ok, so the political-rant was probably way overdue, or not! but i've got one for you.

i've been donating money to greenpeace for the past couple of years. it actually started out of coincidence, but i eventually thought that it was a good idea to donate money for the environment despite the fact that i've not always been in agreement with greenpeace's policies. i mean, i honestly think that the greenpeace hardcore defenders tend to get a bit too extreme to prove their point and rely on tactics we usually condemn about, say, the Bush administration. their stand against Kimberley-Clark (the makers of well-know brand of tissue Kleenex), though valid up to a certain point, sounds way too Axis of Evil for me.

anyhow. i got a call yesterday, very similar to the one last year where i was asked to up my monthly donation by 2$ (which is really no biggie, when you think about it). in return for my contribution i was offered a free greenpeace t-shirt. okay, let's do the math:

2 $ x 12 months = 24 $
price of the t-shirt as advertised on the website : 25 $

i asked the man on the phone how it was that greenpeace could manage to give me a free t-shirt with such a small increase in my contribution. doesn't it defeat the purpose? i also asked him how could i trust that the people who made the shirt were paid a decent wage (e.g. fair-trade) when i was getting the thing for free? it seems a bit too good of a deal.

also, how can a serious organisation offer their members merchandise they don't really need when one of their priorities is to make us aware of how overconsumption is harming the environment?

needless to say, i did not get much in the way of answers. poor guy really, he was probably a volunteer!

but, i did a bit of research. did not find out much about the t-shirts, aside from the fact that some of their campaign have been done in partnership with t-shirt making company that claims to be fair-trade and organic. so that's good.

my reflexion is : cotton farming has disatrous effects on the environment, mostly because of the use of pesticides and other chemicals. organic cotton farming of course counters that problem. but, it still does not justify the fact that greenpeace openly encourages it's members to consume things they don't need / care for that has a detrimental effect on the land.

more t-shirts
= more tree cut down to create land on which to cultivate cotton
= more landfill when said t-shirt is worn-down or no longer in fashion.

an alternative could to part of this problem could be to use recycle cotton? can that be done?

or, as a colleague of mine suggested, stop using kleenexes (as suggested in the Kleercut.net website) and use the t-shirt instead!

anyways, enough sillynest, i've been thinking since being prompted with the same offer last to actually donate my couple of bucks elsewhere. i'm still debating on the issue though and the more i'll read about the topic, hopefully, the more i'll be able to make up my mind about it.