As part of my Physics lab earlier last week, we students were instructed to predict the properties of static electricity by using materials consisting of either real wool or rabbit fur. As an individual who doesn’t eat or wear animal products, I wrote my institute’s Physical Science department, imploring them to consider offering faux alternatives for this project in the future.
However, I didn’t just request this as a personal favor; I know there are other considerate, intelligent students who share the same morals, so I’m posting my letter for you to write your school’s science department yourself and put an end to animal testing in academia. Transitioning from fur to faux is a choice that benefits all parties involved, and here is why:
“America’s animal agriculture and the fur/skin trade industries have devastating impacts on our planet’s environment. Water, as you know, is the new oil. Nations will soon be going to war for it. Underground aquifers that took millions of years to fill are now running dry. And yet, we invest 50,000 litres of precious drinking water to raise an animal for one fur coat [4]. And 34,658,000 square kilometers of land are used by the livestock industry, which is equal to three times the surface of North America [3]. Greenhouse gas emissions from livestock is 50% greater than the world’s entire transportation sector – this includes cars, trains, buses, ships, boats, the entire lot [4].
The issue also bleeds into humanitarian crises. Today, 1 billion people are hungry. 20 million people will die from malnutrition – but cutting animal agriculture by just 10% would spare enough grain and food to feed 100 million people, and eliminating it would end overseas starvation forever [4].
And of course, needless to say, animals suffer before they are killed for their skin – every single one of them, cut into pieces and distributed to humans who have no biological nor reasonably scientific need to exploit them.
If everybody lived a Western lifestyle, we would need two planets to sustain us – but we only have one, and she’s dying. A “vegan lifestyle” is not a millennial fad, nor is it an elitist matter of opinion. It is not a belief. Our planet is dying. Humans are suffering. We need to make better choices. This is not an opinion – it is fact. The University of Oxford claims that alternatives to animal products are the single biggest ways to reduce humanity’s carbon footprint [1]. In just one year, a vegan lifestyle saves on average 1,519,823 litres of water, 1,022 square meters of forest, and prevents 3,322 kilograms of gaseous carbon dioxide [2].
I also don’t leave you to research for your own. My professor’s experiment could have just as easily been performed with human hair, silk, nylon, tissue paper, plastic wrap, or polyester – each of which gain/lose electrons at a rate tantamount to animal fur. Please, consider my suggestion to swap animal experiments for new ideas. All I can ask is that my words do not fall on deaf ears.
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[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/veganism-environmental-impact-planet-reduced-plant-based-diet-humans-study-a8378631.html/
[2]: http://thevegancalculator.com
[3]: https://www.plantbasednews.org/post/vegan-plantbased-fashion-carbon-footprint-uk
[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQCe4qEexjc”
Citation: Rovira, Lia N. “Use This Letter to Write Schools That Experiment on Animals.” SkyFeed. 4 Feb, 2019. Web article.
