is cost-prohibitive.

Trapping also uses lots of fuel ...think about all the driving that is needed to go check the trap line. Not to mention all the other animals they catch in traps including endangered species. Do a google search for trapping and lynx in Maine and you will see that a lawsuit was just settled that verified the threat.

Finally modern fur production utilizes chromimum and formaldehyde to process fur to keep them from rotting --- Native Americans did not do this.

Fur is far from green. The toxins used to tan the hide so it doesn't rot off your back are cyanide, arsenic and formaldehyde. There has to be a water source for these chemicals to flow into. There are many studies that people who live near tanneries of any kind suffer higher incidences of leukemia and lung cancer.

Furthermore, the tanned hide does NOT biodegrade. Even full fur coats are lined with satin or some other type of polyester. Fur trim is on jackets and coats made with petroleum.

So no, I do not believe that fur is "green" in any way, and it's criminal that they are allowed to get away with this campaign.

Unless we eat the animal underneath the fur, I don't see how it's green. All those resources going to grow an animal and we only use the fur and skin?

Unless we start growing fur using genetically modified sheets of skin, it's not green at all.

I've got no problem with using domesticated animals, sustainably grown and humanely dispatched, as natural resources.

Not that many people have fur, but it's hard to find someone with no leather. They are basically the same thing, yet people react to them very differently.

For the "no leather vegans" out there, I salute you (really) everyone else (even "no leather vegetarians" who eat dairy) is complicit in the murder of animals, and should not split hairs.

Fur is not "harvested," it is ripped from the sometimes still alive bodies of tortured animals. Do not be deluded: There is no such think as a humanely obtained fur coat.

If the meat is eaten then fur is perfectly acceptable. That's the cycle of life, folks.

I suppose if you are a First Person, Inuit, etc, or just have a hand-me-down fur coat it could be considered "green"

"Consider an extremely green culture, the native americans"?

How extremely green were they without technology, urban streets and buildings, millions of people within a few blocks of habitations? They were spontaneously green, and mainly because of that (they couldn't be gray or black even if the try).

Nobody can be extremely green using fur. And just saying you are extremely green doesn't qualify to be one.

"Should we be utilizing the fur of animals which are already killed for other purposes? why not?"

I tell you why not. Firstly, because of the other purposes. Once you get rid of them, you'll have no fur to wear. Are you following? Right. If you do not have fur to wear in a culture that doesn't kill animals for any other purpose, how green is that culture compared to the one who wears it?

Please, don't use "extremely green" because it sounds like it's taking the natural and respecful qualities out of it. It seems someone is being radical. When what's happening is not that. Green people are naturally and respectfully and consciouslly living.

Reason of all of this: people want to go on living with their lust, desires, gastronomy and selfishness. Once you get rid of those "bad habits" (born out of unconscious acts and Neolithic culture), you naturally stop killing. And stop asking questions if fur is green.

"Murder is never green."

Don't be so dramatic, we murder millions more LIVING plants than animals.

I would say fur could be something we could get more into, but not right now. Aside for cows and other domesticated animals, the numbers are too low. And of course it should be sustaniably, and perhaps keeping only with older animals. Maybe animals used for their meat and fur could only be hunted instead of manufactured.

First of all, people who do nothing to stop things that they consider immoral do no good to the world. In fact, the greatest contributors to injustice in this world are not the evil people but the "good" people who do nothing to stop them. If morals were relative, they would be meaningless. There would be no grounds for any social order. Why don't we all just overlook what happens in Tibet and respect China's right to differing ethical views? That's another logical consequence of the "Morals are relative" stance.

Second, fur is insult to injury (slavery, rape, and slaughter). I'll grant you this: Fur and meat eating can go hand in hand. However, consider this, in mathematical logic, the way to justify something that is illogical on it's own is to derive it from something else ridiculous, like how the products of negative factors is positive. That said, in reality, a conclusion derived from an unjustified premise is itself unjustified. BASICALLY: Fur isn't okay be eating flesh isn't okay, and eating flesh isn't okay, because murder isn't okay.

Here's the clincher:

There are ALTERNATIVES.

There goes all the pro-fur arguments' credibility. There simply is no reason to murder, even without being moralist about it, because synthetic materials can do the same thing better.

For more than 10 years, the fur industry has tried to greenwash itself by claiming that real fur garments are more environmentally friendly than fake furs. It takes nearly three times more energy, however, to produce a fur coat from animals as it does to produce a synthetic fur, according to a study by a transportationj research engineer at the University of Michigan. Included in his calculations were the energy costs of dkinning, pelt drying, transportation, processing, and manufacture of real trapped-fur garments.

