Leather options - Environmental / Ethical

[AudubonB]

I concur absolutely, Eco5280, with your final sentence. I hope my comments weren't ones you considered jerky and judgmental.

On the other hand, you, Leilani, AmpedR being three who come to mind as ones who, so far, have deigned not to answer my absolutely NON-rhetorical questions, as posed in post #39. I'll not repeat them here, but I will reiterate it IS easier to choose flexibility over absolutism, but without any attempt by you to answer the questions I posed, I have to assume you find them too uncomfortable to face, and therefore ignore them. If so, that doesn't reflect very well on your position.

It is very difficult - I agree. I have admiration for those who take a well-reasoned moral stance and try to stick to it. My questions are to probe the probity, as it were.

 

[eco5280]

Fair enough and I most certainly was not referring to your posts. Thanks for pointing me to your post number, in a thread 7 pages long it helps!

I'll answer for myself. I choose to live a vegetarian life first because of the ethics of hurting/exploiting/killing animals. I think we all have the gut instinct that if we saw a small animal, a rabbit or perhaps even a mouse, in pain, we'd feel pity and sorrow for it's suffering. I follow that intuition and know that animals that are born, raised, and slaughtered live a wasted horrible life and I don't want to participate in that cruel cycle. I told myself that I couldn't bare seeing an animal slaughtered I ought not eat it. I've seen videos (and I'm not talking about the Peta propaganda, I'm talking about videos released by the industry itself) about how chickens are raised and then carried through the machinery to be mutiliated and destroyed to create food. It's nauseating and I can't bare to even think about it. I know others can. That's their choice, and this is mine.

To get to your larger point, there is of course a line one must draw in the sand. Insects for instance. I don't mind stepping on them, nor doing them in when they invade my home. Why? Pain requires an ability for emotion, right? Insects might have sensory input, they can feel, but they don't have feelings. And even still I don't kill them for fun, I kill them to enjoy a bug-free home. But you're right in that there is a choice that must be made in our minds when it comes to using bug spray versus the cup-and-toss method of bug removal. I don't begrudge either side.

And also to your point, we all decide the pecking order in our own minds. My kids, then my wife, then myself, then my family, then my friends, then other humans, then other primates, then other mammals, then birds, then etc etc etc . That would likely be my order of importance and I'd gladly kill every human on earth to save my child, just as I'd kill a primate to save a friend, etc. BUT - and this is important to me - we live in such a way in 2014 that we can actually not kill animals at all. It's possible. We don't have to kill pigs, cows, chickens, etc. We don't have to treat deer as nothing more than something to shoot at. We don't have to do any of that. So it's possible, and damnit not that hard to live a life without hurting/exploiting/killing animals for my pleasure or sustenance.

So there it is. I'm happy to continue this discussion as long as you wish. I like thought experiments that test my own beliefs.

 

[MassModel3]

I have admiration for those who take a well-reasoned moral stance and try to stick to it.

Agree 100%.

Fact is, I could never, EVER, walk through a chicken farming factory/slaughterhouse, nor would I ever want to personally witness cattle being slaughtered, nor do I really have the stomach to hunt myself for anything more than fish. However, I am fully cognizant of the process involved in bringing steak, veal, lamb, etc to my table. I just prefer to not think about it. Is that selfish? Perhaps. Which is why I have to admire your convictions. A vegan lifestyle isn't something I could stick to, but I tip my proverbial hat to those of you who can.

 

[brianman]

Pain requires an ability for emotion, right? Insects might have sensory input, they can feel, but they don't have feelings.

Educational request:
How do we know this?

 

[Johan]

Educational request:
How do we know this?

I did a mini-take as I read that statement too. The answer is: we don't, we define what feelings are and are not. Just as vegetarians have to draw their line between what animals they oppose killing and not in a completely subjective way.

 

[Canuck]

Originally Posted by Canuck
I don't like the charged language like "murdered" which has no place in this debate. "Murder" applies only to humans.

Really? Says who????

Says the dictionary:

"murder: the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another."

Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being by another human being with malice aforethought. In other words, only humans can be murdered and only humans can murder because only we have the moral agency to allow us to be held accountable for unlawful homicides.

Animals can be killed. They just can't be murdered.

