Here is an excerpt of an email I received from a convention that we have a good history with:

Is there an option to have shirts that are made of organic cotton or hemp? If so, how much more do they run?

Also, we are asking everyone involved with K**********n on any level to please provide us with information on what resources were used. We are trying to track everything as best as we can, so that afterwards we may offset the impact of our convention with the purchase of carbon credits. No other convention (that we know of) is following any environmental standard, and as responsible members of our community, being carbon neutral (or carbon negative) is what we're striving for. Hopefully through our actions, we can influence other conventions in our area to follow suit.

I am shocked at how this Ponzi-esque scheme of environmental indulgences designed to increase the Green in Al Gore and cronies' portfolios has impinged on my life and business. I may well have lost this convention with my response, but one must have principles:

As to resource information, it is akin to asking a vendor "How much didja make??"
I was an environmental studies major in college, and it really pains me to see such effort and money going to no effect. (Heck, we still compost!) Carbon credits are the Green equivalent of buying indulgences to get out of purgatory. I do not wish to line Al Gore's pockets, as many of the carbon credit "brokerages" are firmly linked to his finances. We use environmentally friendly chemicals where we can - if they do the job- and we are even coming out with a line of organic tees printed with water-based inks under our "Lifetees" banner (We could go water-based for your printing if you wish.). We strive to be good stewards of our planet....I have danced to several tunes, and followed many fads in my life. This is not one of them.

Please, please, someone explain in words of three syllables or less how paying protection money to Carbon Credit companies offers ANY benefit to the environment. It seems rather to be a semi-private-sector tax self-imposed to modify behavior, which may be the sole point, and I've sussed it out.

I am unconvinced that the current eco-movement has a clue, or the ability to keep more than one factor in mind at a time. Carbon is VITAL to life. We are carbon-based. Plants take evil carbon dioxide IN, and release oxygen into the atmosphere, which we carbon-based lifeforms breathe, exhaling CO2 for the plants, and the Wonder of Life goes on. The plants LIKE carbon dioxide. Vegetarians should like it, too, 'cos their zucchinis, and marrows, and alfalfa sprouts wouldn't BE without it.

Humankind is natural. We are a part of the environment, as is oil, as is uranium. All the environmental eeeeeee-vils come from the environment. People, another part of the environment, process the mineral wealth of our planet. We have made life on earth quite comfortable, at least in the West where we have bothered to learn the processes, rather than worship the rocks. Interesting, those in the West who seem inclined to worship the rocks would rather we return to a pre-industrial life. I do not personally care to poop in a chamber pot, or in a hole in the woods. (Ooooh, reductio ad absurdum!)

Really, though, I am loath to reveal my resource usage to anyone. It's hard enough to get enough ground bald eagle feathers for that perfect shade of ink...The shell of the spotted turtle is the perfect scoop for getting ink out of the buckets, and the compound eyes of the Hine's Emerald Dragonfly provide the perfect iridescence for some of our glitter inks. (Wow. If all this gets out, what would people think of me? )