Much of this energy is derived from petroleum products. Environmentally harmful chemicals, including chromium and formaldehyde, are used in the processing of real fur garments to keep them from rotting. In 1991, six New Jersey fur processors were fined more than $1 million for releasing toxic waste into the environment.

Far from being "natural, renewable resources," as the fur industry would love for us to believe, real fur products consume far more of our precious irreplaceable nergy resources than do those made from synthetic materials.

Simply put, real fur is not green!

"Don't be so dramatic".

Just be when YOUR life is on the row, right?

"we murder millions more LIVING plants than animals".

Yeah, and more billions of bacterias than plants. That's not exactly that mathematic works. It has to do with preservation of the high developed and conscious animals - the ones we identify more because we are supposedly high conscious animals. They take more time to be born and grow up (as, guess, humans), they have way more elaborated emotional and neural systems (some of them have family just like us), and should be taking care of them instead of killing them to eat with wine at our favorite restaurant.

By the way, you can eat hundreds of plants without killing the whole of their living beings (think of most of the fruits).

Don't make excuses for wearing fur. There's no sustainable way of killing.

this topic is almost as heated as the "Is having children Green" topic. Seriously

I agree with the fact that not using the fur of an animal you've already prepared to eat creates a waste product. There are lots of alternatives to wearing it: rugs, compost, insulation...

Ethically, it's one of the few places where I agree with an all-or-nothing stand and I do make exceptions for certain animals.

Will I wear leather? Yes. I eat beef and pork. Will I wear Chinchilla? That's a no. Not only because I don't eat it but because the fur is incredibly unstable and it takes a lot of tiny little animals to make a single garment. A waste of resources all the way around.

I don't buy NEW fur (I live in Dallas and it's ridiculous to even consider wearing fur here) but I own several that I inherited from my great-grandmother.

Whether or not it's ethical...or murder...or whatever. Well, that's not the question asked in the particular survey, now, is it?

"Just be when YOUR life is on the row, right?
It has to do with preservation of the high developed and conscious animals - the ones we identify more because we are supposedly high conscious animals. They take more time to be born and grow up (as, guess, humans), they have way more elaborated emotional and neural systems (some of them have family just like us), and should be taking care of them instead of killing them to eat with wine at our favorite restaurant."

Actually no. I'm just another person, no more important than any animal, plant, or microorganism. I'm not the one placing importance on only certain species. It seems like the closer the species is to our the more important is to treat it like us. That's just plain discrimination. Just because plants or bacteria doesn't have families and can't communicate in ways we can relate to ours then they are fine to farm and tear apart. Because you can't recognize any emotions from then you don't identify with them. If you want to be a fruitarian and make sure you aren't destroying any life, intelligent or otherwise, then I'll say more luck to you. Life is life, wether it resembles you or not. Animals need to kill to survive. This planetary ecosystem wouldn't survive if it didn't eat the flesh of others. Are you going to start training the tigers to eat bamboo leaves? And is it then wrong to scavenge? Is it wrong to eat an animal that died naturally? If so, then you better talk to the plants.

And yes, I'm aware that there are plants you can eat without killing. Course, you are still tearing of their limbs. But then I'm not the one that is living in a fantasy world where we could all be peacfull and polite all the time to each other. The universe is a violent place, you might want to except that.

"Don't make excuses for wearing fur."

I don't wear fur, I don't live in a cold climate.

First off, fur is cruel.
Don't people get grossed out thinking that their jacket or whatever used to be on a living and breathing wonderful creature? It was part of a body with a life, and now its draped over your shoulders?
It grosses me out that people would wear that.
Now ok, I'm a vegetarian. So that whole thing about "using the whole body", well, if it wasn't killed for FOOD there would be no reason for it to be skinned. And seriously, animals who die of natural causes... nobody eats them or wears them do they?
Second, fur is ugly.
When someone has a huge bulky fur coat, it is NOT ATTRACTIVE. And the little fur part on hoods: tacky. Synthetic fur is bad for the earth right. Real fur is mean. They're both hideous. So can people stop being obsessed with it?
Third, its not just fur, there is also leather.
Animal skin. Imagine. Just think of the cow. Think of it being killed, skinned. Think. And you have that in your clothes, your shoes, your bags, so many products. I don't see a difference between fur and leather; they're both cruelly produced by the killing of harmless animals.
I don't care if real fur is green, it would be even greener if its LEFT ON THE DAMN ANIMAL. No need to produce a coat thats ugly anyway, when you can leave the animal alone. Where the coat is supposed to be.

