how green is your cell phone?

received the following today..



A note from Ronnie Cummins
Executive Director Organic Consumers Association:

Dear medea,

I am writing you today to share an important opportunity to join our close allies at Working Assets. As you know, the Organic Consumers Association rarely makes appeals like this and we value your continued support.

Over the years, we've partnered with our Working Assets, the progressive telephone company, on many projects: getting the vote out, stopping the telecom takeover, and promoting organic food and farming. Working Assets has also been a major supporter of the Organic Consumers Association, with their members having contributed close to $150,000 over the years.

Working Assets Wireless is now CREDO Mobile. CREDO Mobile donates a part of your monthly charges to progressive nonprofits, like the Organic Consumers Association, and makes it easy for you to raise your voice on the most important issues of our times. CREDO helps you "Break the Chains" by supporting a truly green and progressive phone company.

Warmly,

Ronnie Cummins

That's probably a point in my favor at least. ;)

(It also only sends and receives voice calls and text messages. No camera, no GPS, no doing my laundry, no latent telekinesis, etc. I want to fit a rotary dial on it to make it more oldschool.)

and DISPOSABLE electronics??? Gadgets people throw out every year and a half to two years and replace with newer, more whizbang, more status-conferring gadgets??? "Green" people with iPhones - whatta joke!

...so I'll have to pass.

is that the gun-control lobby you're speaking of?

I was referring to the Brady Campaign.

am curious?

and i don't really care.

:shrug:

i've had the same no-frills pre-paid cellphone for over a year...i put $140 worth of minutes on it in february- and i still have $68 left. that should tell you how often i use it.

And Credo is VERY expensive - something like 45 cents a minute. I think they also require a one or two year *contract*, which is one of the traps used by the other phone companies.

Has anyone actually gotten any information on exactly how much this group gives to progressive groups? Let's see a little bit of transparency from these supposed green companies, before they ask us to give. And oh yeah, drop the *contract*, and offer cheaper rates and I might consider giving it a try. :eyes:

CREDO Mobile is in fact the greenest mobile phone company in the nation-and our customers stand up for their beliefs with every call they make.

A portion of every CREDO member's monthly bill is dedicated to supporting effective nonprofits. Over our 20-year history, we've donated $60 million to progressive organizations such as Greenpeace, Planned Parenthood, Defenders of Wildlife, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Wilderness Watch.

We also organize our community of members and activist friends as a grassroots lobby to preserve our environment-and we've won significant victories in recent years on stopping new coal-fired power plants, achieving higher national fuel standards, renewing tax credits for wind and solar power, and enacting bans on toxic chemicals.

We walk the walk when it comes to environmental impact: we've given grants to plant nearly 2.5 million trees since our business started; the carbon emissions of all our operations are offset through carbonfund.org; and we're currently striving to be the first mobile company to introduce a phone into the market made of more than 98% recycled parts.

Our strong environmental record stands in sharp contrast to some of our competitors-such as AT&T®, whose political committee "maxed out" contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign twice and thus helped elect and prolong one of the most anti-environmental administrations in our nation's history.

I think I would have high blood pressure if I had a cellphone.