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Greenpeace Slams Apple For Environmental Record
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Nov 28, 2008 11:11 PM
from the green-apple-get-it dept.
from the green-apple-get-it dept.
nandemoari writes "According to a recent advertisement airing on American TV, Apple's new Macbooks (well-received by most technology critics) are 'the world's greenest family of notebooks.' It seems an indication that the Cupertino-based company is increasingly aware of a consumer base that demands green electronics. However, Greenpeace is less than enthused with Apple's overall green performance. In their report (PDF), the environmentalists argue that Apple 'needs to commit to phasing out additional substances with timelines, improve its policy on chemicals and its reporting on chemicals management.'"
Ars Technica points out that Greenpeace's research isn't quite up-to-snuff, and it's also worth noting that Greenpeace admitted to targeting Apple for the publicity in the past.
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Greenpeace Admits Targeting Apple Grabs Headlines 394 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo published this morning allegations by the bromine industry claiming that Greenpeace's report on the iPhone was inaccurate and alarmist. They got an official rebuttal to the bromine industry by Greenpeace, but the most interesting part is their acknowledgment that their targeting of Apple, even while they have similar reports on every manufacturer, is a deliberate attempt to grab headlines. While it's logical and not surprising, I find it quite shocking to see them be so cavalier, and even hypocritical, about it."
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But... (Score:4, Funny)
(Not even oranges measure up.)
Re:But... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Greenpeace? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Greenpeace? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, but it does contain quotes from Greenpeace, which I assume are accurate. Whether they are or not is a case for verification - you can ask the people involved (who are named in the article) if they said what was attributed to them.
And it's exactly this kind of thing that gets me about Greenpeace - Patrick Moore said it exactly: "By the mid-1980s, the environmental movement had abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism," Now, while I don;t believe the entire environmental movement has gone this way, Greenpeace certainly has.
They have taken this anti-technology stand on practically everything they don't understand - fusion power being one of them.
Fusion power could be the answer to long term, large scale, clean electricity, and end forever the need to burn coal, oil, LNG or whatever else was once alive millions of years ago and is now flammable to make energy, but they want to stop it because they don't understand it.
Parent
Re:Greenpeace? (Score:4, Informative)
Nuclear fusion reactor project in France: an expensive and senseless nuclear stupidity
"Governments should not waste our money on a dangerous toy which will never deliver any useful energy," said Jan Vande Putte of Greenpeace International. Instead, they should invest in renewable energy which is abundantly available, not in 2080 but today"
Parent
Greenpeace - research (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Greenpeace - research (Score:5, Insightful)
Their histrionics, hypocracy and irrationality sank them a long time ago, but you'll find the occasional brain-dead celebrity supporting their efforts.
Parent
Re:Greenpeace - research (Score:5, Informative)
Greenpeace lost [highnorth.no] its way a long time ago. Even one of its founders couldn't stomach [nationmaster.com] its new direction.
There is no [209.85.173.132] "Great Bear Rain-Forest". I live where it is supposed to be and they just made that up for publicity. There is a rain forest, and it has bears, but no one outside of Greenpeace calls it that.
They used to do good. Now they are just fear mongers.
Parent
I feel the urge to shop (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that Greenpeace comes down on Apple is a good reason for me to consider buying a new Macbook.
So shouldn't we just ignore them? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ars Technica points out that Greenpeace's research isn't quite up-to-snuff [arstechnica.com], and it's also worth noting that Greenpeace admitted to targeting Apple for the publicity [slashdot.org] in the past.
Why was this posted, then?
Oh no... I'm going to need a bigger shovel (Score:4, Insightful)
Greenpeace--Seriously? They're the PETA of the environmentalist movement. It's like how I feel having Michael Moore on Team Liberal, or Richard Simmons on Team Gay. These people are bordering on terrorist tactics; They have put concrete plugs in industrial exhaust plumes, endangering the plant workers inside and risking explosions. They've put their little boats in front of major ships in international waters, causing trade disruption. Their little protests cause a lot of economic damage, and their so-called "non-violent" stance? Please! There's press you can find online of various groups claiming to act for Greenpeace that have assaulted people. Of course, Greenpeace denies that they were acting for the cause (and they might even be right) -- but this group tends to attract the fringe and the radicals. There's a reason the FBI has them on several watchlists. :\ I mean, the French bombed their flag ship! The French -- you know, white flags France... Yeah, Greenpeace pissed them off enough that the President himself ordered their ship blown up.
If you're an environmentalist, or a greenie, you DO NOT WANT Greenpeace on your team.
