Prince Charles Tries to Save Wool

It seems rare these days to hear anyone who's not an industry hack promoting an expansion of animal agriculture, but Prince Charles has announced the Wool Project. He hopes to revitalize the industry by promoting wool as a sustainable material.

I suppose wool is technically a renewable resource, since it does grow back, but it doesn't deserve a green label. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, something can't be eco-friendly if it causes the suffering of another species. Environmentalism has to be about the entire natural world, not just people and the land.

Even if Prince Charles wants to ignore the suffering of the sheep, the wool industry has a similar footprint to any other intensive farming venture. Livestock methane emissions (i.e. farm animal gas) contribute to climate change. Keeping large herds of animals, whether they're grazing or being warehoused in factory farms, causes water pollution and damage to the land. Livestock farmers aren't exactly known for living in harmony with nature either; predators like wolves and coyotes, are labeled a nuisance and slaughtered en masse in order to protect their flocks.

The director of Curtis Wool, which is responsible for about 80 percent of Britain's wool processing, called wool "the original free-range product." He hopes you're imagining happy storybook sheep, but the reality isn't such a pretty picture. Sheep are subject to much of the same types of cruelty as other animals used in agriculture: castration without anesthetics, docked tails, inhumane transport, and disease.

Australia, which produces 25-30 percent of the world's wool, uses the particularly brutal method of "mulesing" to prevent problems with fly and maggot infestations. Mulesing solves the problem by cutting out chunks of skin, without painkillers, so the sheep will regrow scar tissue that won't attrack flies. Sometimes those wounds end up attracting flies, but the farmers will cut their losses as long as enough sheep stay healthy enough for it to be profitable. The all-important bottom line also means that the shearing process itself is typically brutal because the focus is on time and money, not the animals.

In promoting the Wool Project, Prince Charles encouraged people to think twice about, "the seemingly trivial decision about whether to buy a wool carpet or its man-made alternative, or the decision to buy a wool coat as opposed to a polyester jacket."

I couldn't agree more. But instead of supporting an increase in animal agriculture or purchasing toxic synthetics, how about choosing a greener, more humane option like bamboo, Tencel, or recycled fibers?

Photo credit: Keven Law