> That conveniently ignores the drilling, extracting, transporting, refining, and transporting again to make "polyethylene resin".

It also ignores the energy requirements to grow the cotton. This isn't the gotcha you think it is.

The energy requirements for growing cotton being largely the sun, and a resource which makes up most of the universe (yes, I know water is several steps from hydrogen). ((And the tangentials like the fertilizers, dieslel etc.))

Compared to the energy requirements of petroleum based products: Incredible density and pressure acting on sufficient organic matter(thousands of times greater than growing cotton), on millenium time scales, then requiring several incredibly expensive and commoditization refining/distribution practices, and the end product is then ceremoniously burned off as poison or discarded into the aether.

It is 100 percent the "gotcha OP thought it is". However I do see/realize the fallacy you're pointing out in that the lesser of two evils is still evil.