On a more positive point, if you search the web
for vegan athlete, body builder, UFC, MMA,
weight lifter, iron man, sprinter, or any other
sport you can think of you will find people at the
pinnacle of those sports who are vegan. I myself
am very fit and can lift weights with all but the
most ardent lifter at the gym. I’m a very keen
mountain biker and runner, although an injury
stops me running far now.
Choosing food is now easy. All major chain
restaurants and supermarket offer vegan food at
all levels from junk to haute. Smaller businesses
are somewhat slower, but are getting better.
Clothing is the final frontier. Clothing made from
the products of animal agriculture is unnecessary
and damaging to the planet and its inhabitants. I
will start with the negative effects before moving
on to what we can do about it.
Wool has caused an environmental catastrophe
on the British Isles and many other parts of the
globe. Seeing as wool is revered by distinguished
gentlemen everywhere, I will use Scottish wool as
an example. Scotland did not always look like it
does today. In order to graze cattle and sheep,
forests were cleared, and today farmers are given
subsidies in order to stop the native invasive
plants. Consequently, what is seen as a wild
landscape is actually an industrial one and one
which struggles to support a fraction of the
number of species which lived there a couple of
hundred years ago. A 2013 article by George
Monbiot into the problems caused by subsidies
to clear farm land makes it clear that the desire
to create industry in remote regions has caused
massive harm to the natural landscape.
Many Scottish islands have been effectively
destroyed for any purpose other than sheep
farming, meaning that the sheep and human
populations only exist to serve a market for an
outdated material, and are vulnerable to the
societal changes that I am suggesting are already
in progress. A charity looking at reforestation
has begun looking at ways of undoing the
environmental damage while causing as little
harm to local economies as possible.
Leather has all of the above problems and adds
to it the fact that it is a product of slaughter. The
truth is so awful that people tend to withdraw
from the discussion. The arguments tend to
cluster around the animals living a blessed life
followed by ‘one bad day’, ignoring the fact that
only female animals get that far.I have no idea
how many times people have justified silk to me
by saying that silk worms don’t have enough of a
brain to mind being killed. How do you know?
FEATURED GENTLEMAN
7