Is this a better solution for polymer notes?

EricMears

Ben84 wrote: »

. . . animal farming is awful for the animals

Without animal farming, there would be no domesticated animals at all ! Why would a farmer pay to feed a herd of cows if there was no market for the end product ?

If we'd never started farming animals, most of them would be extinct as we'd have driven them off the lands we needed to farm for vegetable products.

If we suddenly banned animal farming tomorrow, all existing farm animals would be slaughtered or - worse still - simply neglected when most of them would die of starvation.

Ben84

EricMears wrote: »

Without animal farming, there would be no domesticated animals at all ! Why would a farmer pay to feed a herd of cows if there was no market for the end product ?

They wouldn't. I think that's a good thing. We wouldn't be breeding and feeding huge amounts of animals that ultimately nobody wants. Sure, people want parts of them, but they don't really want them as a whole. It's not a positive relationship we have with them at all. Should we be creating them for the reasons we do? The situation is created to suit people's wants, often to make things we don't even really need, not for the benefit of a single animal involved. People are consuming a lot of stuff that used to be animals simply because the things made from them are everywhere - and because they don't ask questions. That includes me too, in the past. We can make all the fake fur we want, but people are still buying the real stuff. We have all kinds of alternatives to feathers and down from, well, I'll let you look that up how that's made if you want to, but people keep buying feather and down pillows and duvets. The market for the end products is not a positive thing for the animals, it's why they're in the situation they're in.

Also, domesticated animals aren't just farm animals, we have pets too.

EricMears wrote: »

If we'd never started farming animals, most of them would be extinct as we'd have driven them off the lands we needed to farm for vegetable products.

A surprising amount of people have said this to me. But, it's a mistaken idea. Farm animals need to eat food too. A lot of it being commercial animal feed which is from farmed crops. The environmental problem is that far more calories from plants go in to animals than come out as calories in their meat, eggs and milk. Every time you eat a chicken, for example, you're effectively consuming all the plant material it has eaten during its entire life! Same for any meat. Milk is not a positive return either, far more calories go in than come out, since you're sustaining the entire calorie needs of the cow every day. Eating animal products means more land is used for crop growing, not less.

EricMears wrote: »

If we suddenly banned animal farming tomorrow, all existing farm animals would be slaughtered or - worse still - simply neglected when most of them would die of starvation.

That's not going to happen though. What happens next, be it more or less animal product consumption, is going to be a more gradual change. I don't see a situation where suddenly everyone quits. However, unfortunately this list of bad outcomes is not that different to their current fate anyway.