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Greenpeace Complains Game Consoles Aren't Green Enough
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."
Honestly, who cares what these people think about gaming consoles. What's next? Reporting on what Hamas or Al Qaeda or some other terrorist organization thinks about the XBox 360?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
...are we supposed to care about what Greenpeace says? They're an organization as biased as Fox News, chances are anything that plugs into an outlet that isn't solar or wind powered is going to piss them off anyway.
Greenpeace is great at offering criticism, just not solutions, and solutions are what the world actually needs.
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/faq.jsp#environment Assuming you ignore that. This is a repeat of old news anyways. Their criticisms of Nintendo basically boil down to them not having an answer to everything on their checklist exactly how they like it. Greenpeace means well but they tend to demonstrate a horrifying lack of thought or genuine consideration of anything other than their own agenda.
Game consoles are in the news? Nintendo just released a new $80 piece of hardware for the Wii that's making headlines? Game consoles aren't green enough!
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!
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
While you may think about saving the planet, you won't be thinking about the one Greenpeace wants you to think about saving.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
'Greenpeace reserves the right to arbitrarily change a company's score if they decide the company did something disagreeable' I tkae this as popularity points so to speak, the companies have to "suck up" to them if they don't want to "lose" points. I find this whole thing utterly ridiculous. Im surprised JT hasn't reared his ugly head.
Face it, this is just like green peace singling out Apple as the computer company they were going to harass about manufacturing methods. They pick the brand best known to their political base and go after it for practices shared by the whole industry because they get a lot more press coverage attacking a "hip" company like Nintendo or Apple, than a boring one like HP or Microsoft.
Greenpeace != Terrorist organization
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I'm not aware of Nintendo having a problem with exploding consoles. Perhaps you're thinking of the original Xbox power supply that caught on fire and had to be recalled? Generally, Nintendo has built more reliable hardware that can usually take a bit of abuse before conking out in any form. I still have my original NES from the late eighties. All Ol' Bessie needs is a puff of air in the cartridge to get it going.
Seriously, who cares about this crap?
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?
à_à
What do they expect? Industrialized societies destroy their surroundings. From shipping products, to driving to the store to buy it, all the way to the manufacturing process. The best you can honestly hope for these days is that the product doesn't poison your kids and even that isn't a guarantee. To call out "consoles" over, say computers in general, is merely an attempt to ride the media buzz surrounding a market that isn't being hampered in the United States during it's recession.
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.
Burn Hollywood Burn
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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
*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.
First: these guys are nothing more than a big Business nowdays, so what they "think" is irrelevant. Money talks now. Second: people from Greenpeace, you are a bunch of hipocrites. Don't like the modern world? Think WE are "hurting" Earth? Go live in a cave and survive by hunting gazelles. Better yet: kill yourselves. Your mere existence adds more stress to our enviroment (oh, the irony). Third: wanna make something really useful? Stop bitching about a bunch of plastic and go after the Biopiracy that runs rampart in the Amazon Rainforest. Go after de dozens of lumber mills that deforest the Amazon illegally EVERY SINGLE DAY. And PLEASE, leave nuclear energy alone. It's the best bet for our energy needs in the foreseeable future. [/rant]
Doesn't anyone even pay attention to Greenpeace's bitching anymore? I mean, if you've got someone who tells you every day that the sky is falling, no matter what you do, how long before you just tune them out?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Next time Greenpeace goes chasing whalers, grab an oar.
Have gnu, will travel.
More rubbish from a stupid and corrupt organization.
Learn how to choose your battles.
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"
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Take a look at gas prices in Europe. US prices are still abnormally low.
We can't be self-sufficient in oil. Period. Blame whoever you want for that.
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
please explain this insane rambling.
"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?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
There are a lot of comments complaining about Greenpeace in general, or making jokes... but they have a good point. Electronics are manufactured from way too many toxic and impossible or difficult to recycle products. Consumers aren't aware enough about the need to recycle electronics, or even where to bring them.
Too often they end up somewhere like this: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/essick-photography
Which is just sad.
Only when they harass me on my way home from work to some some idiotic petition or another. I always just ask if Greenpeace is still opposed to nuclear power, and if they say yes, I keep walking. Haven't had to listen to them yet.
Comment of the year
Well, it does make sense to have companies publish this information, as it would enable consumers to make it a factor when deciding to purchase something, making it possible for them to vote with their wallet on environmental issues.
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.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Greenpiece has jumped the shark. When you start to worry about how pristine your garbage is, you ought to find more serious things to worry about (like peace rather than pieces).
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The PETA assholes are even worse. I finally just started getting rude and telling them "Look, if I wanted to support an organization that really help abused animals, I would support the ASPCA. Do you HONESTLY think your anti-pet, anti-livestock policy would make life better for all the domesticated pets and livestock that would be thrown out into the wild if we gave them up tomorrow?"
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Even the founder of Greenpeace has disowned them, because they go way too far.
They're a bunch of nutjobs, and only one step away from terrorists.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
the irony is that, if it wasnt for those tree huggers in the 60s, individual rights and freedoms wouldnt be in daily life as we know it now. for whites, blacks, asians, greens, magenta, beige, short, long, farting, non farting people and else.
they would remain just written in well worded proclamations and government text.
Read radical news here
Don't blame me -- I vote Libertarian.
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.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
And then Apple was falling over itself to prove it green-ness. This tactic works.
It should just be "Greenpeace Complains".
"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.