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Originally Posted by MelBridgeman
Using money to advance green technologies? I need to answer that?
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This is foolishness. There are LOTS of NGOs that collect funds to do public awareness/education and political lobbying. On all sorts of issues. And this is because the government can do so much more than what the organization can do on its own. Environmental groups are far better off educating and lobbying because the research costs are so high that it requires government involvement.
Same with "Make Poverty History". They are better off with awareness campaigns like this:
Than if they took the paltry amount that they have and gave it to the poor. The problems are so big they REQUIRE government involvement.
You may think Greenpeace's $300 million is lots of money. The U.S. alone pays over 90x that amount ($29,300,000,000) on AIDS research. Governments have FAR more resources at their disposal than NGOs.
There are two basic types of NGOs: "Operational NGOs" and "Advocacy NGOs". There are subcategories but those are the two basic. Some are hybrids. (And Greenpeace, which does have their own science lab at Exeter University could be considered a hybrid). But Advocacy NGOs like Amnesty are for awareness and lobbying, not for direct action. It's like an advocacy NGO that is campaigning for less potholes - perhaps their money should go to filling in the potholes themselves. Or perhaps they think their best bet is to spend the money on drumming up support so that the politicians will spend government resources to take action on the problem.