Slate's Green Lantern column yesterday tackled the question of the relative e-friendliness of purchasing a wool sweater vs. a cotton t-shirt [1]. His coverage is just as relevant to the question of yarn. He glosses over a lot, but this piece is a great example of how pondering such questions is pretty much guaranteed to make your head spin.

Two things that jumped out at me right away: He doesn't really mention how organically raised and processed fibers rate. He also seems to assume that wool garments need to be dry-cleaned. Those of us who understand wool know that a gentle hand-washing is fine, and has a far lower environmental impact than must-drive-to, chemical-driven dry cleaning. A bonus third thing that jumped out at me: I had never considered the methane factor of sheep-raising, and also didn't know they still only produce 10% of bovine emissions.

Just a glimpse of my pre-coffee morning reading today. Happy Wednesday!