Re:Oh no... I'm going to need a bigger shovel (Score:5, Interesting)
You might want to read a bit more about that one. The problem in that case was that the French decided that it would be a good idea to test nuclear weapons in the South Pacific, which mortally pissed off pretty much everyone who lived there. If it was so safe, why couldn't they test the blasted things in France. It wasn't just Greenpeace. The New Zealand government had sent ships to the test site to protest in previous years. Why stand by as some European nonces shit in our back yard?
European nuclear powers had a well-known history of contempt for people in the South Pacific. Britain, for example, tested nuclear weapons in Australia without bothering to inform the Aboriginals who lived near the test site that they should get out of the way. So you can guess that the French were not popular.
New Zealand was a supposed ally of France and there are thousands of New Zealanders buried in war cemeteries in France and Belgium, which is where they died helping defend France against invasion. So to have the French security forces commit a terrorist attack and murder on New Zealand soil just because they couldn't hack a rusty old boat sailing up and down near their nuclear test site was in my opinion a bit much.
The French officials responsible for this are lower than shit. If I had the chance, I would put a bullet in their heads. So would a lot of other people I know.
Parent
Fuck off, Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)
This coming from an organization that has refused to support the growth of nuclear power as a means of providing for our electrical needs. Greenpeace has always struck me as an organization that is more concerned with protesting and grandstanding than doing the dirty work of getting serious, economically viable approaches to environmentalism out there in the spotlight.
If I were a Greenpeace executive, instead of wasting my time with this crap, I'd order half a dozen Tesla roadsters to serve as company/lobbyist cars and be hitting the road right now to promote companies like Tesla as the alternative to bailing out gas guzzler manufacturers.
That's because finding problems is easy (Score:3, Insightful)
Finding solutions is hard. It is easy to point out the bad about something. Part of the reason is because EVERYTHING has a downside. No matter what you do, there's a cost to it. Thus it's easy to figure out what that cost is and say "Oh look at the downside of this! Man that's a bad idea!" Of course it is much harder to weigh the positives and negatives of something, weigh that versus alternatives, and try to figure out what has the least negatives and most positives.
So instead you get people like Greenpeac
Re:Fuck off, Greenpeace (Score:4, Interesting)
Apteras and Zaps both make products that no-one wants. Tesla is at least making a product that people want, even if they can't afford it. The people who were making a product that people both wanted and could afford, took their product off the market because they were afraid it would cannibalize their other product lines.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I don't think you understand what "cannibalize" means.
hey greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)
support nuclear power, make an actual difference on the environment
of course, attacking a minor environmental issue to scare rich people and make them feel guilty about their overpriced toys is better pr i guess
Who cares (Score:4, Funny)
The rainbow rafters won't be satisfied until humankind has abandoned the follies of electricity, the wheel, and fire, since all of those obviously harm the environment in some way.
At least most of them don't burn down houses. [wikipedia.org] I guess that's something positive, if you're willing to set the bar that low.
How much do they want? (Score:4, Insightful)
How much money does greenpiece want to go away?
"That's a nice technology company you got there, Steve. It'd be a shame if something bad happened to it"
Greenpeace is full of it. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's also worth noting that the founder of Greenpeace thinks they're a bunch of kooks. See the Penn & Teller's Bulls*** episode on environmentalism.
I believe in protecting the environment, but I'd like to sanely focus on serious problems first, and do so in a logical and dignified manner, instead of just attacking companies just because they're prominent and it generates publicity.
A badge of honor (Score:3, Interesting)
Greenpeace, despite their name, is a pretty radical group, often just a notch inside that line that groups like the Animal Liberation Front often cross. Greenpeace is just Earth First with more money and better publicity. Getting attacked by Greenpeace is a lot like getting attacked by PETA... sometimes, the public sympathizes with you precisely because a radical group is targeting you.
Is this actually going to stop anyone from buying an Apple? No, it's just free publicity for Apple. I bet every time PETA pulls one of their lamebrain stunts, steakhouse profits go up. Same thing here.
Didn't this already occur? (Score:3, Interesting)
Greenpeace complains about lots of big companies' non-greenness. I heard from a co-worker who canvassed for Greenpeace long ago, for years, that they are a "greenwash".
There was another Greenpeace complaint recently, and when the canvassers in the downtown metropolitan area I work in were informed (by me) that "Greenpeace is a marketing organization; their information is skewed." the entire group of canvassers that I recognized every day on the way to work disappeared. Almost as if they investigated what I said and agreed.
About three weeks later new canvassers appeared. None of them were the same. One told me that my information was "wrong" but had no sources or reasoning to back that up.
