Google “North Face tent” and you’ll probably find this tent, the Kaiju.
It’s made of polyester, as are many North Face products.
Polyester is made from petroleum.
Polyester is a synthetic fiber derived from coal, air, water, and petroleum. Developed in a 20th-century laboratory, polyester fibers are formed from a chemical reaction between an acid and alcohol. In this reaction, two or more molecules combine to make a large molecule whose structure repeats throughout its length. Polyester fibers can form very iong molecules that are very stable and strong.
Polyester is used in the manufacture of many products, including clothing, home furnishings, industrial fabrics, computer and recording tapes, and electrical insulation. Polyester has several advantages over traditional fabrics such as cotton. It does not absorb moisture, but does absorb oil; this quality makes polyester the perfect fabric for the application of water-, soil-, and fire-resistant finishes. Its low absorbency also makes it naturally resistant to stains. Polyester clothing can be preshrunk in the finishing process, and thereafter the fabric resists shrinking and will not stretch out of shape. The fabric is easily dyeable, and not damaged by mildew. Textured polyester fibers are an effective, nonallergenic insulator, so the material is used for filling pillows, quilting, outerwear, and sleeping bags.
And tents. Polyester is useful and it’s everywhere, in thousands of products we wear every single day. And The North Face sells a lot of polyester.
None of this stopped The North Face from virtue signaling at a Texas oil company.
ODESSA, Texas (KOSA) – Innovex Downhole Solutions says it was recently denied an order of jackets by The North Face, a popular outdoor recreation company because they are in the oil and gas business.
What happened?
Each year, the company gets a Christmas gift for its employees. This year, it was supposed to be a North Face jacket with an Innovex logo, a company Innovex has ordered gear from in the past.
The company providing the jackets said The North Face doesn’t want to support the oil and gas industry in the same way they’d reject the porn industry or tobacco industry.
“They told us we did not meet their brand standards,” Anderson said. “We were separately informed that what that really meant is was that we were an oil and gas company.”
Simply put, The North Face would not exist or stay in business without petroleum — oil and gas.
The outdoor activities the company promotes require travel in most cases, and air travel in many.
That also requires oil and gas.
Head over to the North Face website and search “polyester” and see what comes back.
Dozens of products come up, all of them made with polyester: shirts, hats, gloves, jackets, all made from the very petroleum North Face says is so terrible.
Many of The North Face’s products that don’t include polyester do include nylon.
Guess what, it’s petroleum-based too.
The North Face sells many products that include nylon.
So The North Face is against oil and gas companies, but makes a great deal of money selling products that depend on oil and gas to exist?
Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) was having none of it.
The North Face refusing to sell products to a West Texas oil and gas company because they are an oil and gas company, is *almost* unbelievable.https://t.co/og0qtqidOf
— August Pfluger (@AugustPfluger) December 12, 2020
Likewise Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas).
Ah yes, North Face, who is fully divested from oil and gas except for….. their supply chain, synthetic petroleum-based clothing materials, transportation, retail stores, and manufacturing.
Virtue signaling is exhausting.
Stop it.https://t.co/YERVrsU96d
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) December 12, 2020
Innovex CEO Adam Anderson responded well, releasing this four-page letter explaining how oil and gas benefit the world: longer lifespans, greater freedom of movement, literally thousands of products made from petroleum that we depend on, including medical technology, and so much more we take for granted every day. That smartphone the North Face staff use to text each other how virtuous they are? That was made with plastics made from petroleum. The computers they use to track their products — were also made with petroleum. They’re all probably completely wrapped in petroleum products every day, they’re just not aware of it.
The North Face exhibits both intolerance and hypocrisy here, not to mention ignorance of how the modern economy works. They’re also an example of why it’s becoming harder just to live in this country in peace at the moment. The North Face politicizes literally everything, right down to the shirt on your back and the tent over your head, and it needs to stop if our union is to survive.
The energy industry, including of course oil and gas, is miles behind the public communications game. The Green New Self-Dealers have the branding down pat (with constant assists from the media) and have convinced millions that the energy companies that light their world and keep them warm in the winter are bad. The reality is, cheap, reliable, and abundant energy lifts billions out of poverty. It makes modern life possible. For the United States, it provides economic and national security, which is the backdrop required for private industry to thrive. At this point, there is no more efficient and reliable energy source than oil and gas. Everything else is playing catch-up and will be for years to come.
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