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Comment by foerbert | Hacker News Reader

> processes for the production of wool may entail some impact, independent from the material but related to the sheep.

I suspect this is the massively buried lead here - one so huge and so buried that I'm having a hard time giving you the benefit of the doubt.

The lifecycle of wool itself is probably not at all the major concern. It will not take just a few more sheep to replace the entirety of the global use of polyester and other synthetics.

Livestock are notoriously land-intensive, and the reason behind much of the ongoing ecological devastation of places like the Amazon rainforest. Trying to pass those concerns off as minor considerations after the biodegradability and recyclability of wool is just... incredible.

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> Trying to pass those concerns off as minor considerations after the biodegradability and recyclability of wool is just... incredible.

You wrote «is»: did you mean «would be»? Who is «trying to pass those concerns off as minor considerations»?

There have been in some areas bureaucratic issues with wool, as if it were "warning-label class material": this has / has had people check a few facts.

Edit: which by the way means, some wool may have been treated in a way that raised concern in public health monitoring entities. Think of the Amazon, but do not forget those thing that are there touching your skin. You could want to look into it.

Anyway: when the issue is with production, maybe there are ways to partially fix it. Were the material toxic, you'd have in a way a bigger problem.

And anyway, surely the vast majority of us HN members reasons through quantities and vets the given puzzle pieces to at least some extent: as ericd noted, Cost/Risks/Benefit analysis are duly as what you have are options, with different tradeoffs and complications, and having further promising ones is certainly beneficial.

The 8-billion-pound elephant in the room is the number of people that need clothing. Wool, and eating meat, can be sustainable if demand is below an environmental-degradation threshhold. We're living "high on the bog" of the riches that petroleum provides, and weaning is painful (but worth it, if enough of us care about the life-stories of our great-great-etc-grandchildren).

You can’t have everything. You can pump oil and make plastic, but that’s got obvious problems. Cotton is extremely water intensive (and land). Grazing sheep are land intensive. Which one you think is best depends on what vector of ecological destruction you care most about. Maybe oil just let us get to more people than the Earth actually has carrying capacity for.

> Livestock are notoriously land-intensive

Yes, but in most cases, the wool today is considered waste; the primary market value of sheep is between mowing fields naturally and the meat. Which is why the industry has died as it has.

Keep in mind wool can last a very long time. I still wear wool jackets handed down by my grandfather that are 80 years old. They look new.

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