Greenpeace Complains Game Consoles Aren't Green Enough 450
jasoncart writes "None of the major games consoles are 'green enough', says environmental group Greenpeace in a report released today. Zeina Al-Hajj, Greenpeace's International Toxic Campaign co-ordinator, said: "We were shocked with Nintendo; it was our biggest surprise." The company is described by the group as the least 'green' tech firm."
Who Cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just out of curiousity... (Score:1, Insightful)
Greenpeace is great at offering criticism, just not solutions, and solutions are what the world actually needs.
Yeah yeah, no environmental policy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see, what's on the news today? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hybrids are in the news? Not green enough - Their batteries kill the planet!
The Westminster dog show is on? Dogs aren't green enough! Their pee kills grass!
How much impact will this have? (Score:4, Insightful)
While you may think about saving the planet, you won't be thinking about the one Greenpeace wants you to think about saving.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sigh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Greenpeace has every right to whine and bitch and express themselves. But slashdot is giving them a voice every time they chose to whine and bitch about a technology company and that's annoying.
Free speech is glorious but it doesn't give the individuals the right to be heard.
But then, it gets us whining and bitching which fuels the community so there's what slashdot gets out of it in a nutshell. I suppose it's a case of don't feed the trolls. It would be a nice fairy tale if, the next time the editors post a story about greenpeace, NOT A SINGLE PERSON COMMENTS.
Alas, I'm dreaming.
Just Picking the "hippest" target (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a bit of a fallacy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, asking those bastards their opinion about any electronics is pointless. They won't be happy until it runs on fairy dust (harvested from free-range fairies, of course).
Greenpeace is a great example of one of the environmental organizations that give environmentalism its freaky leftist reputation. The environment is not a left or right issue; we all live here, we all should care.
But having an organization who honestly believes we should abandon most aspects of our current technological society in order to be more in tune with the planet polarizes the issue, and drives more moderate people away.
This is a great example, along with all the rest of their consumer electronics whinging lately. That stuff is minor league in terms of global pollution problems, but they know that they have a better chance of getting the boomers to protest apple or microsoft than they do of persuading them to give up their hummers.
Re:Green ?! Jesus, they are not SAFE enough (Score:4, Insightful)
"Green"? (Score:1, Insightful)
If the console works, you get fun out it - and you can afford to pay the electricity bill, does it really matter at all wtf Greenpeace report?
Re:Who Cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and? (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, I could never take these guys seriously anyways. They aren't interested to solutions or working within the economic reality of the planet, they seem to want to end the industrial revolution and have everyone go back to farming. Nuclear power, nope. Working with companies to make an imperfect process better, while letting it remain imperfect, nope can't do that rather continue to yell at them from over here rather than work with them. It's all or none.
Nature conservancy is an example of a environmental group actually making a real difference. Green peace is a bunch of self important attention whores.
Re:Yeah yeah, no environmental policy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sigh.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Propaganda is not useless, and this particular propaganda is definitely not useless. Environmental concerns are very real, and bringing attention to them serves a useful purpose. By making consumers aware of environmental concerns with products, consumers may factor them into their purchase decisions. Without information about environmental practices, there is no way for purchasers to compare products along those lines.
So I ask you, why is it useless for purchasers to have more information when purchasing a product?
Note that this doesn't mean that Greenpeace doesn't use misleading information, which while not useless is detrimental. But Greenpeace uses publicity campaigns in order to affect the decisions made by consumers... and there is nothing wrong with that. In my opinion, it is a useful counter to the corporate propaganda (advertising/marketing) that runs practically unchecked.
All that said, one would be wise to take any information from an interested party with a grain of salt. Whether it's Greenpeace, industry organizations, or the producing company itself, critical analysis always helps... but dismissing information out-of-hand is probably the most useless act to take with regards to market choices.
Re:What's so hard about re-usable materials? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Power consumption, my friends (Score:4, Insightful)
*Doesn't this make the Wii the greenest? OK, so it may not be the easiest to recycle, but it's an order of magnitude better on power consumption!*
Not only that, but from a physical perspective the Wii is far smaller than the PS3 or 360 and has a lower component count. It follows logically that it requires far less toxic soup to manufacture and the process consumes less energy. I suspect that a much larger percentage of Wiis are being used with old standard definition TVs, too (since the Wii tops out at 480p). Those older CRTs draw more power, although one doesn't have to factor in the environmental cost of manufacturing a new flat panel. And, honestly, recycling is a moot point in most of North America - we have a very immature electronics recycling industry.
Greenpeace? BAH (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Sigh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How much fuel ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Next time Greenpeace goes chasing whalers, grab an oar.
PAH! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
After the Apple issue, I will no longer listen to these zealots on anything regarding electronic technology.
Once a liar, always a liar.
Re:Let's see, what's on the news today? (Score:3, Insightful)
A word to Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, Greenpeace is almost completely irrelevant as an organization, and have lost pretty much all of their credibility. They oppose everything, and offer very few practical solutions to the world's ills, whilst continuing to decry virtually anything fashionable or popular.
