7gen Bloc

I truly appreciate your leadership in the environmental movement, which includes sound business practices and the goal of providing healthy household products, and now includes caring for the poor in a bold way. Thank you.

One of my favorite ways of helping those in Developing Countries is through the Fair Trade Movement, I don't know if there is some aspect to your company that could utilize Fair Trade Co-ops? This too could be a wonderful way to build environmental and economic foundations for the Developing World.

P.S. I just did a review of your Automatic Dishwashing Gel on my blog Natural Cleaning Product Reviews at www.greenkeen.blogspot.com Hope you appreciate my attempt to review this product fairly and independently.

Green Keen a.k.a. Pamela Palmer

Would you accept say, a 5% return on your savings, rather than 6% in order to help the people you refer to in your article? If the answer is yes, then pledge a % of your net assets, your wealth, rather than your income. I think you will find this is a substantially larger amount each year so it will help more people and it's from that pot of money that you "don't really need ...."

After all, a wise person once told us to put our treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is, your heart will follow.......

I'm trying to challenge myself to do the same thing. Try donating 1% of WEALTH this year, 2% next year, and so on.

Hard to do, but after we do it, I think we will be glad we did.

Dear Readers: I am strongly in favor of doing what we can for our communities, neighbors, and our nation. It is a noble endeavor, and one that all Christians are charged to do. What I am unconvinced about is the wisdom of metalling in the affairs of other nations. We have plenty of starving, abused, and neglected children, adults, and animals right out our back door. We are overlooking our own people to send food and supplies etc. to nations who need to be helping themselves. Many of the sick children we "save" are simply going to live to reproduce ad infinitum. Later even more children will be suffering, starving, dying. Jesus said: "The poor will be with you ALWAYS". What is it about that statement that we don't understand? If we want to help other nations, we need to send scientists and teachers who are versed in ecologically sound principles and birth control. We need to teach these nations: #1. How to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and #2. How to use their climate, native plants, and natural resources in the most reverent, and ecologically sound way. Otherwise, we are just geometrically multiplying future problems.

Allowing more children to survive to adulthood and reproduce without the means to feed and take care of their astronomically increasing numbers is boardering on criminally insane.....I've seen the literature to help provide goats, and cattle etc. to these starving nations (are goats indigenous to this nation? If they escape will they destroy what is left of the native vegetation and cause even more death and suffering?). We are rushing to "fix it" NOW with little forethought to future consequences? Are we sending money and help out of a sense of guilt or smug self-serving motives? How are we helping if we give them non-native, invasive plants and animals that could potentially escape and destroy their native species? For example: the dangerous, huge, exotic constrictors that are rapidly taking over the Southern swamp lands in the US? (ps Because we Americans, of frivilous wretched excess, wanted boa constrictors for pets. Duh. These things get to be 20 feet long....We also didn't have enough forsight to assess the potential for hurricanes to destroy pet stores and release these rapidly reproducing snakes into what heretofore was a relatively safe swamp for humans to visit, or live near. Guys, these snakes eat people! That lesson (along with rabbits in Austrailia, and Starlings and kudzu in America) should have been well learned by now. Lack of informed decisions, and "Good intentions" pave the road to Hell (literally and figuratively). I'm convienced that feeding and saving people should come attached to the responsibility of these saved people to limit their reproduction, and include education about the consequences of their harvesting of native plants and animals. Their impact on their immediate environment is, in effect, potentially massive impact on the Global environment and climate change.

Unlimited population increase is the World's problem.
Are we so blind to our own countries needy? Are we so manipulated by well-meaning celebrities that we will donate money, food and medicine that will ultimately contribute to increasing the human suffering and environmental chaos that has already begun?

