The fashion statement that's older than Canada itself is being rebranded as an environmentally responsible choice, but not everyone's buying it.

Henri Bendel recently went fur-free. There isn't a rabbit-trimmed toque or mink bagatelle to be found at the Fifth Avenue department store. The decision was the initiative of Bendel's parent company, Limited Brands (which also owns Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works and five others), making the $10-billion company entirely fur-free.

CANADA: I am starting to warm to this whole climate change business. Arrived in Vancouver for a night just before 2007 drew to a close. With barely a few hours remaining before the stores closed, I raced out and bought a fur coat. A long coat cascading down to my ankles, light as a feather and as warm as a ... well ... fur.

• Renewable
• Reusable
• Durable
• Biodegradable, non-toxic
• Energy-efficient

Hippyshopper
From Dani, a blogger at Hippyshopper.comHas no one @ Hippyshopper thought through the green side of fur? I mean, I totally get the 'killing cute little animals' I mean, I don't think that I personally could kill an animal physically, but that is because I have been wrapped in cotton wool all my life. But less of the social implications of living in a western society and more on the fur.

I have to admit, for a long while, I always thought fur was bad because I was told it was bad. In fact, one of the most enduring memories I have about fur is from my childhood. I went to a jumble sale (anyone remember those?) and fell in love with this fur collar from a winter coat. It was just the collar, no coat with it. I bought it with my pocket money, and I remember hiding it under my dress (i wasn't supposed to buy anything) Anyway, I don't think my mum knew about it since it was ages after that she found it. It had been living in my doll box, and mum had come upstairs to play with me. Of course she found the fur collar. Well, I remember being yelled at. How the fur was dirty because it had come off an animal. How the animal had been murdered. She showed my pictures from my story books, and asked me if I liked wearing Wally the Witty Weasel, or if I wanted to eat Marys little lamb. My mum burned the collar in the garden. Since then, I had NEVER questioned what I had been told to believe. (On a side note, I also attribute this event to the reason I started eating meat)

It wasn't until I visited Russia a few years back that I became aware of the true environmentally ethical side of fur and that I realised that I had been wrong. Yes, animals are trapped, but not in some barbaric, torture, cruel way. But not only that, but I saw first hand the ruin and devastation the oil industry cause. It honestly made me think. I have loved fur ever since I was little, and I had thought I had been doing the right thing by buying synthetic. Synthetic means oil. Synthetic is not biodegradable.

I don't think I could EVER buy a fur from an animal from a battery, the same way I could never buy an egg from a battery hen, but at the same time, I would and most likely will buy a fur from small traders that actually use fur trading for their lively hood. They are the ones that know how to treat the animals and they are the ones that will go off into the forest mid summer and not return for many months, living off the land, and producing a carbon footprint so small that I probably have used the same amount in the time it has taken me to write this message using a laptop.

Fur has its pros and cons. It is most definitely not a black and white argument!