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See article: The World's Greatest Geniuses are Vegetarians. | elephant journal

That should read "Some of the World's Greatest Geniuses are Vegetarians." There are many geniuses who eat meat. I also find it curious that Thomas Edison is included in that list. He tortured countless animals by electrocuting them, often to death, including Topsy the elephant who was publicly electrocuted to death at Luna Park Zoo on Coney Island in 1903. The horrific video is on Youtube: Jan. 4, 1903: Edison Fries an Elephant to Prove His Point . However, I don't associate his vegetarianism with his extremely cruel torturing of animals, just as we should not associate it with his, or anyone's, intellect. Doing so is, in my opinion, a very dangerous proposition.

So it's possible, and damnit not that hard to live a life without hurting/exploiting/killing animals for my pleasure or sustenance.

Actually, it is really hard, if not impossible. If you live in a house, land had to be cleared and animals killed to allow you to live there. Driving your car down roads... again animals had to be killed to allow for that and are killed daily. If you go to the doctor, use any medications, or even household items, cleaning supplies, personal hygiene items, even just using water results in the killing of animals, not to mention hydro dams, coal mining, wind turbines, solar power (yes, it kills animals - read:Solar Farms Threaten Birds - Scientific American ) work in an office building that birds hit... and the list goes on and on.

I respect and admire your lifestyle, so please don't take my comments as a "jerky judgmental comment". I just think we need to realize we all draw a line in the sand somewhere, unless we live in the bush, and don't clear that bush, even for a garden.

 

[ToddRLockwood]

+1 for the fabric option. Besides the ethical reasons, leather gives of an odd (fume?) byproduct as it rots, leaving a film on the windows. What is that anyway?

That film would be a result of the carpeting and adhesives used in manufacturing, not the leather.

 

[FreeOfPge]

That film would be a result of the carpeting and adhesives used in manufacturing, not the leather.

Hi Todd, yeah I realize that now, see post #10 of this thread. It was something my uncles told me when I was a kid, thirty to forty years ago.

 

[ToddRLockwood]

...Tesla won't make this change until the obvious hypocrisy is pointed out to them. The evidence is overwhelming: one cannot be an environmentalist and purchase animal flesh to sit on or wear.

I'm sorry, but you are drawing a nonsensical connection between animal rights and the environment. Association≠Causation. Elon Musk would be one of the first people to point this out. How would you explain your thinking to native peoples around the world who've depended on animal meat and skins for generations? Will you have the temerity to tell them that their forefathers had it all wrong?

With deer populations, for example, we have two choices: cull the animals in the wild every year, or allow them to starve to death due to overpopulation. This problem evolved because we killed off the deer's natural predators. In some parts of the country we're bringing the predators back, but in many populated areas that's just not a practical solution. Is there a moral imperative here? Perhaps for some people there is, but at the end of the day science will provide the best answer.

With cattle, there two valid arguments:

• Cows are a significant source of methane in the environment
• Animals raised in captivity should be treated with dignity

Our modern culture has become disconnected from the food we eat. If we were obliged to hunt for tonight's dinner, as our forefathers did, we would be favoring meat and fish because of their high protein & fat content. There's simply more fuel in it for the effort expended in getting it. In modern western cultures, food is so plentiful that we have the option of eating several times daily and getting protein from a variety of sources. It's easy for us to sit back and criticize people who eat meat and to make moral judgments about it.

Methane pollution notwithstanding, there are much more urgent issues related to the environment than eating beef and having leather seats in your car.

 

[mknox]

I think we all have the gut instinct that if we saw a small animal, a rabbit or perhaps even a mouse, in pain, we'd feel pity and sorrow for it's suffering. I follow that intuition and know that animals that are born, raised, and slaughtered live a wasted horrible life and I don't want to participate in that cruel cycle.

Does it bother you that these emotion-feeling animals themselves kill each other for food? You can, of course, argue that humans should "know better", but we are, after all, part of the same evolutionary process.

 

[eco5280]

The same evolutionary process that gives me the anger than can rise to murder and the sexual drive that can rise to rape. By your logic, I should be able to kill and rape people as I wish because it's how I evolved. You know better than that.

 

[Canuck]

I'm sorry, but you are drawing a nonsensical connection between animal rights and the environment. Association≠Causation. Elon Musk would be one of the first people to point this out. How would you explain your thinking to native peoples around the world who've depended on animal meat and skins for generations? Will you have the temerity to tell them that their forefathers had it all wrong?

With deer populations, for example, we have two choices: cull the animals in the wild every year, or allow them to starve to death due to overpopulation. This problem evolved because we killed off the deer's natural predators. In some parts of the country we're bringing the predators back, but in many populated areas that's just not a practical solution. Is there a moral imperative here? Perhaps for some people there is, but at the end of the day science will provide the best answer.

