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Greenpeace Down on Games Industry, Logic Flawed?
Earlier this week Greenpeace went after the games industry a bit, coming down on hardware manufacturers for poor environmental practices. Nintendo and Microsoft in particular got poor scores from the organization. Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog notes, though, that their methodology is a bit odd. It's not so much that Nintendo's environmental policies (say) are all that bad - they're just not readily available on a website. "The research in general appears lazy. Nintendo's failing grade appears to be based entirely on this entry in the corporate FAQ, which briefly summarizes some of the steps the company has taken to protect the environment. Anything that's not covered there is simply rated "No Information." Similarly, all of the information on Microsoft originates from press materials and corporate statements on the company's web site. Clearly, Greenpeace did not perform an exhaustive evaluation of chemical use through the manufacturing pipeline."
The methodology of Greenpeace was odd? Really?
What a harsh statement. It is almost as if the poster was saying that Greenpeace twists research to meet their own overall political goals.
Meh, Greenpeace is a bunch of rich kids who like to gripe and love to trash anything thats popular, truth be damned.
I wonder if there is an "Environmentalists against Greenpeace" group? I would like to join.
Monstar L
You're right, criticizing Nintendo leads to a lot of flack on slashdot (and in the world in general... people really love that brand).
And surely you're right. Nintendo would publicize much of its environmentalism. But greenpeace is being dishonest here. It's not as though Greepeace is going to go out of their way to learn if Nintendo is a great company. That's because, at root, greenpeace is not about the environment. It's about western style government and corporations. Greenpeace's history shows it is generally focused on government regulation and distortion of truth for political purposes.
It's not as though Nintendo is pretending it is telling you the real story on Nintendo's environmental practices. Greenpeace is pretending it is, but is not doing the work to get the truth because it knows its story is better this way. Greenpeace is the one making the claim and with the responsibility to back it up with research. With, Nintendo, we can assume it is protecting itself and that's not very deceptive or surprising, but with Greenpeace, we are essentially being lied to.
Given that this is what Greenpeace considers a legitimate methodology I sent an email to info@wd.greenpeace.org (the contact email address listed on their website) inquiring if they use child labor and asking for a list of employees with their birthdays as proof of their adherence to international child employment standards. Since to date they have only sent me an automated response to my question I am giving them a 0/10,000 score on my child labor survey, earning them the rank of exploitative slavemasters(tm). Please feel free to re-publish this survey result.