The ideas behind Greenpeace are great general points that should be kept in mind but it seems that many of their statements should be taken with a grain of salt.
Apple has always been overhyped (Score:4, Interesting)
1984 - The Mac is friendly, it's the future, lalalala. Reality: 128k machine with 4 pieces of known software.
1987 - The Mac is more efficient than IBM PCs, it's the future. Reality: It's four times as expensive and people quickly learn windows.
1995 - The Mac is a better operating system than Windows, it's the future. Reality: holding down the mouse button suspends the entire operating system.
2000 - The Mac is superior, it uses the PowerPC family of chips and custom hardware. Reality: it's slower and Apple acquiesces to this fact a few years later, making Intel machines.
2008 - The Mac is superior, it's "green." Reality: it's still a hunk of plastic you chuck in the landfill, and being made by the world's most neurotic computer company, it's more likely to break.
I used to believe in Apple; eventually I saw that, like most things hyping "hope" and "change," they were marketers and not revolutionaries. They sold a lie.
Now I prefer the world of open hardware and open source + Windows. I can buy any motherboard I want, and I assemble machines that last years longer than any Macintosh. For people who want the bulk of mainstream software, there's Win XP or Windows Vista (which many people do like), but for those with more experience, there's OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Linux.
Why Patrick Moore left Greenpeace (Score:3, Informative)
Simmer Down (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I don't think Dell and HP are worried about this. Greenpeace is doing this, not to tear down Apple or to change Apple's behaviour.
These press releases (which seem to have increased in frequency) are to try boost awareness of Greenpeace. They claim all the credit for any positive changes Apple makes, while constantly changing the goalposts so that most of the time, Apple has a failing grade. They are trying to new young people to be part of their movement by targeting the company that makes the
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Another difference (Score:4, Insightful)
The sad thing about the greenies is that they would be the first to tell the Religious Right, "stay out of my life!" on abortion or gay marriage or sex on TV or the Internet, but they are the first to tell others how to run their lives in a green way, whether anyone asked them or not.
Parent
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:4, Insightful)
Does crying wolf sound familiar? If we cannot believe Greenpeace on this, what can we believe them on?
Eventually they will be ignored - even if they are telling the truth.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:5, Insightful)
But you can go to far where your views are considered to radical to be possible. Thus becoming a buch of crazy nuts and go back to your way of doing things, As they will be mad at you no matter what.
Much like extreme veganism, where you are not supposed to eat anything from a plant where you end up killing the entire plant. Because the rules are so strict very little food service places will try to follow those recommendations if they did it was purely accidental. So they realized they cannot make this group happy without a huge penalty, heck you are lucky if they will have something for normal vegetarians other then boring salads (Which are not full vegan because you need to kill the leafy greens plants for the salad and the roots for the carrots. Leaving Beans, Nuts, and Fruits as the only source for your diet)
If you want change you need to reward baby steps. You can scold your child for not winning a marathon just as it just learned to stand.
Parent
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:5, Funny)
"Beans, Nuts, and Fruits"
Murderous vegans, devouring the unborn plant children. I bet they don't even have the common courtesy to defecate in fertile soil, in the right climate, so the poor unborn babies at least have a fighting chance.
Parent
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:5, Interesting)
Leaving Beans, Nuts, and Fruits as the only source for your diet
You left out eggs. milk and honey.
Eggs may or may not count depending on your point of view about protecting the unborn/unhatched, but I have yet to find someone both strongly anti-abortion and insanely vegan. Never mind the fact that most eggs in the store aren't fertilized anyway. But then, if eggs are out, then so are strawberries and pomegranates.
But milk and honey are truly the only foods that you could truly say can be obtained from the plant and animal kingdom without harming a plant or animal or impinging on its reproduction. It is, however, counting on the animals in question to overproduce for their own needs to supply yours. In other words, living purely on milk and honey puts you in the same category as a leech.
No, the only meat eaters that are acceptable to militant vegans are scavengers.
Me? I'd rather eat militant vegans. Long pig. The other white meat.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But milk and honey are truly the only foods that you could truly say can be obtained from the plant and animal kingdom without harming a plant or animal or impinging on its reproduction.
I was once a nice young lad too. Life is ugly.
Reproduction...
To get a cow into lactation nicely, the process is to get it into calf. On birth of calf, send it off to the slaughter (Called bobby calves. Don't know why. Premium veal for US market.) Then milk cow like crazy. Also, breed cows to have more milk than needed for a calf.
