VeggieJews

FUR IS RED: 

Myths and facts about the fur industry's "fur is green" campaign

By Pete Cohon, founder

VeggieJews

The fur industry wants you to believe that fur is an environmentally friendly ("Green") product. 
According to the industry, fur is natural, renewable, sustainable, energy efficient, recyclable,
organic and biodegradable.  If all that sounds too good to be true, there's a good reason:  it is
too good to be true.  In fact, fur is as far from environmentally friendly as any product can be. 
Let's compare the fur industry's claims with the facts to see just how "green" fur really is:

Myth:

The fur industry claims that fur is environmentally friendly to the earth, water resources
and the air we breath.

Fact:

The improper handling of waste by the fur industry causes significant water contamination.  
Nitrates, phosphates and other environmentally dangerous chemicals run off with rain water or
seep into aquifers and pollute water supplies.  And how has the so-called "green"
fur industry responded to this problem?  The fur industry has lobbied governments in
the Great Lakes area (USA & Canada) to maintain low water-quality standards so that fur farms
won’t be identified as major polluters.  

Despite that, in December of 1999, the Washington State (USA) Department of Ecology fined
one mink farmer $24,000 for polluting ditches that drain into a local creek.

But water isn't the only natural resource under attack by the fur industry.  The earth itself
is also under attack.  That's why the U.S.A.'s Environmental Protection Agency has filed complaints
against companies involved in fur production and transportation for illegally generating and
disposing of hazardous waste from the processing of pelts. 

Raising animals for their fur also pollutes the air. In Denmark, where more than 2 million
minks are killed each year for their fur, more than 8,000 pounds of ammonia are released into
the atmosphere each year.

Myth:

The fur industry claims that the main substances used to process fur pelts are table salt, water,
alum salts, soda ash, sawdust, cornstarch, lanolin and other natural ingredients.

Fact:

Among the substances used to prepare fur are harsh chemicals such as formaldehyde,
ammonia, hydrogen peroxide and other bleaching agents.  In addition, acids are used to activate
the tanning process.  Harsh chemical dyes are also used.  Many of these toxic substances wind
up in our environment.

Myth:

The fur industry claims that the processing and dyeing of fur is carefully regulated to
protect the environment.

Fact:

Many countries where fur is produced, like China, either do not have effective laws to protect
the environment from harsh chemicals or just don't enforce them.
 
Myth:

The fur industry claims that fur is a natural, renewable and sustainable resource.  According
to the industry, it does not deplete endangered wildlife populations or damage the natural
habitats that sustain them.

Fact:

Trapping significant numbers of any species alters the balance of nature and causes unnatural
increases and decreases in the populations of other animal species that normally live
in a balance with fur bearing animals.  Since fur traps are nonspecific and will trap and
maim or kill any animal unlucky enough to walk into them, many non-targeted animals, including
endangered species and family pets such as dogs and cats, are caught and killed in fur traps every year. 

Myth:

The fur industry wants you to believe that old fur coats can be “recycled” to make bags,
pillows, throws or other home accessories. 

Fact:

When is the last time you heard of someone actually doing this?  In fact, old fur dries out
and deteriorates.  It is not recycled because it cannot be recycled.

Myth:

The fur industry claims that real fur is organic and biodegradable.

Fact: 

The formaldehyde, dyes and acids used to process fur are neither organic nor biodegradable. 
They are simply environmental poisons.  But the industry's fraud does not stop there.  Cat and
dog fur from China and other countries is frequently mislabeled and sold as "faux fur."

Myth: 

Fur production is energy efficient.

Fact:

Fur production requires transporting animals and their feed; removing animals’ waste; providing
electricity for housing animals and the slaughter process; the use of pesticides,
vaccines, and antibiotics; transporting carcasses; transporting pelts to auction; transporting
them to a fur tannery (which involves sorting, soaking, fleshing, tanning, wringing, drying,
cleaning, trimming, buffing, and finishing); and transporting tanned pelts to garment makers,
wholesalers and retailers . When all these processes are taken into account, a fur garment takes
far more energy to produce than a faux-fur or natural cloth garment. 

And let's not forget:

There's nothing green about cruelty. 

Animals caught in traps are left for days or longer in extraordinary pain and sometimes chew off
their own paws to try to escape their agony.  Those animals can include dogs and cats trapped
by accident.

Animals raised on fur farms are housed in unbearably small cages and suffer their entire lives
from fear, stress, disease, parasites and other physical and psychological hardships.  When
the industry is finally ready to take their fur, the animals are often killed by electrocution,
gassing, poisoning or other methods that will preserve the quality of the pelts regardless of the
pain and suffering inflicted on the animals.

What can you do?

You can help end the fur industry's destruction of our planet and cruelty to animals by refusing
to buy products made with real fur, including fur trimmed coats and jackets. 

You can choose to buy cloth garments and, if you must have fur, faux fur garments that are
just as stylish as the real thing.

You can write letters to your governmental representatives urging them to ban fur in your country.

You can support the International Anti-Fur Coalition in its efforts to stop the fur industry's
assault on our environment and the animals in it.

And you can help to spread the word: 

FUR IS RED, NOT GREEN!

LIVESTOCK A MAJOR THREAT TO THE ENVIRONMENT

Remedies urgently needed

29 November 2006,

Rome - Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?

Surprise!

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector
generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport. It is
also a major source of land and water degradation.

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report:
“Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems.
Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.”

With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year. Global meat production
is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk
output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes.

Long shadow

The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to
about 1.3 billion people and contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural output. For many poor
farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential
source of organic fertilizer for their crops.

But such rapid growth exacts a steep environmental price, according to the FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow –
Environmental Issues and Options. “The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut
by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level,” it warns.

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of
CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse
gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential
(GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is
largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes
significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including
33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared
to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example,
some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

Land and water

At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 percent of pastures considered as
degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where
inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing desertification.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources,
contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The
major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and
the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of
above and below ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed.

Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous and nitrogen contamination of the South
China Sea, contributing to biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems.

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass. Livestock’s presence
in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24
important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.

[Click here to read the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN's press release.]

UPDATE!

 Livestock and Climate Change

by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang

Livestock and Climate Change: What if the key actors in climate change are...cows, pigs, and chickens?

The environmental impact of the lifecycle and supply chain of animals raised for food has been vastly
underestimated, and in fact accounts for at least half of all human-caused greenhouse gases (GHGs),
according to Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, co-authors of "Livestock and Climate Change".

A widely cited 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestock's
Long Shadow, estimates that 18 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions are attributable to cattle,
buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, pigs, and poultry. But recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang finds
that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per
year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions. 

Click here to read "Livestock and Climate Change," [FREE PDF]
World Watch magazine, Nov/Dec 2009