Online-only Letters

Green Fashion Week

Consumption: a threat to environment

Editor, The Times:

I have a hard time understanding how high-fashion runway shows and shopping parties that illustrate "a connection between luxury and being green" are "saving the environment" ["Seattle's first Green Fashion Week: Hip clothes take the 'eek' out of ecoconscious," Northwest Living, Sept. 28]. Aren't these events designed to create desire for excess goods that will be replaced next year when new trends make them obsolete?

The biggest environmental threat from clothing is how much we consume. I reckon anyone who drops $295 on a pair of jeans because they "look like everything else, but are also green and organic" is augmenting a wardrobe that's already overstuffed.

As a sucker for style I often shop when I know I shouldn't, but even Green Fashion Week can't fool me into thinking that another pair of pants will be good for the planet, whether they're made of organic cotton or not.

When you already have more than you need, "buying green" is not environmentally responsible. What is? Not buying at all.

— Keneta Anderson, Greenwater

Iraq troops withdrawal

Let's do what we can

I am writing about the article concerning the troop withdrawals from Iraq published Sept. 14.

The withdrawal of 5,700 troops by the winter holidays is not enough. ["The lesser of two catastrophes," Ellen Goodman, syndicated column, Sept. 14]. We need to bring the 30,000 troops scheduled for withdrawal by the summer back to their families for Christmas.

Gen. Petraeus is right in thinking that further withdrawals would be impossible, because we must finish what was started. But the troops that can be returned need to come home as soon as possible. Since the troop surge in January, there have been more civilian casualties and U.S. military deaths then ever before. Bring the troops home!

— Luke Willits, Kirkland

Roads and transit plan

Public to sponsor global warming

King County Executive Ron Sims exerted courage and leadership beyond the pale by speaking out against the Proposition 1 ballot measure ["The roads-and-transit plan: so much cost to do so little," guest column, Sept. 27]. It's an unpleasant fact that needs to be acknowledged: Our political establishment took its eye off the ball when creating this rail-and-highway package.

Scientists say urban regions like ours must reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 80 percent to avoid drastic climate change, but this measure invites us to swallow the largest tax increase in state history for a plan that will increase emissions.

Sims refuses to turn a blind eye to the No. 1 threat to our planet. We should, too, by rejecting Proposition 1. We should demand a plan that builds light rail, implements congestion pricing to reduce traffic on existing roads, and spends not one dime of tax money on new highway lanes.

— Kevin Fullerton, Seattle