HelixDab

…Huh. I had expected something completely different when it said “high-end bicycle” in the title. Not something that’s not really a bicycle per se. I’d been thinking more along the lines of Storck.

I feel like electric “bicycles” are fundamentally missing the point of a bicycle.

First: How do you reconcile that view with the idea that animals also experience the world as people do with the idea that animals kill and eat other animals? Bears, for instance, are roughly as intelligent as a kindergartener, and yet happily kill and eat any other animals that they can. Pigs and crows are also omnivorous, and will eat any source of meat that they come across. They can all likewise avoid killing if they choose, yet they don’t. Are they immoral? Or does morality only apply to humans? (Even animals that we traditionally think of as herbivorous are opportunistic meat eaters.)

Second: What would you propose replacing animal products with, when there are no alternatives that function as well? What about when the alternative products also cause greater environmental harms?

Third: So you would not have a problem with, for instance, hunting and eating invasive species, since those species cause more harm to existing ecosystems than not eradicating them would? What about when those invasive species are also highly intelligent, e.g. feral pigs? Or is it better to let them wreck existing ecosystems so that humans aren’t causing harm? To drill down on that further, should humans allow harm to happen by failing to act, or should we cause harm to prevent greater harm?

Fourth: “Exploiting” is such an interesting claim. Vegans are typically opposed to honey, since they view it as an exploitative product. Are you aware that without commercial apiaries, agriculture would collapse? That is, without exploiting honey bees, we are not capable of pollinating crops?

Would you agree, given that all food production for humans causes environmental harm, that the only rational approach to eliminate that harm is the eradication of humanity?

…And how exactly do you think people are going to be able to eat meat otherwise? Or have dairy, eggs, wool, etc.? Do you think that people should e.g., raise chickens in the city?

And that’s ignoring the small obligate carnivores that make up most of the pets in the world.

Hey, I’d rather hunt my own food too, but we no longer live in tribal or feudal societies where you can reasonably expect to engage in animal husbandry yourself.

You could, for instance, shut down at the end of a cycle and do a thorough cleaning without using pesticides. Using steam, heat, and high-powered ultraviolet light, you should be able to effectively kill any pests or eggs that pests are leaving. Yes, pesticides are certainly less expensive in the short run, but in terms of long-term health for the entire planet, they’re super-bad.

Depending on how you generate power, you could use LED grow lights in vertical farms. You also have the luxury of working in an environment that you can tightly control; that means you may not need to use pesticides or herbicide at all. If you aren’t working in large fields, you can get away from using heavy diesel farm equipment.

Fundamentally, we need to use less land for farming, we need to use far fewer pesticides and herbicides, and need to reduce the emissions associated with farming. Vertical farming has the potential to help with all of those.

Oh, and I think that more linen is being grown now, since flax seed and flax oil seems to be more popular as general food items now. I use a lot of flax meal when I make my grain-flour-free/sugar-free banana bread, because it helps prevent the ‘bread’ from feeling excessively dry. So maybe we’ll start seeing more linen in the market as a byproduct of the flax seed and oil production?

Linen is also a lot easier to work with. Hemp wovens are not very stable at all; the fibers slide around on each other, so you can easily end up with skewed pattern pieces. It also ravels easily. The 14oz hemp twill I’ve got is quite nice, but it’s a challenging material to work with if you’re used to 10-12 cotton denim.

I believe–IIRC, and it’s been a while–that Tencel is either a specific process for making rayon, or is a brand. What you should be looking for in rayon that makes it better is closed-loop manufacturing. But US product labeling doesn’t require that kind of information; you’d have to ask the company that made the apparel, and they’d have to ask their mill or reseller.

Finding information about how green any part of the sewn-products industry is is very nearly an exercise in futility, unfortunately; companies don’t have to have the information, and they don’t have to disclose it.

It’s not that simple. The fabric most commonly made from bamboo is rayon, and rayon can be made from any cellulose fiber. Most rayon processes are actually pretty awful; they produce a lot of waste that’s not great for the environment. Rayon–regardless of the source of the cellulose–is weaker than cotton, and tends to tear very easily when wet. You can process bamboo in a way that is much more environmentally responsible, but then you get a fiber that’s more like linen rather than cotton. But very little bamboo fabric is made that way.

Overall, hemp is probably the most environmentally friendly fiber out there. It’s not perfect, but it requires less pesticides, can be used as part of crop rotation (for the few farmers that do rotate crops), and needs less water to grow. It also grows in more climate zones. The fibers are harder to work with, and water is usually required to process them to a useful state, but you get very long staple fibers that are quite strong.