I must be living "High on the Hog" then because I splurge and turn on the A\C and the Radio.

 

Mine was tongue-in-cheek also. I was merely pointing out that everything we do is a trade-off. You could even take the cow thing further, i.e:

• is the methane and manure all bad? If we can capture it in a gas bag or a biomass pile, then we can use it directly as as a fuel souce or as a natural fertilizer, which indirectly can be considered as a raw material resource for creating fuels. They do this all over the world in landfills now;
• does the leather absolutely need to be tanned with Chromium? No, the pioneers used raw leather and several other, shall we say, less attractive methods. But would we in modern settings find them acceptable -- probably not;
• For that matter, why use a cow. If we take a resource approach to animals, we could use other "leathers" from sources diverse as horses, llamas down to nutrias and rats! Socially acceptable -- you decide.

 

If we can genetically generate skin now for burn patients wouldn't it be possible some day to actually generate all of the leather we need in a lab and never actually use an animal for it? Not that I have a problem with using all animal parts. I'm not an animal activist her.

 

being that this is my first post here.... Its nice to see you all participate.

 

Animal embryo research... stem cells ... now youv'e done it!