Wind turbines are the main focus of Hasting's wrath, but he sweeps up organic farming, Fairtrade and support for British producers in the wake of this attack. The shame is that in making a sensible case for a more considered approach to the complex challenges of global warming, global poverty, and sustainable production and consumption of food, he undermines his own argument by recycling the rigid dogma of those at the sceptical end of the spectrum.

It's not just environmentalism that generates "extravagant emotion and unreliable analysis": proponents of the status quo are at least as guilty. Claims that consumers are misled into paying extra for organic or Fairtrade products - of which only a small proportion is passed back to the producers - ignore the reality that such differentials are rapidly disappearing. These initiatives are moving further into the mainstream: yesterday Sainsbury's announced that all their bananas will be certified to Fairtrade standards in the coming months.

And the cost to consumers of this move, that will benefit impoverished farming communities by over £4m annually? Actually, nothing - Sainsbury's Fairtrade will cost the same as their ordinary bananas. This follows similar moves by Marks & Spencer on their tea and coffee ranges, with Fairtrade adopted as the standard that their customers expect at no extra cost.

Critics of Fairtrade also forget that our offer is, anyway, not about the proportion of the retail price retained by farmers but that, whatever you pay as a consumer, you can be assured that those at the other end of the supply chain received a fair price.

At least schemes like Fairtrade are acknowledged as having some value. Hastings accepts that they enable people to "make gestures which show that they care". Likewise, the Economist accedes that they "send a signal that there is an enormous appetite for change and widespread frustration that governments are not doing enough".

Precisely. That is why the Fairtrade Foundation campaigns with other NGOs through Make Poverty History and the Trade Justice Movement, which call for government action to fulfil the promises made to the developing world. Fairtrade plays an important role in making such "mind-numbing" topics visible.

Most people ask, in the face of the apparent inertia of our political systems, "what can I do?" This is not instead of government action but in addition to it. Their efforts deserve more than cheap sneers. Instead of Scrooge's refrain of "bah, humbug", wouldn't a cheer for the goodwill shown by the world's ethical shoppers be more appropriate?

· Ian Bretman is deputy director of the Fairtrade Foundation

media@fairtrade.org.uk