Ecologist: If shopping is America's national religion, then asking consumers to put their wallets away on Black Friday is pretty close to heresy. But that's exactly what outdoor-apparel company Patagonia did in 2011, though, taking out a full page ad in the New York Times that implored shoppers not to buy its top-selling R2 fleece jacket.
Mindless consumption, even of a part-recycled and recyclable jacket such as the R2, is bad for the planet, the ad warned. "As is true of all the things we can make ......