Ethical and eco-friendly gift ideas

• howard mcsweeney1

  • Location: Dover
  • Registered: 12 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 62,352
  2 December 2011     13:13140382
  #1      
  look away now philip this is not for you.
  
  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/christmas-gift-ideas/8884491/Christmas-presents-under-60-ethical-and-eco-friendly.html
• Guest 725

  • Registered: 7 Oct 2011
  • Posts: 1,418
  2 December 2011     13:42140388
  #2      
  Ah yes perfect gifts for Tarquin and Arabella they will be pleased. Mummy and Daddy always finish off the day with a bedtime story about the bloody death of those nice little polar bears and explain to them that Mummy, Daddy and all the little children in the world are going to be washed away by a giant flood which will hurt them tremendously and cause pain and little teddy won't be alive anymore blah, blah, blah........
  
  Fair trade eh? Riiight where at most those poor, starving villagers might be lucky to see 3% of the profits.
  
  Anyhow I can better that one Howard. Here's one for the little darlings. All they do is click on any of the presents listed and by choosing one of the special eco-gifts they can feel like they too have made a difference:
  
  http://www.wherewillsantalive.ca/#page=0
  
  Copy and paste the link I can't make it a shortcut.
• Bern

  • Location: Dover
  2 December 2011     13:53140392
  #3      
  Perhaps, relatively, 3% of something is better than F..All.
• Guest 725

  • Registered: 7 Oct 2011
  • Posts: 1,418
  2 December 2011     14:08140404
  #4      
  Not really Bern. Everyone knows that fairtrade is merely a front by big corporations employed as a very clever marketing tool in order to attract the gullible to their products. Farmers and other slave labourers would far rather see all the profits for their labours going exactly where it belongs - with those producers rather than those fake charities who purport to be "helping them".
  EU tarrifs don't help either. They manage to kill off enterprise in places like Africa which goes some way to explain why Africa is so poor.
  I say bypass this fairtrade nonsense and give the Africans and other poor workers and entrepreneurs a level playing field.
  Oh and stop indoctrinating our children with endless stories about how doomed the planet is. It only gives the poor bleeders nightmares.
• Bern

  • Location: Dover
  2 December 2011     14:54140418
  #5      
  EU tariffs, absolutely. But I question your evidence for the total denigration of Fair Trade. First, it would be nice to think profits, if allowed to do their own thing, would naturally migrate to the workers, but that does not happen. It takes someone/thing to channel the profits and in many developing countries the only ones who might have done that, the governments, are corrupt and inexperienced. Therefore it needs another body to do it. It also achioeves more than just channeling profits, it keeps poverty on the radar and offers a measure of employment protection for the workers, which would not otherwise happen. And be careful of the words you bandy about. There are indeed charlatans, or fake charities, about and they need to be weeded out. But there are many many charities that do what they say on the tin, literally.
• howard mcsweeney1

  • Location: Dover
  • Registered: 12 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 62,352
  2 December 2011     16:30140438
  #6      
  i will not bother in future with this fair trade thing, 3% is about the same figure as the foot painters get out of the christmas card profits.
  
  i think i was posh barry that got it all started on here.
• Guest 698

  • Registered: 28 May 2010
  • Posts: 8,664
  2 December 2011     16:41140446
  #7      
  Fair-trade is like most other forms of overseas aid: a transfer of wealth from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
  I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
• Bern

  • Location: Dover
  2 December 2011     18:37140482
  #8      
  What, realistically, is the alternative given those developing country governments? That is a bit like saying we should stop the rich eating if they let the poor have their crumbs. Without the crumbs the poor will have nothing and the rich will just eat elsewhere. And in the meantime we address the politics of the thing.
• Guest 649

  • Registered: 12 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 14,118
  3 December 2011     08:36140613
  #9      
  I do not like the fair trade chocolate.