What product could be more green than fur? It's entirely renewable, biodegradable and non-polluting (save for some treatments which likely have alternatives). Having said that...killing an animal just for it's fur is wrong...but if an animal you eat happens to have a useful skin it would be immoral NOT to use it.
By FUR you have to include ordinary leather and leather has many advantages over man made alternatives. Having established that killing an animal JUST for it's fur is wrong (ie: chinchillas, polar bears...any carnivore) asking if fur is green is like asking if wood is green. It's a natural renewable resource, a by product of the meat industry which isn't going anywhere fast.
Ask yourself if cotton is green...polyester uses a LOT less water to manufacture and consumes less energy in it's lifetime because's it easier to clean and doesn't require ironing as much. People generally agree that cotton is greener because it's entirely renewable whereas polyester isn't...thus fur is also greener than many fabrics because it's renewable and the others aren't.

"murder is never green"
What about murdering someone that pollutes and consumes more resources than you? Come to think of it, if the best thing you can do for the rest of the world is kill yourself then killing other people must be the next best thing.
Perhaps murder is always green...unless perhaps you commit murder by nuclear explosion.

"murder is never green"
What about murdering someone that pollutes and consumes more resources than you? Come to think of it, if the best thing you can do for the rest of the world is kill yourself then killing other people must be the next best thing.
Perhaps murder is always green...unless perhaps you commit murder by nuclear explosion.

Like I said, the schism here is between environmental moralists and people who value the environment and animals only as far as they can directly contribute to human beings. The common misconception is that all environmentalists have really lofty moral standards, but that clearly isn't true.

About eating plants...As a Vegan, I've heard this before. The counter is simple:

The point is to avoid harm to SENTIENT beings, not just LIVING beings. Not everything that's alive merits strong moral consideration. It has to be something capable of actual suffering or at leat something with a central nervous system. Plants, like bacteria and fungi, do not qualify.

NOT green, because of the dyes and preserving chemicals that end up in our water. The exception may be organically treated leather leftover from the huge meat industry.

I feel like you guys are missing the point - yes, of course if we are going to kill animals to eat them then not only is it justifiable but it'd be inexcusable not to use the fur...but the fur that people wear is not pigskin or cowhide or chicken feathers (the animals people eat)...they wear fox fur or bear fur, animals that we aren't eating in the first place.

And to be honest, i'm not adverse to people that may want to hunt these animals and make their own clothes and participate in subsistence living (instead of going to a departments store). But we are so out of touch with the modes of production, that its naive and arrogant at the same time to assume that the fur they are wearing was harvested and manufactured in a wasteless and fair manner.

Besides, be modest and humble...if you want to wear fur purely for function thats fine, but if you're wearing it to be fashionable get over yourself...there's a lot more to life then clothes

Not all fur is equal. In New Zealand where I come from, Possums are an introduced animal that is decimating our native species. I have no problem with them being hunted for their skins. They aren't being farmed, they aren't being tortured, unfortunately they can't be eaten because they are full of diseases, but hunting them is protecting other species that are struggling to survive.

This question is purely academic at this time, as, we will have to go back to natural renewable resources to survive. The age of Polymers is dying and rightly so. Wool, silk, leather & fur will be the green choice for upcoming generations because our planet and all living organisms can not survive more chemical pollutions such as those incurred through Petroleum based products. Add the reality that we are using up a finite resource (oil) that is going to be needed for other things. BTW , someone said that animals that are skinned are not used for food (some are) & the fact is trap line requirements in Ontario and among other trappers is that the carcasses be used at feed stations so that other animals will survive through tough winter months. Also note that Wildlife Conservation demands balance that can only be attained through culling certain animals that become to populous, such as possums, deer, beaver , kangaroos and seals. Such is the nature of this world that the dying feed the living and that in order for death to become extinct, every living being will have to die first. Hard for some folks to come to terms with that life cycle.

It does'nt get much more green and natural to use fur. Using fur also has extra benefiets, it keeps the furbearer population healthy and in check. Fur is a renewable resource.

Saying you oppose the fur industry because you have respect for animals is like saying you oppose vegetarianism because you respect vegetables.
People who trap know and respect the animals they pursue. The more years on the land, the deeper the respect and the more profound is the understanding that we are all a part of continuing consumption/decay and growth.
When we as a species are gone, what is left behind will not be the detritus of the trapper's way of life and this apply equally to aboriginal and non-aboriginal. To draw a distinction is nothing short of old-school colonialist bigotry with a contemporary face.