And from a wider *green* perspective... I live in a New Zealand. Here, milk production is a mainstay of the economy, and the methane that cows belch and fart is a really serious pa
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually a lot of vegans won't eat dairy products because the dairy farming system regularly produces a lot of male calves that are then slaughtered and sold on dirt cheap. If you drink milk, you're supporting a very unpleasant life/death cycle for them.
I'm a meat-eater and I'm not sure I like the dairy system, ethically speaking. I highly doubt vegans being any less ethical.
That then leaves them veggies (which they WILL eat), fruit, fungus and nuts. And maybe eggs. Some won't eat eggs tough, since it's
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:4, Insightful)
Pursuing a good goal by lying and misleading is not good.
Parent
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:4, Insightful)
Greenpeace are a bunch of attention whores.
Fuck them.
That is all.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Except it just further drives rational people who share their ideals away from them and makes them look like desperate losers.
I am an environmentalist, green, pro-recycling, green energy, save the planet, save the animals guy, but I want *nothing* to do with Greenpeace whatsoever.
They go about their agenda in totally the wrong way. Not just this targeting of Apple (and their prior attack on Apple for being "less green" than competitors when in reality, Apple had "gone green" with the suggestions Greenpeace
Re:Trickle down is beneficial (Score:4, Insightful)
I am an environmentalist, green, pro-recycling, green energy, save the planet, save the animals guy, but I want *nothing* to do with Greenpeace whatsoever.
I would expect any environmentalist with a clue to shun Greenpeace.
-jcr
Parent
Re:Flawed study (Score:5, Insightful)
As I understand it, these ratings are, in large part, a way to help environmentally conscious consumers buy green products. By not disclosing that information, they make this impossible for consumers to do accurately. Reducing their scores for not cooperating is about the only means they have to pressure the companies into being more consumer-frieldny in this matter. While it may be flawed as a study, it functions correctly as a guide to buying products you know to be environmentally-friendly.
Think if it a different way: If you showed up for a university exam or a job interview, and refused to disclose what you knew about the subject in question, wouldn't *you* expect to get low marks, too? If you in fact knew a great deal about the subject, you could claim that the exam/interview was a flawed study, but the fact of the matter is that you refused to participate, and in this case you don't get the benefit of the doubt.
Parent
Re:Flawed study (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that a university exam or a job interview is something you voluntarily participate in. In this case GreenPeace is demanding information and crying when Apple tells them to get lost.
Though I do see GreenPeace's point. If you're going to brag about being "green", you should be willing to provide information backing that up.
Parent
Re:Flawed study (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that Apple can't provide the information that Greenpeace want. Last time greenpeace did this study, apple got marked down for having no schedule for removing PVC from their packaging. The reason apple had no such schedule was that they hadn't used PVC in their packaging since 1990.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1995 according to Apple. And searching on Apple and PVC gives you a nice Apple webpage detailing these things, so it seems that Greenpeace managed to convince Apple to publish the details at least.
That said, while I certainly don't hold Greenpeace in a particularly high regard, but as far as Apple and environmentalism is concerned, you don't need to go further than the battery replacement issue to draw your own conclusions.
Re:Flawed study (Score:5, Insightful)
Battery replacement issue?
You mean, the one where you have to hand your iPod in for service and they replace the battery, ensuring the materials in the old one can be properly recycled - as opposed to selling people new batteries and letting the old ones contribute its toxic elements to landfill?
Parent
Isn't this "vigilantism"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Shouldn't the tag "vigilantism" be used with submissions about Greenpeace?
As I have said before, one person's social activism is another's vigilantism.
Parent
Re:Isn't this "vigilantism"? (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with you -- Greenpeace today is nothing but a vigilante extortion business (and so are nearly all the once-useful activist groups). See http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/131 [activistcash.com]
Minus the environmentalist rhetoric, they'd be recognised as the thugs they are, little different from any other protection racket.
Parent
Re:green (Score:4, Interesting)
And has anyone done a study comparing the failure rates of items created with lead free solder VS lead? Because from what my engineering friends tell me the non lead solder is crap. it doesn't flow evenly, it seems to fail more often, it simply doesn't work nearly as well as the lead according to them. So while insuring a clean environment is a good thing(and recycling the lead would probably work just as well) if the lack of lead in solder joints causes us to end up with giant mounds of e-waste as electronics fail earlier than they need to, then we may very well be "penny wise and pound foolish".
We need to have consumer electronics that will last. And if that requires lead then either raise the price a little to pay for the recycling or have the manufacturers provide an easy way to drop these items off for recycling. But if we don't look at these situations logically we may end up being buried in "green" e-waste from electronics dying before their time.
Parent