accept that you cannot live with yourself

key | fanfic writer | adult | they/them, ech/echo/echoes, ex/xex/xir | sentientist vegan | clarify tone with me | physically disabled | AO3

[valleykey]

Intro post. Hi I'm key.

I am valleykey on ao3.

This is a multi fandom and personal blog.

I try to keep things fairly low-stress and stay away from discourse.

Current fandoms include virgin road, kpdh.

I am primarily a fanfic author but do make fandom posts of other kinds. My art tag is #key art.

I don't follow people for personal reasons. I don't even follow my friends.

I enjoy asks & interaction!

[tschlv]

Some brushstroke practice

[acti-veg]

Antibiotics use in livestock could rise by a third in next 15 years, UN report warns

Governments urged to act to prevent potentially disastrous impacts on human resistance to medicines

Animal husbandry accounts for close to three-quarters of global use of antimicrobial medications and in many countries their use is poorly monitored. Some herds are routinely dosed and in many countries antimicrobials are used to increase the growth of animals bred for meat.

This is one of the leading causes of the rise of superbugs, which are threatening to render antibiotics useless against increasingly resistant diseases. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) already costs an estimated €11bn (£9.5bn) a year within Europe alone and is predicted to cost $1tn globally by 2050. AMR is forecast to kill tens of millions of people unless there is concerted action, and to make what are currently routine surgeries such as hip replacements life-threatening.

[hyachrome]

main trio is done gang, 3 hours before June hits too, I've never been this early for anything in my life

[valleykey]

guys im going thru it

[leebrontide]

I keep seeing posts claiming that x y or z action you can do to build a better world won’t matter. That capitalism doesn’t care, and your own actions dont amount to much.

It’s so painfully individualistic. Of course me doing that thing isn’t going to save anybody or anything.

Im not trying to be a superhero who personally saves the say.

I am one leaf making oxygen in a massive forest of other trees making oxygen. I am doing my best and having faith that millions of others will do their best as well.

Because that can and has made big changes over time. Like. That is just how change happens. Thats cultural shifts. Thats political shifts. Thats how lasting changes happen.

I don’t plant milkweed because I’m personally gonna save monarch butterflies. I plant milkweed because I know thousands of us are gonna plant milkweed and send money to the people fighting horrible pesticides in court.

The standard for change isn’t “is my doing this going to change the world?” The standard is “is my doing this part of the shift I want to see my community make?” And if the answer is yes, I do my best.

[loveridden1999]

women on women action 😍😍😍 (←they are trying to kill each other)

[theminotaursmanual]

by Laerte Coutinho

[las-lus]

btw this is laerte. She is 73 now! Making art and being happy! It's never too late to transition

[coyoteroadkill]

ive said this before but it was on my old blog so I'm saying it again

dehumanizing abusers is not effective at doing anything other than make people think they're ontologically incapable of violence

[blondebrainpowered]

The original Pride flag and the sewing machine it was made on by Gilbert Baker in 1978.

[dailyhistoryposts]

The Original Rainbow Pride Flag (1978) by Gilbert Baker.

[wooblecomics-deactivated2026052]

This website's love of leather is consumerist btw. It's not revolutionary or sustainable. It's a high-status fashion item which is entirely unnecessary (we could replace all leather with existing plant materials yesterday). It's popular on this website because the marketing around it allows people to disguise their consumerism as #sustainable and #vintage and #punk.

In reality, leather tanning poisons the global south with heavy metals. And it's impossible to rear cattle without contributing hugely to climate change. We can't keep pretending it's a byproduct which somehow doesn't count. As if beef died on the cross and absolved all other cow products of their sins. Leather is a huge part of the profitability of the cattle industry. Even pretending a leather bag has a 100 year lifespan, it's not worth the CO2 or heavy metal pollution required to produce it. It would be drastically better to replace 1 leather bag with 20 hemp bags. And, of course, none of this even mentions the abject torture the cow had to go through.

And like, we can be a little consumerist. I'm not making the "you hate capitalism and have an iphone" argument. I don't care if you own leather or buy it second hand. But what is genuinely harmful is falling for the marketing and thinking leather is somehow revolutionary, or even worse, that opposition to leather is reactionary.

