What's something about animal exploitation you feel is only becoming MORE misunderstood?
I've been thinking a lot about animal leather lately, and how abysmal it is that the default non-vegan position on it is that it's "actually environmentally sustainable" and "way better than vegan leather" (by that they typically only mean one specific type of plastic based synthetic leather).
It's really hard to challenge this opinion because non-vegans - and even some vegans! - tend to believe it wholeheartedly, never looking into the industry itself (cow leather has been identified multiple times as one of the highest-impact apparel materials from an environmental perspective, ranking twice as destructive on a complete cradle-to-gate assessment vs. synthetic leather; many of these studies aren't new either - we've known about how destructive leather livestock runoff and tanning is in terms of eutrophication for decades).
It's even harder when people won't consider that when you say you wear vegan leather, it's not simply PVC coated plastic; there's cork, and mushroom, and cactus, natural rubber, waste materials from winemaking, pineapple skin, processed corn and banana fibers, the list goes on... (many much more durable than people assume!)
How do you talk to people about these easily misunderstood topics, like vegan leather? And, are there aspects that you feel similarly really lack understanding in the overall cultural consciousness, even among "smart" or liberal minded people?