With cattle, there two valid arguments:

• Cows are a significant source of methane in the environment
• Animals raised in captivity should be treated with dignity

Our modern culture has become disconnected from the food we eat. If we were obliged to hunt for tonight's dinner, as our forefathers did, we would be favoring meat and fish because of their high protein & fat content. There's simply more fuel in it for the effort expended in getting it. In modern western cultures, food is so plentiful that we have the option of eating several times daily and getting protein from a variety of sources. It's easy for us to sit back and criticize people who eat meat and to make moral judgments about it.

Methane pollution notwithstanding, there are much more urgent issues related to the environment than eating beef and having leather seats in your car.

Those are very good points.

It's only been in the past century that Eskimos (or to be PC: Inuit) stopped their traditional following of fish and seals in order to survive. Meat was often their only available, and primary, food. One bowhead whale was able to feed an entire community for nearly a year from its meat, blubber, and skin. Yet they lived much more in harmony with nature, and with much less environmental damage, than people today who call themselves "environmentalists".

 

[jeremyz]

Leilani, I love your vegan Model S build pictures. It seems like Tesla is improving in this regard. I talked to a guy with a Roadster 1.5 with the microfiber interior. Tesla told him that the car would have be delivered with no leather in it. When it showed up, it had a leather wrapped steering wheel. I think that was more Momo's fault than Tesla's though. Long ago, I tried to buy an Elise with no leather in it. Lotus could not communicate/convince Momo to cover the steering with alcantara (even though they sell lots of steering wheels covered with alcantara). That same Elise steering wheel eventually ended up in the Roadster.

Environmetnal issues aside. Third degree burns in the summer aside. I don't see why people want to have slippery leather seats in a high performance car. Leilani, how many race cars have leather seats in them?

 

[mknox]

The same evolutionary process that gives me the anger than can rise to murder and the sexual drive that can rise to rape. By your logic, I should be able to kill and rape people as I wish because it's how I evolved. You know better than that.

If this was in response to me, that is not what I was suggesting. I simply was pointing out that humans evolved through the same evolutionary chain that a lot of other emotion-feeling animals did, and am wondering how people feel about them killing for food.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Other creatures don't have the same capabilities that homo-sapiens to, and killing for food is pretty much a requirement for them and is understandable. We, otoh, don't have that requirement for the most part, and killing to sustain ourselves is a choice as opposed to a necessity.

 

[bonnie]

Moderator note: Some posts are getting right up on the line (or have crossed) of passing judgment on others (those have been moved over to Snippiness) - please feel free to argue your position, state your case ... but keep your opinion about others who do not share your personal beliefs off this thread.

Respect.

 

[Electroman]

Oh my! I simply cannot understand what is that I said that needed the snippiness treatment !?

I simply noted the difference between killing for survival and killing for sport and gluttony.

 

[jerry33]

Oh my! I simply cannot understand what is that I said that needed the snippiness treatment !?

I simply noted the difference between killing for survival and killing for sport and gluttony.

When the Mods move posts to snippiness, there is sometimes collateral damage. Please don't take it personally.

 

[bonnie]

Oh my! I simply cannot understand what is that I said that needed the snippiness treatment !?

I simply noted the difference between killing for survival and killing for sport and gluttony.

There are people here on the forum whose families have raised cattle ... and the 'sheer arrogance' quote pushed it over the line. The post wasn't about the just the difference between killing for survival vs. sport/gluttony. It was passing judgment on people raising cattle.

Everyone: Sorry - this thread is like a powder keg, with lit matches waving all over the place. People using words like 'murder' and others implying others are arrogant (even if unintentional) is going to cause it to explode. And then I have to close the thread. I'd rather let the conversation continue.

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And as Jerry said, you can't take it personally. I've had to send myself to that thread more than a few times...

 

[Johan]

Reading this thread and some of the great points from many of the vegetarians and vegans coupled with all the known health benefits of staying away from meat (health wise I'm not so sure about where fish fits in) I should definately be a vegetarian. However, I'm not. But I have cut down on my meat eating a lot. So I like to approach this from a very pragmatic stand point: If I eat less meat I contribute less to killing (murder?) of animals which is better than keep eating as much meat as before. Also, I'm in the camp of "wanting to have the cake and eating it too" where to solution I envision, in the coming Age of Abundance, is that we develop technologies to grow meat artificially that is impossible to distinguish from "real" meat when it comes to texture, taste, look etc.