It saddens me when someone confuses success with loss of mission. After all don’t we all strive to do things like write books so we can reach more people? Please think this through. When someone is successful it advances our cause.

I can only guess that your comments come from being jealous that someone wants Beth to get a smidge of recognition for all of the hard work she does – for free on her own time and with her own money – to promote reducing plastic consumption. Winning this prize will teach her new skills so she can take her campaign to the next level and reach more people.

I’m sorry you can’t recognize that.
.-= Condo Blues´s last blog ..Ditching the Disposables – Furnace Filters =-.

And, btw Denisse, Beth won’t make much from a book . . . well, unless it gets picked up into a movie and even then. Trust me – very, very few people really make money from writing a book. I’ve been published from a major publisher and had a publisher-funded PR campaign, and you don’t make that much.

And blogging is hard work. It costs money to have your site hosted, it costs money if your site gets hacked and you need help, and there are significant opportunity costs for all the time spent researching and blogging. Beth has spent years working on the site.
.-= Jennifer Taggart, TheSmartMama´s last blog ..Why you need to stop using disposable plastic-how the ocean garbage patches will grow =-.

however, i still believe you are the most deserving, you got my vote and i hope you win.

i too wish there was a place for comments from voters. i would have gladly explained how much you have influenced my life, how your research continues to educate me, how your uphill but ever persistent fight daily inspires me to do more, how your solutions to avoid a plastic purchase have become a part of my life too. (right now i have your make-your-own-chocolate-syrup recipe out on my counter to whip up sometime this week.) also, a plastic-less package of 48 rolls of recycled toilet paper from Seventh Generation is waiting to be put away this morning. just two examples that come to mind as i type.

about negative commenting on environmental blogs, i’ve heard that some of these commenters are paid for their time for their efforts at negating the influence of blogs such as yours, inserting a level of doubt, or trying to influence with criticism. i’m not saying that’s the case here, but just something to keep in mind as we read comment sections on your blog and others.

thank you again for all you do.

Ditto to the above comments about your comment.

Sad to say you probably won’t be reading this, so I guess I am preaching to the choir.

I would ask you: If “selling out” by writing books and taking money for advertising makes one “dirty” and no longer able to give honest, ethical opinion, have you then sent Beth a check for the value you have received to date before she “sold out”? How else would she receive compensation for the hard work she has done? Staying small (and poor) serves no one and there is nothing ethical or spiritual about having little or no money.

Your judgement of what is, is what creates divisions / us & them / and ultimatly is the stuff wars are made of.

This has obvoiusly pushed one of my buttons, so I will sign off now and work on my own stuff about this. My hope is that you would do the same.

You really have a lot of nerve saying what you did to Beth. Do you have any idea how much time she puts into this blog and related plastic-education activities, for how little material recompense? This is basically a full-time job, in addition to her real job. Plus, since she goes without a certain number of conveniences others might take for granted (frozen dinners, canned cat food, a car) she has even less free time. She gets a token amount of money from advertising and the republication of her posts on other blogs, and she gets a few freebies — which she generally gives away to readers. In fact, if she wins the Deserves Changes prizes, she’ll probably give away half of them, and things like massages, well, she deserves those. To say that Beth has “sold out” is totally ridiculous; if she’s trying to make money off this cause, she’s doing it wrong. So, if you like, don’t read her blog anymore, because accumulating readers, while certainly gratifying, is not her main goal, any more than making a profit is; her aim is to get people to reduce their use of plastic. As long as you will do that, I don’t think she really cares what you think of her.