Attacking "Green Business"

Forbes published an annoyingly shallow evaluation of "Green Business" "Feel Green, Feel Good" The frustrating thing here is not that they attack some of the hypocrisy inherent in eco-consumers behaviour, but rather that the author completely missed the point and showed a complete lack of understanding about the subject matter. Below is my letter to the editor:

I agree that there is a wealth of hypocrisy in many "green" consumers buying habits. William Baldwin is on target with his example of Ethos bottled water in "Feel Green, Feel Good". However, that was about the only logical argument made in the whole piece. Let's start with the easiest logic to disassemble: After giving up on a real analysis that would have proven truly interesting, Mr. Baldwin settles for "The hybrid's steep price tag is a signal that, directly or indirectly, it consumes a lot of the earth's resources.". That's it? that's his argument? isn't Forbes a financial magazine?, who's readers understand that the price of a good is a product of many factors including supply and demand (no environmental impact here..), perhaps a brand name premium (no environmental impact here..), as well as production cost(which may in fact have zero correlation with the environmental impact of the production process). If you buy into William Baldwins argument and want to protect the environment, never buy an original Van Gogh..or any land in Beverly Hills! Why?..just imagine the immense environmental degradation that must have gone into that big price tag!
Next up: Synthetic somatotropin. It increases a cows milk production potential. To reach that potential, you must feed that cow more of the right stuff ie. BST dependant cows make more milk, but they also eat and...digest more, perhaps creating more methane to go along with more milk. Additionally, increased milk production puts more stress on the cows thereby shortening their productive lifespan and increasing the incidence of infections of the udder. Environmentalism aside, figuring out the economic effectiveness of this product appears pretty complicated doesn't it? Making sense of the environmental impact of this is clearly difficult. I can see why he took the lazy way out and just made something up! But that's not journalism, if you don't know the half of it, do some research. How about Forbes gives their readers some credit and put a little effort into their arguments.