Smart ass

It’s not “vegan wool”, it’s plastic.

It’s not “vegan leather”, it’s plastic.

It’s not “vegan fur”, it’s fucking plastic. It’s all plastic.

It’s all fucking plastic, and every time you wash it, or damage it, or try to dispose of it, that plastic winds up in the water, in the earth, in the air.

Hell, the damage has already done when the fucking thing’s been made. As the OP says, it’s all oil and oil products; it creates pollution just to produce synthetic fabrics and materials, even before you try to throw them away, which, I mean, good luck with that.

A lot of vegan ideology is built up around a very superficial set of ethics that are supposedly about protecting animals, wildlife and the environment, but they fall apart when you look even a little bit below the surface. Every time you eschew an animal-based product in favour of something “synthetic” for the sake of “saving an animal’s life”, you’re creating pollution and trash that won’t go away for thousands of years, damaging the Earth and making life so much worse for countless animals and people.

When you live somewhere with -40C winter temperatures, you realize that pragmatism and warmth trump all other considerations.

I’m in and out of cars and buildings all day, every day. I have to dress for the weather and fur is hands down one of the warmest things you can wear — ask the fucking Inuit.

So you know what I do?

I check consignment stores. I check estate auctions. I get family heirloom furs.

I buy furs that are literally older than I am, in styles that would consign them to the dumpster, and then get them tailored to fit. My fur earmuffs? Salvaged fur from a coat that was ripped and functionally useless. My fur short coat? A fur that got raggedy and moth-eaten at the bottom and so was hemmed to hip height. My long fur coat is almost fifteen years older than I am, and I’m thirty one years old. Do that math.

Yeah?

Imma wear linen when the weather looks like this:

I am NOT going to wear hemp, linen or cotton when the weather looks like this:

When the weather outside is frightful, I’mma make like an Inuit and dress like this:

Would it be the:

-reuse of fabrics and furs that are generally anywhere from 10-50 years old?

-recycling and repurposing of old or otherwise unusable materials like leather and fur to make smaller items like jackets, vests, gloves, hats and balaclavas?

-support for Indigenous traditions, handicrafts and artisans?

-recognition of the fact that there are very few plant-based products that will stand up to winters where the average temperature is anywhere from -20 to -50

I know, I know. Your ethics are itchy and it’s very simple to talk that good shit.

But let me introduce you to a Canadian phenomena: frostbite.

Frostbite occurs when your cells freeze. Your cells.

Ice crystals begin to form in cells in temperatures lower than -4C, which is what Canadians call “spring, fucking finally”.

In the teeth of winter, you get maybe ten hours of sunlight a day and your highest temperature is still double digits below 0C and the weather channel is saying “WEATHER WARNING: skin freezing in 30SECONDS”, and the government has put out a WEATHER EMERGENCY: EXTREME COLD WARNING.

When the weather is that severe, we don’t actually get the luxury of waxed cotton, woollen peacoats and a few layers of linen.

Well, that’s not true. They DO, actually. They get wet from sweat and then get clammy and suck the heat out of you, leading to frostbite. Polyester is plastic, and I avoid that, because it’s bad for the environment.

You know what actually keeps you warm when it hits -50F? Wool, fur, and down. All animal products, all renewable and biodegradable, and all of which will last years with proper care.

Ah, yes. Truely, sheep live terribly. (Note; sheep wool is useless unles they have good pasture they’re raised on)

Ah, yes, the sheep are so mistreated when they’re sheared. A whole four minutes and they’re done. It’s like giving a fussy toddler a haircut.

And if they’re NOT shorn, you get flystrike, which I’m not going to post a pic of here because it is very unpleasant. Basically, flies lay eggs on the thick wool and the larvae eat the sheep’s skin off. It can be fatal.

https://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/health-welfare/livestock-diseases/parasitic-diseases/fly-strike-warning-warm-wet-weather-continues

Tanned hides work great as a base for moccasins, because it’s thick enough to protect your feet from the heat of the packed dirt, and thin enough that your feet don’t sweat to death inside of them. In boots, I don’t trust any material that isn’t leather or reptile skin to protect me from animals or the elements.

The thing is, if we follow the hard-line adopt-don’t-shop view to it’s logical conclusion, here’s what happens-

Everyone who wants a pet cat or dog adopts from a shelter.

Because no one is buying from them, breeders stop selling animals, and most likely stop breeding them. Even the reputable, registered, best-of-the-best breeders, because the expenses of breeding add up when no one buys any puppies/kittens.

Pets from the shelter are all fixed. This is already a thing at about 90% of shelters.

Eventually, we’ve rounded up all the feral and stray dogs and cats, because the premise of this scenario is that every animal gets a home, right? (That’s what they always say, that you shouldn’t buy from a breeder when so many animals already need homes….) So, they go through the shelter system. Where they get fixed, and adopted out.

After a while- however long it takes to catch all the strays and put them into homes, plus however long it takes for breeders to stop breeding- there are no longer any cats or dogs that haven’t been fixed, because every animal that anyone obtains has been adopted from a shelter system that fixes every animal they adopt out.

Within about five years after that, there are no more animals to adopt unless someone surrenders one or dies, leaving their pets behind.

Within a maximum of 30 years, accounting for exceedingly long-lived cats, there are no cats or dogs left at all.

Now, I am aware that I am positing a very extreme and highly unlikely version of events. It is deeply unlikely that these people can convince the entire planet to stop buying from breeders, and even less likely that every stray in the world could be caught and go through their local shelters with that sort of efficiency. But pushing for a purebred-free world doesn’t make things better for animals, it just makes it more likely that the only animals left are unhealthy ferals.

I believe firmly in adopting animals from a shelter if it’s even remotely possible that a shelter animal will work for your needs. I do NOT believe it does anyone any good to harass people for choosing to purchase an animal that suits their needs.

SORRY FOR THE VERY PERSONAL COMIC!!

This is my half of “Unhealthy”, an essay comic double header with the lovely and talented Sarah Winifred Searle. She and I both wrote about our personal experiences as overweight ladies with eating disorders, and her story is breathtaking! You can buy a physical copy of the book here: https://topatoco.com/collections/abby-howard/products/ah-unhealthy

I keep seeing these, “I was kind, and it got me hurt, so now I’m an asshole” excuse posts going around.

You not being an asshole isn’t what got you hurt. Your being friends with a bunch of assholes willing to take advantage of your kindness, and your desire to always be *seen* as a kind person, did.

You can keep your kindness without defining your character by it. You don’t need to be an asshole, you just need to be okay with people occasionally thinking you are instead of being desperate to never appear that way to anybody.

Either that or no matter what angle you look at it it’s always behind his head like this:

Europe is currently being burned alive and people still think climate change is a joke. It’s warmer in North Europe than in the middle eastern deserts.

Canada CAN handle heat waves for the most part -- because a lot of the country is used to huge temperature changes throughout the year. I live where it can be 30C in summer and -30C in winter.