As a result of their anti-nuclear tactics, construction of new nuclear plants stopped, and a great many coal plants were constructed instead, which had a far more hazardous effect on the environment as a whole. Heck.... wildlife in the areas around Chernobyl are doing quite well thanks to the complete lack of human activity in the area.
Instead of encouraging us to all drive electric cars, the enviromentalists should have been promoting hybrids as a reasonably practical segue into developing electric cars. Now that hybrids have been proven to be practical and effective, companies are turning their attention to plug-in hybrids and true EVs.
Instead of demanding full and widespread adoption of wind and solar power, they should have been encouraging experiments with small-scale wind and solar farms, as well as more R&D into those two technologies. Small wind farms have slowly proven to be practical and economical in certain areas, and if NanoSolar can keep true to their word on production costs, we should be seeing solar panels being printed onto every exterior surface imaginable over the next few years.
The thing is....you can't force a revolution. GreenPeace need to learn that they might actually have a chance of achieving their goals by lightly prodding industry and consumers in the right direction.
Instead of proclaiming "GAMES, NINTENDO EVIL," perhaps they could instead publish a headline such as "Greenpeace study finds that Nintendo could drastically cut landfill waste by using biodegradable hemp-based plastics for just $0.02USD per unit"
Perhaps that's a bit of a mouthful, but it's a lot more likely to provoke a response from the public: "Hey, why don't they do that? Sounds awfully selfish of them not to," and a resoponse from the company: "Hey, why don't we do this? It'll help us improve our image, and won't cost much"
Re:The real enemy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
Terrorism is when you set off car bombs (or arguable, drop cluster bombs in residential areas). Publishing a report on the sue of toxic materials in home entertainment systems is not 'terrorism', in fact its responsible oversight of corporations that should be the governments job.
But hey, if you are so blinkered as to swallow the republican parties attempts to smear green groups as terrorists, maybe you would like to buy some nice lead paint and cheap asbestos for your home?
Moron. (Score:3, Insightful)
But if sensible fuel economy had actually been meaningfully enforced in this country, we'd be in a lot better shape right now.
The real cause for the current spike in oil prices is that developing economies like China and India are subsidizing oil imports to keep their economic expansion going, thus artificially lowering the prices inside their respective countries, and keeping demand higher than it would be if the price reflected the actual cost.
I guess you'd rather blame it on anyone else though, to feed your stupid prejudice.
Re:What's so hard about re-usable materials? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you just had to make the controller out of metal, aluminum would be a much better choice. Much lighter and it doesn't corrode as much. It's also cheaper in equal volumes than steel.
Re:That's a bit of a fallacy. (Score:3, Insightful)
Try: Harvested from Free-range Fairies, purchased at Fair Trade prices (fairy farmers have to eat, too!), packed in an unbleached cardboard box made from 100% recycled material (at least 90% post-consumer), and shipped via row-boat and bicycle, each driven by unionized Fair Wage workers from the Third World. Oh, and could I have fries with that?
Re:The real enemy (Score:3, Insightful)
"the reason fuel prices are high is THE GREEN LOBBYS FAULT."
How? this is the same green lobby that tries every year to get the pathetic US standards of car fuel economy raised slightly towards the much higher European standard, while the US Oil and Motoring lobby squash it every time with big fat campaign contributions.
Yet somehow its the EVIL GREEN LOBBY to blame if fuel prices are hurting.
what the fuck?
I guess you are upset that you can't destroy the few last remaining bits of wilderness in north America to dig for oil. Of course, just driving sensible sized cars would mean no need to do that, but why do anything that involves hurting the profits of Big Oil, Car and Steel companies eh?
Not a bad point (Score:3, Insightful)
Too often they end up somewhere like this: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/essick-photography [nationalgeographic.com]
Which is just sad.
Re:That's a bit of a fallacy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. The efects of just transporting games and game consoles dwarfs any negative environmental impact of their manufacture and disposal. Greenpeace should think about how much more it would harm the environment if you had to drive to an arcade to play electronic games like you did in the 1970s.
Speaking of the seventies, in the 1870s someone actually predicted the huge environmental problems that would be posed by the futuristic society of the 1970s - the continent, he predicted, would be hip deep in horse shit.
Technology solves far more problems, environmental and otherwise, than it causes.
Re:Sigh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's a bit of a fallacy. (Score:3, Insightful)
Greenpeace is certainly involved in piracy [guardian.co.uk] (the nautical kind) against Japanese whaling ships. If that's not terrorism, then there's a pretty thin line.
Re:Sigh.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not disclosing that information makes you wonder - why wouldn't they publish something that could make their products more appealing to a certain crowd? The most obvious answer would be that that information would make their product less appealing.
Nintendo probably have all kinds of mostly harmless reasons not to put that info on its website, maybe it wasn't even a conscious decision. Looking at it from Greenpeace's viewpoint though, with its natural distrust towards corporations, it makes sense to go with the obvious answer.
Re:That's a bit of a fallacy. (Score:3, Insightful)
Getting in between whalers and whales is neither "piracy" nor anything even remotely close to terrorism.