Liz has it wrong--the very same rabbits that are raised for fur are the breeds that are raised for meat.
Those breeds include the Silver Fox, the Californian, the Rex, the Palomino and many others. When the price of rabbit food is compared to the price of rabbit meat/fur, it would be absolutely insane to only use one part of the animal.
Angoras are raised for wool production--which is sheared, and the animal kept to grow a new coat.
Rabbits raised for fur are absolutely NOT kept in crowded conditons. Prime fur only occurs on an animal that is clean, healthy and well cared for.
Fur is also not ripped from living animals. I've seen the videos---they're so obviously staged that it's hard to believe anyone falls for it. For fur to have any value, it must be in prime condition. If ripped from a living creature, it would a)be irreparably soaked in blood from the beating heart b) be torn by the struggling body and c) be stupidly dangerous to the person doing the skinning.
As to the sentience of plants--keep comforting yourself with denial. Studies have been done showing that plants DO scream, that they recognize violence done to them and that they recgnize the perpetrator. In one study, a person went through and brutalized a field while the ultra-high screams were recorded. When the same person returned a few months later, the plants began screaming even before he touched them. They did not scream when 'innocent" people entered the field. Suuuurre...animals are more sentient.

For Dawn....it's mortifying you would put the "pain" of plants in the same realm as the pain of animals. For those of you justifying that fur is okay because they are being used for meat...most animals slaughtered for fur are not being eaten! There are foxes, minks, raccoon dogs, & (in Asian countries) dogs and cats. Some DNA of dogs have been found in fur sold to the US from China. Foxes are anally electrocuted or hooked up to an exhaust pipe and gassed. They are not always dead after this, at which point they are skinned alive. In China and Korea dogs/cats are hung and their groins are slit. These animals are so sick they don't have energy to fight for their lives. I could go on and on, but i won't. A lot of them just end up as fur trim on hoods and trinkets. If you think this is okay, then you have obviously never had an emotional attachment to a pet. It is inhumane, injustifiable, and people need to spend more time educating themselves if they think otherwise.

I love "studies have shown" (weasel words, anyone?). If you want to refer to studies, then post them...unless you're afraid to because they either don't exist or were carried out by hallucinating kids.

The question is so ambiguous it's nearly worthless. "Can"? As in, in this modern society, or hypothetically if you're trapped on a, um, freezing island?

This is just disgusting. Killing any living creature is wrong. There are other ways to stay warm than to use the fur of an innocent animal. We're not cavemen, anymore, guys. Plus, the clothing we buy instead of fur can then be donated to a shelter or something. It's not like you have to throw it out and waste it. Someone else can use it.

This is a ploy by the fur industry to gain respectability by swimming in the green of the earth's environment rather than the red of a minks blood.
Fur is not sustainable, environmentally friendly or natural.

Please see the following links for more information on why Fur is not Environmentally Friendly, please visit:

http://www.crueltyisnotgreen.com/
http://www.gan.ca/campaigns/fur+trade/factsheets/fur+%3A+a+waste+of+energy.en.html

http://www.gan.ca/campaigns/fur+trade/factsheets/fur+farms+and+the+environment.en.html

http://www.gan.ca/campaigns/fur+trade/factsheets/trapping+and+the+environment.en.html

I've never heard anything more ridiculous than the fur trade's “eco" or "green" fur. The fur trade’s known image is red for blood and raw carcasses after the animals' skins and fur have been ripped off.

Our wildlife is a very important part of the eco-system. Trapping and killing a MILLION of Canada's fur-bearing animals EVERY year from the eco-system, in the name of “fashion”, causes untold, potentially critical damage to our environment.

We strongly urge consumers to be critical of so-called “green” claims. We need to question just how green it is to unnaturally rip the skins off millions of animals in our eco-system and soak them in chemical bath to prevent decaying and growing of bugs.

Cruelty is NOT green.

Commercial trapping and killing of animals that are a huge part of our environment can NEVER be green.

Being green means minimizing unnecessary consumption, like fuel nuzzling car, bigger houses, more golf courses, and FUR. Fur is a luxurious item, NOT a necessity of life.

It’s simply shameful for the fur trade to turn people’s concern for our environment into a money-making machine. Sell your products however you want, but DON’T LIE!

Here is a shining exmaple of how commercial killing of our wildlife leads to the destruction of our environment/eco-system (taken from www.CrueltyisNOTgreen.com ).

When the wolves were being exterminated in Yellowstone Park in the United States in the early 20th century, soaring elk population led to the decline of aspen, cottonwood and willow trees that turned out to be crucial components of natural habitats for birds, beavers, and other animals. Coyote populations also skyrocketed. The number of coyote prey such as deer and ground squirrels plummeted. This negatively impacted the mid-level predators like foxes, hawks, owls and pine martens. The downward spiral of the ecological balance within Yellowstone Park persisted until the successful re-introduction of Canadian grey wolves in 1995.