Why not to buy leather seatcovers

[TSLA Pilot]

Follow Up:

A Tesla Ranger was at my home last week fixing a broken headlamp (turned out to be rodent wire damage). I asked him before he arrived if he would bring a 12V with him. He did, and after I told him I was happy to install it myself, he took a few minutes to go over the Model 3 specfic steps involved and then handed over the 12V. Total charge for the battery was $85 -ish + tax.

My Tesla Ranger is awesome.

As an aside, while swapping the 12v is straightforward, I ran into problems getting the rear seat back into place and latched. It might be a result of my Katzkin upholstery, but I had to huff and puff to get the seat aligned. I finally got it back in by moving my front seats forward all the way so that I could kneel in front of the back seat and have enough leverage to push it into place.

Thank you for the update, but please don't put a Katzkin leather interior in any car, especially a Tesla.

The planet is burning, and flooding, and animal agriculture is a bigger source than all transport combined according to the UN FAO.

Curious: Why would you add to the problem, instead of being part of the solution?

Combined Source:

COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret

www.cowspiracy.com

GREENHOUSE GASES -​

Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation. ​

"Livestock's Long Shadow: environmental issues and options". Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome 2006

Transportation exhaust is responsible for 13% of all greenhouse gas emissions. [.i]​

Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector primarily involve fossil fuels burned for road, rail, air, and marine transportation.

"Livestock's Long Shadow: environmental issues and options". Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome 2006

Environmental Protection Agency. "Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data".

Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.​

Goodland, R Anhang, J. “Livestock and Climate Change: What if the key actors in climate change were pigs, chickens and cows?”

Goodland, Robert & Anhang, Jeff. "Livestock and Climate Change: What if the key actors in climate change are...cows, pigs and chickens?". WorldWatch. November/December 2009

Hickman, Martin. "Study claims meat creates half of all greenhouse gases". Independent. November 2009

Hyner, Christopher. "A Leading Cause of Everything: One Industry That Is Destroying Our Planet and Our Ability to Thrive on It". Georgetown Environmental Law Review. Oct

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[SageBrush]

Curious: Why would you add to the problem, instead of being part of the solution?

It is a fair question.

On a personal level, I generally avoid avoid animal products for ethical reasons. But I avoid plastic products no less, for environmental reasons. That ends up being a difficult choice for me. You can say that the upholstery that came with the car is a sunk cost so I should live with it. And if I didn't live in the sunny southwest where a black interior in a car is miserable, I would have. I bought my car as soon as reservations opened back in 2017 I think, and black was the only interior color. I knew then that I would change the upholstery, but I didn't want to wait for Tesla to offer a different color. Was my Tesla and EV advocacy worth the environmental and ethical cost ? I thought so.

As for your conclusion that my choice added to AGW, it is not so clear cut. It is generally true that farmers keep cow herds for dairy and meat value. The hide value has been estimated to be 6 - 8%, although I think that is an old value that is less now due to over supply. It appears to be true that with or without the hide industry, consumption of dairy and meet is the economic activity that leads to herd expansion. I think it is an over simplification to say that if hides were not used they would simply go to waste, but not by much and there is more than an excuse in that statement.

 

[Earl]

Why would you add to the problem,

I understand and agree with the notion that some form of beef production (corn fed when the corn is unsustainably grown - as nearly all is) has high carbon and other ('Pew') emissions.
However, it will be a long time before any cattle are raised or killed solely for leather production. Leather is a by-product of the beef industry. The cattle are raised and killed for meat. Leather is just using the left-over material.
Therefore, one could consider leather to be a carbon-free, zero-waste product. The plastics used in alternative car seats and upholstery, definitely come from oil extraction.
One could, of course, rightfully make the claim that with plastic production, one is taking advantage of the hydrogen bond from petroleum and leaving it intact rather than burning it and releasing CO2 and other harmful emissions.
The net environmental impact, then, lies in the detailed relative numbers but neither are huge.
The upshot is, however, that I don't think upholstery fabric represents a significant impact to the environmental. While highly visible, I think our human energies are probably better used to address obviously-larger ecological issues. Perhaps improving agriculture and transportation are still important.

 

[SageBrush]

I understand and agree with the notion that some form of beef production (corn fed when the corn is unsustainably grown - as nearly all is) has high carbon and other ('Pew') emissions.

That makes things worse, but the more basic problem where cows are concerned is oxidizing sugars to methane instead of CO2. And it doesn't help that the conversion of plants to cow meat is grossly inefficient.