I agree with the post by bkitch02. This past week I was struck by the passage "The poor will be with you ALWAYS". In our very small rural town, a young man of 25 just died of pneumonia last week. He had lost his job, had no place to live, and spent all of this winter in an abandoned house with no windows or heat (it was an exceptionally brutal winter here). When I read about this young man's death to my teenage son, my son mentioned that he knew of this young man and had given him some money once for food. I was totally unaware of this young man, or the fact that our very small rural town had someone homeless. I have felt absolutely horrible this past week that I/someone did not know to help. I too lost my job last year due to "offshoring" and I am now working two jobs to help make up for my lost salary and benefits -- I am lucky that I am not homeless. But I think people should be aware that joblessness and homelessness in this country is going to increase before the economy is revived.

I think bkitch was vaguely referring to charities such as Heifer International that provide poor families with the means to improve their lives. A couple points:
First, Heifer International works abroad and at home; it has programs in 27 states, mostly related to community gardens and the like, to help poor families in America.
Second, Heifer International matches the type of animal to the family and the region. African cows in Africa, llamas in the Andes, etc. And they teach the families sustainable ways to manage their animals, avoid overgrazing, etc.
It has nothing to do with escaped snakes in the South!

There is a film that challenges the overall impact of aid to impoverished nations...not that aid is not good...but the question is where does it actually go? It might be worth contemplating. Take a look:

www.whatarewedoinghere.net

I am not sure why it is that "the poor will always be with you". Maybe the Jesus who said that knew that human greed would always outweigh the charity or desire to end the poverty.

I agree there are many in our own country who are hungry and going without descent food and health care. That is an abomination and needs to be rectified, however, to this day, I have never seen hordes of men, women and children starving and emaciated like those in the countries these organizations are trying to help. How can we as fellow humans not attempt to make a difference? How is it possible to turn your head, because we have deficits here?

I am shamed because I too do not do enough, even though I struggle to take care of my own.

Do not be so quick to rely on a statement from the Bible to let us off the hook, to allow us to turn our heads at the suffering of fellow humans because they are far away in distant lands, or because they don't meet your standards. It is so easy to stand back and tsk tsk because they have the audacity to reproduce, to condemn or judge those who you could not even begin to imagine what is like to walk in their shoes, (if they even have shoes).

Suffering abounds, but what is important is how we react to the suffering. We may not be able to save the world, but we sure could put forth greater effort.

Interesting that you were giving 1%. With an income that I'm sure is far less than yours, we've been giving about 4% to charity for years. I admire all that you've given through your company, educating others, creating a business movement. I'm just surprised by the 1%, is all.

Thanks, that’s an interesting idea. I have one restraint that makes it difficult – 95% plus of my assets are totally illiquid. Between real estate (my home) and my investment in Seventh Generation – donating 1% of my wealth would wipe out my limited liquidity. But I do like the concept!

The extremely large elephant in every room is human overpopulation, and feeding starving hordes does nothing to solve that problem. It makes it worse. Without reproductive control, we are doomed. Sending money to Africa to vaccinate children may make you feel good, but it does nothing for the future of our tiny, abused planet. We must reduce our numbers, whether my fellow environmentalists have the courage to face it or not. Send money to the third world for sterilization programs if you want to make a difference in future suffering.

I agree that overpopulation is a major problem facing the planet. Still, all those starving, sick children are people too. From a distance, it's easy to say that if we saved them, we'd be contributing to overpopulation. But what if it was your child?

Instead of washing your hands of the matter, how about supporting organizations that teach third-world farmers sustainable farming practices (following the "give a man a fish" philosophy) or provide education to women and girls (which is the best way to decrease family size)? With your money, you can choose to support organizations (local or global) that address whichever issue you feel is most important in a way that you feel is appropriate.

Personally, we are aiming to tithe (give 10%, although we're only at around 8% now). Much of that goes to our church (which then distributes some of our money to local and global organizations), but we also contribute to a variety of other global nonprofits. I always check out a charity's report on give.org and read through its website to make sure that it supports causes I believe in and spends its money wisely.

Finally, I agree with greenkeen that supporting Fair Trade products is also helpful. Giving families a decent wage allows them to educate their children, which usually leads to decreased family sizes (addressing the overpopulation problem).