[arbeaone]

Leather is not a natural or sustainable by-product, it’s a profitable material produced at the expense of the planet — Collective Fashion Ju

Our new report explores the interconnected environmental harms caused throughout the leather supply chain. From wildlife risks and biodivers

This article and the sources used have a lot of information about leather production.

Here is the text from the article :

Leather is not a natural or sustainable by-product, it’s a profitable material produced at the expense of the planet

Written By Natalie LaBarbera

Our new report on leather’s impact on the planet explores the interconnected environmental issues caused by leather derived from animals, rather than more sustainable and just alternatives. Here’s a rundown of what the best available scientific data tells us:

All claims in this article are referenced in the full report. Read it here.

There’s no getting around it, plastic is one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time. While the leather industry has used this concern around plastic and microplastics to promote itself as a sustainable solution, leather production contributes massively to our climate and biodiversity crises – and it’s even coated in plastic sometimes, too.

Leather and the climate crisis

According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, 16.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions are linked to animal agriculture. Of that, 62% of direct emissions are tied to cattle rearing. Even when leather is vegetable tanned, often claimed by the industry to be a more responsible process, there is no significant difference in carbon, water, or energy footprint and it does not biodegrade. But there’s good news, too. Many innovative non-animal leather options, like MIRUM, are now utilised for clothing and accessories. The difference in the climate impact of animal-based leather clothing and accessories versus those made from more sustainable, animal-free alternatives is significant. According to CIRUMFAUNA calculations verified by Faunalytics, a cow skin leather tote bag produces 100.5 kg of CO2e while a synthetic alternative emits just 14.4 kg of CO2e. Similarly, cow skin leather boots are calculated to emit 66 kg of CO2e, and their synthetic counterpart just 9.5 kg of CO2e. While synthetics are not a total ethics alternative, this is a valuable point of reference. These calculations also only consider the skins of cattle, without the entire ‘production’ of the animals. If the entire production process were calculated, CO2e emissions would be even higher for animal-based products as much of this impact occurs at the farm level, where the valuable co-product that is animal-based leather is sourced.

Leather’s impact on land and biodiversity

Not only has leather contributed to the climate crisis through greenhouse gas emissions, but it is also inherently inefficient to produce, requiring enormous amounts of cleared land. As a result, leather production exacerbates global biodiversity destruction. Often overlooked by sustainability assessments, biodiversity and wildlife are at risk on land utilised for leather production and there is an increased chance of desertification and land degradation tied to cattle ranching, too. For example, CIRCUMFAUNA calculations suggest that to produce just 10 typical Brazilian leather bags, one hectare of land must be cleared or kept cleared. And for just 17 pairs of leather boots, a land amount equal to nearly one and a half football fields needs to be cleared for cattle rearing.  To protect biodiversity, the UN states that protecting forests is essential. Currently, 80% of Amazonian deforestation across Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia is caused by cattle ranching, and 73% of deforestation and land clearing in Queensland, Australia is tied to cattle production in leather supply chains. Inefficient land use and deforestation in leather supply chains are directly tied to the endangerment of species including great gliders, swift parrots, spot-tailed quolls, jaguars, giant otters, toucans, tapirs, and many more.  More land-efficient materials such as mycelium leather alternatives, plant-based and other bio-based leather alternatives are critical to creating a sustainable fashion system. With a move away from animal-based agriculture, up to 75% of agricultural land has the potential to be freed as a result of decreased need for grazing land and land used to grow crops for animal feed.

Leather’s water footprint

To produce a standard cow skin leather tote bag, 17,127.8 litres of water is required, which equals to the amount of water a human is recommended to drink each day for over 23 years, based on CIRCUMFAUNA calculations. This amount is further increased at the slaughterhouse level. With half of the world’s population at risk of facing water scarcity as early as 2025, it is essential to choose materials with a lower water footprint. Even synthetic polyurethane – which is not the solution to our environmental problems – can have a water footprint as much as 24 times smaller compared to animal-based leather, while partly plant-based alternatives present even better options. Desserto’s water footprint is 1,647% smaller than some bovine leather, while Modern Meadow’s bio-leather claims to reduce water consumption impacts (compared to conventional leather) by over 95%, and MIRUM is produced with no water inputs besides what’s included within natural ingredients.

