Ggids

New York Fashion Week has banned furs!  Perhaps it’s overdue, people are increasingly averse to buying furs or even approve of anyone doing so. That, we must admit, is a victory for the animals as well as for the animal activists who worked to achieve this.

In 2014 over 140 million animals such as minks, foxes or racoons were farmed and killed for their fur. In 2023, according to Humane World for Animals’ analysis, the number had dropped to 20 million. The figure does not include rabbits or animals caught in traps, but it still reveals a dramatic decline. One of the issues involved in this success is lessening the cruelty involved in killing the animals. Minks were gassed but foxes and racoons underwent anal electrocution. I admit to not fully understanding what it entails, but enough to be horrified. The way animals were kept on farms, they showed deep distress and the animal equivalent of traumas.

The turning point in fur ban came in 2017 when Gucci first went fur free. That was followed by Burberry, Prada, Chanel and Versace.   Furs are a luxury and using animals for something that is not necessary adds strength to banning fur. It’s been a long road and it is not over given that luxury houses like Hermes and LVMH for example still use fur. 

For fashion houses as well as for all of us banning furs is a reminder that it’s not enough not to be cruel to each other, we must include animals.

It’s so easy to place art on the back burner to think it is important but not as worthwhile as some other aspect of our society.  That it can be a boon to our well being and that of society is not something we associate with art, yet a new study and a new program show us art not only benefits us as individuals but also as a society.

The study comes from Kings College in the UK where they measured people’s reaction to seeing original art, including taking samples of saliva. What they found is that the emotional experience affects our hormones and that affects our immune system. Hence our wellbeing is enhanced.  It’s much less so when people are exposed to copies of original works of art, yet the point is the same going to a gallery or a museum benefits us physically and emotionally.

The program is one in Ireland which is instituting a basic income for artists. The program began as a result of the pandemic because many artists needed financial help. From that came a pilot program and now that the results are in the program will become permanent in 2026. Not only did giving a basic income to artists increase their income, it increased their income from practicing their art, thus decreasing the need for income from other sources and also decreasing their reliance on social services. What happened they discovered is that the economy benefited as well as the individual artist. The program includes not only visual artists, but musicians and other performers, composers, writers, movie makers and architects. The issues are not criticism of the program but who can be counted as an artist, as well as debate around how to select the artists to be chosen whether they should be selected based on need, merit or randomness.

For us the answer is plain, let’s expose ourselves to art!

Those of us who love trees don’t need books and studies to be told what marvels of nature they are. Still there is a warm and penetrating sensation of delight when what one knew all along is there for all to see.

One such instance is a book recognizing the genius of trees.  Way back during the beginning of what we call evolution, what became trees, probably algae, learned to control all the elements around them, water, sun, air, fire, the ground beneath them, and did so one by one. Harriet Rix who’s a British tree consultant explains how this happened, how trees learned to use UV light, and survive.  Her new book shares how much we owe to trees including the many ways they have been part of planetary life and part of our lives.  “The Genius of Trees: How They Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World,”  doesn’t address how to speak to trees or any topics one might associate with  new research on this subject, it just shares  as this title tells us, what she calls the genius of trees,  genius because of the way trees in evolving have been able to burrow themselves into our lives and in doing so managed to essentially conquer whatever obstacles came their way. Her bottom line is simple. We need trees.

But what makes trees remarkable doesn’t stop with Rix’s book.  Another instance come from an article the NYT recently published e about the results of a comprehensive study by a team of scientists. What they reveal is that a tree is a complex ecosystem, a still largely unexplored microbial diversity, maybe home to a trillion microbial cells. And what’s more, the tree’s microbial cells not only contribute to its survival but to ours as well.  

Yes indeed we need trees.