Greenpiece has jumped the shark (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
How about attacking Apple for bad environmental policies, when in fact Apple had already done what other computer companies were planning to do [apple.com]. The only fault on Apple's side was that they generally prefer to talk about things they've already done, rather than things they only plan on doing.
At this point, Greenpeace is more anti-capitalist than pro-environmentalist.
Re:Sigh.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not a bad point (Score:4, Insightful)
You say it's sad that third-world people can make money recycling first-world electronics, but you should consider that they're choosing to do this OVER THEIR OTHER CHOICES. If you don't want them to pick the choice you don't like, then give them better choices. Don't try to take away the one thing out of all their choices that they DID choose.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's a bit of a fallacy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Since they aren't a representative of a government, they are terrorists.
I will never give up hummers!...oh wait, did you mean the vehicle?
Re:A word to Greenpeace (Score:1, Insightful)
Just to add to this. There was a recent article in Science about how Greenpeace opposed Golden Rice [wikipedia.org]. The opposition worked and Golden Rice isn't in widespread use.
They suggested vitamin A should be distributed to the neady using food supplements. This could be true. Did Greenpeace start a food supplement program? No. All they did was help to stop Golden Rice. They are a pressure group whose output is negativity.
Re:A word to Greenpeace (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Greenpeace for years has used fearmongering and scare tactics to frighten people into thinking that the world will explode if we don't do whatever they say. They've lied repeatedly to the public to try and make their point, and they've performed (potentially valuable) scientific studies, only to ignore the results when they didn't match up with what they wanted the study to conclude.
There are a lot of things wrong with how we treat the environment. There are a lot of groups out there that are trying to make things better. Greenpeace is not one of them, and its actions only give a bad name to those people who do honestly and truly care about environmental issues and the life of our planet.
That's why they're terrorists.
Re:Let's see, what's on the news today? (Score:1, Insightful)
Not to mention the fallacy of thinking, "They were wrong last time, so they'll be wrong this time." I assume that's what you're implying, otherwise there would be no point in highlighting the fact that the 'story' has changed. The story changes because our understanding changes and improves. Our methods improve with it, and that means it's not equally likely to be correct this time but more likely.
Your post could only become more silly by letting free the tu quoques and claiming Gore must be wrong since he rides around in a big unfriendly jet.
I don't really care about the environment much, but your post is just foolish. God only knows why you're modded insightful.
Greenpeace are scumbags (Score:5, Insightful)
They're a bunch of nutjobs, and only one step away from terrorists.
Re:Let's see, what's on the news today? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course it's complicated - that's why we need to fund Greenpeace to keep track of it all for us, so that they can tell us what to be afraid of and what company we should boycott pointlessly this week.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
After that letter was published, Greenpeace claimed it was a "great victory" for successfully changing the environmental policies of a major company. All Apple really did was say they'd be more forthcoming about what their environmental plans were; no actual change in those plans was announced.
If you want to say that doesn't qualify them as "nutjobs", perhaps you'd be right. However, it certainly qualifies them as a political organization concerning itself with propaganda victories rather than real solutions.
yea. tree hugging hippy bitches (Score:2, Insightful)
they would remain just written in well worded proclamations and government text.
Re:What's so hard about re-usable materials? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's stupid for a Democrat to agree with Greenpeace, simply because they're wrong. It's doubly stupid for a Republican to agree with Greenpeace because you OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER.
The reason I say that it's stupid to agree with Greenpeace is that there is no shortage of landfill space in America, and plastic is very cheap and, well, plastic, whereas wood and steel are quite difficult to form into complicated shapes. The durability and strength of steel are usually not required, wood can be lightweight but is weak in one dimension, and both wood and steel do not tolerate water very well.
Re:Green ?! Jesus, they are not SAFE enough (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
Greenpeace, as far as I can tell while not being personally involved with them, is a very large, but also very loose organization. As such, actual activism can only be organized and performed by small entities within that organization.
The "management", for lack of a better term, will then be involved with publicity work, fund raising, etc., stuff you need a certain amount of buerocracy for. Their main purpose then would be propaganda, hailing the smaller subgroup's victories, providing media coverage and, by exposure, funding.
That's at least sort of how the few NGOs I got know work, and from what I've gathered, Greenpeace fits that picture.
Headline too long.... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Greenpeace complains video consoles aren't green enough"
"Greenpeace complains apple isn't green enough"
"Greenpeace complains that some people smell bad"
"Greenpeace complains that when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's amore"
Srsly. Quit complaining. Start fixing.
"OH manufacturer X doesn't have a recycling program WAH WAH WAH!"
How about...starting one? Or at least designing one? You're not leading, you're not following, so just get out of the way already.
Re:That's a bit of a fallacy. (Score:3, Insightful)
And pollution was far, far worse. If you drove through Sauget [wikipedia.org] in the summer when it was 100F (38C), the humidity was 100%, and you had no air conditioning, you STILL rolled the windows up.
Dead Creek [google.com] in Cahokia [wikipedia.org] (note that the Cahokia mounds [wikipedia.org] aren't in Cahokia) downstream from Monsanto, Cerro Copper, and other polluters in Sauget actually caught fire once.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:3, Insightful)