Activist: "I only buy wool-free clothing." Farmer: "What's on you now?" Activist: "It's a technical fleece." Farmer: "Fleece." Activist: "That's just the name for it." Farmer: "It's oil. Somebody pulled it out of the ground in Qatar and spun it to look like the thing you're objecting to." Activist: "Mine's recycled." Farmer: "Recycled oil. Every wash it drops plastic thread down the drain, through the works, into the river, and nothing in the river can get it back out." Activist: "That's an industry problem, not mine." Farmer: "It's in the machine in your kitchen." Activist: "There's still an animal involved in wool." Farmer: "An animal that has to be shorn in July whether you buy the fleece or not. All you've decided is whether it goes in a jumper or a skip." Activist: "I'd rather nothing came off her at all." Farmer: "Then she cooks. That's the option you've picked and it's the one nobody puts on a swing tag." Activist: "I'm choosing not to exploit an animal." Farmer: "You've chosen a haircut you're not allowed to wear, and a coat made of the thing you march about. She grew hers back in April."

A sheep that is not sheared, dies. Slowly. Wetly. With flies in the fleece and a temperature it cannot regulate. The modern sheep, descended from twelve thousand years of selective breeding, no longer sheds its fleece naturally. It cannot. If left unshorn, the fleece keeps growing, traps moisture against the skin, attracts flies, develops fly strike, and kills the sheep slowly and unpleasantly over the course of a wet summer. Shearing is not done to the sheep. Shearing is done for the sheep. The shearer arrives in May. The sheep is held still for ninety seconds. The fleece comes off in one piece. The sheep stands up, shakes itself, and walks back into the field roughly four kilograms lighter and visibly relieved. The fleece becomes a jumper that will outlive three of your phones. The alternative, the one being marketed as compassionate, is acrylic. Polyester. A petroleum-derived plastic spun into fibres that shed microplastics into every wash, every wear, every breath of wind, for as long as that garment exists. Which is forever. Acrylic does not biodegrade. It only breaks down into smaller pieces of acrylic. The sheep needed shearing. The oil rig did not need drilling. Have a think about which one is actually cruel.

Myth: "I only wear vegan fabrics. Better for the animals, better for the planet." Let's check in on Doris's annual contribution. Once a year, in late spring, Doris is sheared. The procedure takes approximately three minutes. Doris does not enjoy it. Doris does not, by any visible measure, suffer from it. Doris is, immediately afterwards, a noticeably more comfortable animal in the British summer. The fleece weighs approximately 3 kilograms. It is sold to the British Wool Marketing Board for, depending on the year, between £0.40 and £2.50 per kilogram. The shearing costs more than the wool fetches. Brian is shearing Doris at a loss. The wool is then: - Naturally flame-retardant - Naturally antibacterial - Moisture-wicking - Biodegradable - Renewable, annually - Carbon-storing while in use The replacement, in performance fabrics: - Polyester - Polyamide - Acrylic - Polypropylene - All petroleum-derived - All shedding microplastics on every wash - All requiring fossil fuel inputs to produce - All non-biodegradable, with a typical landfill lifespan of 200-500 years A single wash of a polyester fleece can release up to 700,000 microplastic fibres into the water system. These fibres are now in: every tested water source on earth, every tested human placenta, every tested rainfall sample, the deep ocean, the Arctic ice, and the lungs of marine mammals. A single wash of a wool jumper releases: nothing. The wool, when eventually disposed of, returns to soil within a few years. The fabric being marketed as the "ethical" alternative to wool is plastic. The plastic is "ethical" because nobody has been asked to slaughter the polymer. The polymer also has not been asked. Doris, by being a sheep on a fell, is producing the most thoroughly sustainable performance fabric humans have ever made. Brian is selling it at a loss. The fashion industry, meanwhile, is selling petroleum at a profit and calling it ethical. Reject plastic. Wear wool. Doris is, this morning, growing next year's batch.

Activist: "Those sheep are being exploited for wool." Farmer: "They need shearing. Without it: heatstroke, fleece so heavy they can't stand, and fly strike. Flies lay eggs in wet wool. Maggots eat the sheep alive." Activist: "In nature they wouldn't need it." Farmer: "In nature they'd be dead. Domestic sheep aren't wild animals." Activist: "You bred them to be dependent on you." Farmer: "Yes. That's what domestication is. Ten thousand years of it." Activist: "It's still exploitation." Farmer: "They get relieved of ten pounds of wool that's killing them. We get wool. No petroleum. No microplastics in the waterways." Activist: "They can't consent." Farmer: "They also can't shear themselves." Activist: "You should let them be natural." Farmer: "You're wearing a North Face." Activist: "What?" Farmer: "Petroleum. Sheds microplastics every wash. Five hundred years in landfill." Activist: "That's different." Farmer: "There's a renewable, biodegradable fibre growing on that sheep right now. Needs removing or the animal suffers horribly." Activist: "Just let them keep their wool." Farmer: "I'll let you explain that to the sheep in August."