What we feed our pets has a considerable impact on the planet. Our Bluedot Kitchen staffer (and star of Cleo’s Clean Cooking videos) wanted to reduce her cat Oscar’s carbon pawprint. So she invited her feline friend to test out some planet-friendly options. Which one did the always hungry but notoriously picky eater choose? Take a look!

Dear Dot,
I wear a lot of cashmere in the winter. Wool makes my neck itch. I’ve noticed that in recent years, I can buy it much more cheaply. But I got to wondering why, when everything else seems more expensive, cashmere has become less.

–Jane, Hermosa Beach, CA

Dear Jane,
You are not the only one who has noticed that while the price of almost everything has gone through the roof, the cost of cashmere has become surprisingly affordable. On the one hand, yay! Even those of us without fat bank accounts can indulge our love of luxury. But, as is often the case with cheap fashion, is the price being borne by someone else? Or by the planet itself?

I took your cashmere query to Derek Guy, a fashion writer with Die, Workwear. I discovered Guy on Twitter where he laid out the crazy environmental story around cashmere. It is basically this: 

Cashmere has historically been expensive because it comes from cashmere goats, who are found in Mongolia, China, and parts of Afghanistan. These goats, incidentally, are adorable. 

But they each produce only about two hundred grams of cashmere wool annually. Compare that to a sheep, which can produce three kilograms of wool. What’s more, while sheep are sheared, goats are brushed to extract the soft downy undercoat that makes cashmere so lovely. This is done once a year in the springtime. Consequently, Guy explained, it can require the yield of five to ten goats to produce enough for one sweater and considerable human labor. All of which adds up to an expensive product.

Or did …

Read the rest of Dot’s answer — and find out what to look for in second-hand cashmere.