Shears

Shears are a planned tool mentioned by Jeb on Twitter and that will be included in version 1.8. It will be able to quickly remove wool blocks, and will be the only reasonable way to get wool from sheep. Shears will also be a legitimate way of obtaining placeable leaf blocks (which may be used for garden decoration like hedges).

Shears were included in a mod by gilgatex but not yet updated to the latest version.