Leather and pollution

Leather production not only requires a significant amount of water, but it also pollutes natural waterways. Polluted water dumped out of tanneries and slaughterhouses and which runs off farms and feedlots, can lead to environmental pollution and eutrophication. At the farm level, manure runoff can create ‘dead zones’ within waterways where aquatic life is unable to survive.  Slaughterhouses – often forgotten parts of the leather supply chain – regularly dump biohazardous waste into waterways. Meanwhile, as many as 300-400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge, and other wastes are also dumped into bodies of water every year from tanneries. To avoid environmental penalties for these actions, wealthier countries often outsource their production to the global South, where tanneries are also responsible for land and air pollution that harms plant and animal life. Up to 170 chemicals are used in the tanning process, including chromium, formaldehyde, and arsenic, which are known carcinogens.

Leather industry greenwashing and misinformation

With an increasing demand for sustainability within the fashion industry, leather is often promoted as a ‘natural’ choice. But animal skins are tanned into leather for the specific purpose of rendering them inorganic and no longer natural, able to be long lasting due to heavy chemical use. Meanwhile, the selective breeding and domestication of 1.4 billion animals on largely cleared native land certainly is not of benefit to the natural environment.  Millions of dollars worth of misinformation is regularly spread by groups such as Leather Naturally, Leather UK, and Leather and Hide Council of America. They continue to claim leather is renewable, biodegradable, a worthless by-product, and capable of reducing plastic fibres, despite opposing evidence, with the goal of increasing leather product sales. Meanwhile, the leather industry also avoids addressing the reality that their valuable co-product is often coated with plastic, even legally without labelling, and that after tanning, it is no longer effectively biodegradable. One of the most notable tactics used by these groups is selective disclosure, which distracts consumers from the significant environmental impacts of leather. Collective Fashion Justice analysed several brands certified by the Leather Working Group and found that while the certification claims to protect the environment, it fails to address any of the climate impacts of deforestation, methane emissions, biodiversity loss, and farm water use connected to the production of leather.

What about ‘regenerative leather’, is that sustainable?

The leather industry is working hard to promote ‘regenerative leather,’ claiming its production can help to solve the climate crisis, securely storing more greenhouse gas emissions than are emitted. This claim has been disproven in numerous peer-reviewed reports, which have also noted the biased funding sources behind regenerative claims. For genuine environmental regeneration, we must see a just transition beyond leather and other animal production systems. In doing so, the amount of land which could be saved and rewilded by switching to more efficient and plant-based systems would result in up to 163% of our carbon emissions budget to 1.5C being sequestered – drawn down and safely stored – if this transition was made by 2050.

There’s no sustainable fashion without degrowth

Moving beyond the use of animal-derived leather is essential to improving fashion’s relationship with the planet. However, aiming to replace the entirety of produced leather with bio-based leather alternatives will not totally solve fashion’s environmental woes: the fashion industry must produce and consume less as a whole. Bio-alternatives are an exciting development and offer a much better option than current synthetics and animal-based leather, considering both ethics and the environment, but systemic degrowth is also needed to steer the industry towards true sustainability.  To stay within planetary boundaries, experts suggest the fashion industry must reduce its size fourfold. A reduction in the size of the fashion industry could mean that bio-based leather alternatives become more accessible sooner, as the materials wouldn’t need to be scaled to the full level of leather production. To help with fashion’s degrowth, the best thing we can do is to buy less altogether. Taking care of and mending clothes is the best way to reduce demand for new clothing, and secondhand is a great option to encourage the use of materials already in the fashion system.

Want to keep learning or see our references? Read the full report.

[valleykey]

Also happy pride everyone♥️♥️

[valleykey]

your satosugu works are amazing amazing amazing. holy shit. they are peak. they are so so so good and i've been going down the list for all of them. you're an awesome writer.

thank you very much !! i'm glad you're enjoying them :)

[pebblesorsomthing]

[swagvo1d]

small artists

[herpsandbirds]

US Fish and Wildlife Service Plans to Allow Hunting on 95% of Its Land

US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to allow hunting on 95% of its land

The proposed changes would make over 92 million acres of National Wildlife Refuge System lands available for hunting.

[nothing-is-hidden]

Seems like someone doesn't understand why regulations exist in the first place still. That and hunting animals doesn't actually help anyone except The Economy.