kristofeichenlaub’s Recent Comments

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  Sorry about the frag...

  Sorry about my fragmented post (I tried to respond to the person with the birks but it posted at the bottom).  Any way my thoughts on the subject are that in view of the fact that leather can be produced in extremely environmentally friendly methods (contrary to apparent popular beliefs chrome tanning is not the only tanning technique used), lasts for literally a lifetime (my grandfather has had the same pair of leather boots and a leather belt for longer than my parents have been alive), and the fact that there is still few if any other products that can compare for quality of life provided by leather shoes (though hemp is pretty nice too).  I would say that the best method would be to contact a custom footwear maker (turtle island moccs does some great stuff) and pay the price for a truly one of a kind set of footwear that if made right and using full grain leathers (often you quite the set of options as to what kind and where from) you can keep them functioning for literally your entire adult life.On Umbra on leather vs. pleather shoes posted 1 year, 10 months ago 22 Responses

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  Respect the animal!

  In my personal opinion the best thing you can do to respect the lives that went into the making of your shoes is to continue wearing them and repairing them until it is absolutely impossible to do otherwise  or donate them to someone who will.On Umbra on leather vs. pleather shoes posted 1 year, 10 months ago 22 Responses

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  A green apple

  I am now thoroughly confused.  First the complaint was that we wanted a green apple and that it should have been out months if not years ago, now they do release a much more green apple post haste and all we snub for making a new release too quickly?  Computers really do change quickly and unlike shoes, clothes, and cars these changes usually do require significant differences in structure and design or should we just still be trying to carry around 27 pound resource hogging laptops just to show everyone that we think technology shouldn't change so fast.  To be honest I would say spend your money where it makes a difference on things like new improved technology when you actually need the update with computers a three to four year timeframe before updating to a newer machine as your main utility (I always keep the old for further use and have an original imac from '97 and just recently lost a '94 powermac to a pencil attack by daycare children so they do have a rather long life).  Just save your money and don't waste the resources to change your entire wardrobe every six months, step out of the disposaculture of plastic bags and styrofoam, eat some veggies (gotta love those trophic levels), and stop driving everywhere!
  On New MacBook Air has some green qualities posted 1 year, 10 months ago 6 Responses

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  Welcome to a living planet!

      I would like to start off by saying that at this point I am honestly striving to live a vegetarian lifestyle along with living an otherwise fairly environmentally friendly lifestyle.  No, I am not perfect but then nobody is.  One issue that I find rather disturbing is the massive, apparently one sided, animal rights movement.  Yes, I agree that animals are living things and that they deserve respect.  In fact, I am a part-time animal trainer and animal rights activist.  The issue I take is the idea that it for the mere reasoning that it doesn't kill or cause pain to animals that we should all be vegetarian and not use any animal products.  The problem with this logic is that surprisingly (at least to some) plants are living things as well.  Not only that but just like animals plants work hard to stay alive and respond to injury just as animals do.  No they don't usually scream or cower when you cut into them but then neither do fish (at least not that I have seen) which does not mean to it is right to kill fish but that all living things and in my opinion all non living things are due respect at least at some level.  To be clear I respect George Bush, I mean come on, for an apparent idiot with little to no apparent morality or thought beyond self preservation and benefit to dupe so many in this country into voting for him by clever tricks, skilled deception and word play (note I don't attribute most of these directly to him as by all outward characteristics he has none of these abilities) does deserve respect.  Moving on.  While a fur coat may take the lives of hundreds of cute and furry animals it can also last a lifetime or more, keep you warmer than virtually any other material, and in an optimal setting give not only improve your on sense of self worth but also increase your understanding, compassion, and respect for the animals slain.  On the other hand, a box of cereal costs the lives of possibly millions of blameless wheat, corn, barley, or oat seeds that are the equivalent of human embryos for nothing more than providing you a substandard (protein regardless of the source powers the body for longer per unit weight/mass) energy source for a few hours.  The only real benefit that I see to plants as a food source is the concept of trophic levels.  If you do the research, which I have as a former wildlife biology and biology education student, it becomes clear that eating plants has the primary benefit of allowing a human total environmental footprint to shrink drastically in that the resources a plant needs to feed a human is much less than animals need.  Eating is simply the consumption of refined energy.  As heterotrophs (different feeding) living things we cannot refine our own energy we can only consume prerefined energy.  Plants can as autotrophs, they use solar energy (energy from the sun) and chemical energy (from soil, dissolved minerals, etc) to power their life processes.  Animals have evolved as a somewhat parasitic organism that feeds off of what plants have gained.  Most plants seem to have accepted this reality by doing things like using our consumptive habits to further their own goals (packaging their seeds, their children, inside lovely, tasty, completely nourishing and healthy vessels called fruit so that we might eat them and transport them to new locations and then deposit them with a valuable energy supply in the form of our feces) while attempting via thorns and poisonous chemicals and other methods to stop us from eating them directly.
       Thus by this logic I would say that eating a vegetarian lifestyle is generally not any better in the lives consumed department especially if you don't keep up the your end of the bargain by replanting the seeds you eat.
       The best lifestyle I can think of is a return to a fairly hunter-gatherer lifestyle in which people grow what they can in limited space and within their ecosystems constraints, gather what they can from the wild in both plant and fungal life that we can successfully consume as well as animal life that further refine energy from sources we can't directly consume (note:  cows eat grass, we can't we eat them to get at the grasses nutrients) if we all did this and followed this lifestyle in as primitive of methods as possible we would by my thinking have a much more sustainable lifestyle.  By the way I do realize that this means there needs to be large tracts of public wild lands for this to work, and that many could not succeed at this (they would most likely die off which is unfortunate but would greatly benefit everyone and everything but themselves, and that this would greatly limit out upward climb as species in some ways but then so would death by overpopulation and indirect suicide by our own stupidity and self absorbance.  All in all if everyone starts looking at everything (not just some specific lives like babies and certain cute and fuzzy animals) as sacred and realizing that lives are meant to be spent (that is it would seem why they all end someday no matter what you do) thus that they should be made the most of not only by the being that owns the life but by everyone then maybe we could stop worrying and be happy.  ~Kristof

  P.S.~Eat, drink, love, be loved, live, be happy, and most of all do your best.On Umbra on (inherited) fur coats posted 1 year, 10 months ago 60 Responses