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Fur is "green" if it's vintage - but that's the most "green" way to go with almost anything.

Synthetics are often made with ptreochemicals, so that's decidedly not green.

Cotton and Hemp are natural but not as warm...It's really a tough call.

Regardless - there is nothing green about the way a lot of these animals are killed. The people who are slaughtering for fur are so far removed from the natives, who thanked the animal for it's sacrifice, killed in moderation, and used every single piece of the animal.

Trappers, motivated by market demand, killed so many beavers that the West's watershed has never been the same. The droughts of today are directly attributable to trapping. There is nothing inherently green about trapping.

While I agree that people who work directly with nature are in a great position to see how nature responds to their actions, the position taken by this ad is like saying that logging companies are motivated by environmentalism, not profit.

Perhaps the trapping of wild animals is "Green" - but I somehow doubt that currentday trappers are trekking out to the wilderness on foot....

Perhaps the raising of animals on a farm is "Green" - possibly probably moreso than clubbing the animals out in the wilderness, tossing them on the back of a snowmobile and dragging their carcasses back to the ranch....

But the processing of fur requires an array of chemicals from soaking and degreasing agents, to enzymes, oils and greases, bleaches, dyes, reinforcing agents, toners, tanning and finishing chemicals.

That aint' green.

If you're living a subsistence lifestyle, fine. For the other 99.999% of us it is wasteful.

Many fur animals are predators at or near the top of the food chain (e.g., foxes, wolves, mink). Removing them from the wild has cascading effects through the ecosystem.

And raising them in captivity is grotesque.

well first of all, it's not green and even if it was - have you ever witnessed how fur is harvested?! animals are often skinned alive. and there is no such thing as a humane 'kill' anyway. i would never inflict that amount of pain on anyone. the fur council of canada disgusts me. http://www.furisdead.com/

How can they say that fur is green because it is 'renewable'?!!?! IT IS CERTAINLY NOT!!! An animal can't REGROW its skin!

This is a horrible ad, it makes me really sick. How can these people sleep at night?? Fur is green if it is bought at a second-hand store, and that's about as close to green as torturing animals will ever get. There is nothing green about killing something in the horrible, treacherous ways they kill for fur. I have seen some horrible videos on the skinning of live bears, and after the fur is removed the simply through the bloody body in a dumpster. The animal is still alive, and probably feeling a great amount of pain, but there is no care for the animal. It's just seen as a useless object. It's terrible.

FUR IS NOT GREEN.

fur is not green. not. the whole industry -- and make no mistake, these are not by-products -- is vile.

This is pushing it. Fur is for two things: animals and indigenous peoples who use the entire animal. Beyond that, ain't no reason.

Oh my god... Vile...

I find some of these comments rather ironic, unless they were all written by non-meat-eaters. I don't eat meat and don't wear fur but I recognize that it can be done in a respectful way (just as the opposite can be true). Green? Well I guess that depends on a number of factors related to manufacturing. It's a silly ad.

To the person who said the animals are often "skinned alive," where do you come up with that? I know hunter-trappers who provide fur for the industry and I've never seen any evidence of that. Doesn't seem very efficient if you think about it.

Fur is definitely green. It almost certainly means less environmental destruction and also less animal-killing than the petrochemical industry. Unless you are vegan, don't wear leather etc, I can't see an objection to wearing fur. Is it really even on the same scale of moral evil as factory farming?

I am Canadian and the fur industry is central to the continuation of traditional Aboriginal ways. There are real hunter-trappers who provide the animals and who are trying to pass this knowledge onto their children. (Animals are not skinned alive!)

Why is it that people want to help the poor in the Third World by buying ethnic crafts and fair trade goods but North American traditional ways are somehow worthless? There are languages and cultures dying here too, complete with ancestral knowledge. There is lots of poverty on reservations in the US and Canada. Are Amerindians just not 'exotic' enough; are they too accessible, too ordinary?

The fur industry is LYING, people. They don't give a s**t about the environment - they are just greenwashing their "product" and tricking gullible people into believing they can support a horrible, violent, and cruel industry and still do something "good."

I went to design school. I aced textile science. I know for a FACT that animal skins are preserved with dangerous chemicals to keep them from rotting (cold storage alone is not enough). Even "plant derived" mordants are VERY toxic.

A study conducted by Ford Motor Company in the 1930s proved that synthetic furs consumed only a quarter of the energy required to produce a trapped fur coat - and only a tiny fraction of the energy wasted on a farmed fur coat. (Furs were worn night and day by women of all social classes in the Thirties, including the wives and daughters of Ford execs - Ford had no reason to doctor its own results in favor of faux fur.) Why does no one ever remember to account for energy usage?!

Fur is green like produce is organic.
These are unregulated terms that mean whatever advertisers want them to.

Embe, I don't think the problem is that Native American cultures are too accessible... it's just not immediately obvious how the fur was harvested. It's that doubt. And, there are natural ways to tan leather using brains or farm waste but I seriously doubt all of the vendors represented by this ad are using them.

And yeah, I totally agree that fur gets a disproportionate knee-jerk reaction in a way factory farming doesn't. I'm also doubtful that all of the animal byproducts from the meat/leather industry are used because our culture just doesn't eat a lot of tripe, brains, liver and tongue.

Yes, this post has no point.

Vintage fur is green, new... not so much. Unless it is a rabbit that is for dinner, why kill an animal for the fur? I don't mind when someone kills a few rabbits, feeds their family, and then makes mitts for the winter, but the industry of fur is not something 'green'. It is the same as overfishing. The demand is high, so many animals are killed, resulting in a population imbalance. That said, some trapping is needed now, especially in Canada, as it has been present in the environment since the 1500s, and there would be a destabolizing population boom in fox, beaver, rabbit, etc, which would affect the animals that they prey on or who hunt them.
It is very debatable...
I buy leather shoes because they hold up to my physical lifestyle, but with fur I do my best to only buy vintage fur, or eco-conscious fakes (a furry hood IS a necessity here, trust me!).

There's nothing wrong with fur, if it's made out of animals that are also used for meat, given that those animals are raised and slaughtered in a humane way.

If you don't think there's anything wrong having rabbit for dinner (if you are not a vegetarian), why is it wrong to buy a rabbit fur-coat?

Any form of factory farming (be it beef or mink) is not green, or even close. But let's not kid ourselves into thinking that owning a super-modern-water-repelent-Gortex-whatever jacket is any more environmentally friendly. Maybe it's less "cruel" because no creature was killed in the process, but there's a good chance someone in a factory somewhere still suffered for its creation, and the byproducts are still ending up in the same streams and soils.

If your fur products are being harvested and made pioneer-style though...well then that's a different story altogether, and I really don't have a problem with that.

That's the dumbest ad I've ever seen.

Fur doesn't bother me. I love animals, love my dog, but whatever... we eat meat, wear leather, and, frankly, if farming has been made more humane... fine. If not, it really doesn't bother me.

In Australia, foxes and rabbits are feral pests. They destroy eco-systems and native wildlife. There is a government bounty on foxes; they are shot, and definitely not skinned alive.

Why on earth should I buy a synthetic product, made of petrochemicals, with all of the resulting environmental damage, probably made in a developing country by workers in unsafe conditions, imported into Australia (with a resulting carbon footprint), when I can buy fur from a feral pest, that would be killed anyway, that's locally-produced? Sure, there are chemicals used to cure fur, but seriously people, you think that's worse than drilling for oil??

I would never buy farmed fur, but vintage, or feral? It's clearly much greener than synthetics.

This is disgusting and embarrassing. Is this fake?

Animal agriculture is NOT SUSTAINABLE!

Simple really.