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Greenpeace Decries Lack of Environmental Progress From Console Makers
SwiftyNifty writes with an update to Greenpeace's 2007 criticism of game console manufacturers over environmental concerns. Their claim was that some of the chemicals used to make the consoles were toxic, and that the manufacturers' recycling practices were not up to snuff. Two years have passed, and Greenpeace now says that progress is either slow or non-existent.
"... Nintendo has little plan to remove PVC and almost no plans to remove [brominated flame retardants]. Slightly further up the scale, Microsoft was again awarded a poor ranking due to the use of toxic waste materials. And Sony, who rank rather well in their mobile phone partnership with Ericsson (scoring 6.5 out of 10 for improved toxic waste and efficient energy usage) didn't perform as well in the console category, failing to eliminate PVC or BFRs from their gaming products."
I grew tired of listening to them about a decade ago. Back when they were in the thick of things (like getting rammed by a French warship or bombed by French intelligence), I had some respect for them. But over the years, they began to look more like the Luddite fringe groups that would seem to rather see the collapse of civilization than to harm a single insect. I think much of the world has come to agree with what they were talking about 25 years ago, but as the radicals have gained power, they have been more willing to bend the truth (or outright lie) and so many people no longer trust what the organization has to say. Thus, by attempting ever harder to push their agenda, they may be doing more to derail it than any corporation could do.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Greenpeace is largely to blame for our current energy problems. Their vilification of nuclear power has greatly hindered its adoption (politicans are already irrationally afraid of it, because of BIMBY and "terrorists"), and their pushing of so-far dead-end technology like wind and solar has caused us to be stuck with coal and oil. If they, and the average environmentalist, had enough of a brain to understand the concept of the lesser evil, we would probably not be so worried about global warming. But, logic never stopped them from crying about things.
Now we have everyone against the rational answer to the problem, and everyone shelling out billions to try to develop what simply isn't coming. Solar and wind have been around for a very long time; short of a massive breakthrough, it is never going to be as economical as the CO2-creating alternatives. Meaning, we're stuck with them until some sort of government regulation comes along... and we all know how much THAT usually helps.
Our economy is being run into the ground by power costs, and peak oil means it will just get worse. Wind and solar are not becoming more economical, and the government's answer of taking even more money out of the system is just going to make a bad situation horrible. If global warming turns out to even be half as bad as claimed, we'll be in essentially a second dark ages.
We could have built enough nuclear plants to power the entire world, and thus avert all these problems, with the money Obama threw away; but here we are, the construction of a single plant is news-worthy.
Sometimes I wonder if it would really be so awful if humanity killed itself off. We're not really getting any better... perhaps we shouldn't go and pollute space with our stupidity.
Great Intellect...
It's a depressing cycle, that every fringe philosophy that gains mainstream support, money and power quickly gets taken over by the radicals who then purge the original soft and usually more pragmatic visionaries and then quickly turn the movement *against* them, making the founders appear to be traitors against their own cause.
Every single time.
Environmentalism
Communism
Conservatism
Liberalism
Examples of movements that started out so well then largely went sour leaving societies stuck trying to figure out how to achieve the aims of the original movement *in spite of* the groups who lay claim to being the "movement".
Hopefully with such a swath of historical examples the next great "movements" will somehow figure out a way of protecting themselves from the power hungry radicals.
Western democratic political systems seem to have largely got that figured out so a model based on that may work.
The current mode of global resource allocation requires a Greenpeace to permit us to continue to consume at unsustainable rates. If the consumptive "first world" were faced with how to redress the the vast injustices we cause through consumption, instead of simply buying indulgences through slightly more expensive environmentally-friendly labeled goods, we might slow down to think about why 2/3 of the world's population must struggle through inhumane living conditions so that we can enjoy our dozens of Energy Star appliances.
Right, because what that 2/3 of the rest of the world REALLY needs is for first world to set up trade barriers and tell them to fuck off with making stuff for us. The RAPID RISE in living conditions around the world is because the first world decided to farm out more of the manufacturing to places where they were scratching at dirt to keep themselves on a filling starvation diet. China is probably the best example. A few decades ago they were busy bleeding off percentage points of population to mass starvation. Now, the the idea that China could face famine again is considered absurd. There are other places that have done the same thing and better. Taiwan and South Korea come to mind.
I'm not saying that globalization does not have its issues. Environmental concerns in the third world are very much real. That said, the answer isn't to pull out of these nations and tell them to have fun with seeing how subsistence farming treats them.
Yup it's true: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/harp-seal-hunt
Penn & Teller's bullshit did a good episode a while ago: Environmental Hysteria
Many of the followers are mindless zombies. You see them pretending like they care about the environment, while sipping $4 plastic bottles of water paid for by their rich parents.
Everyone pointing out that Greenpeace are stupid power-hungry jerks whose opposition to nuclear power is an environmental disaster is right.
Now they are doing it again. This time, they have been opposition to genetically modified crops, with (once more) no good scientific or environmental reason. And once again, they try to whip up public sentiment with scare stories. It worked on a bunch of europeans this round, but failed in the USA.
I hate to break this to you, but Greenpeace isn't interested much in the continued survival of the global ecosystem (over and beyond what any normal human being would have, out of self-preservation). That is merely their bandwagon; Greenpeace is in the business of influence and publicity, not to save the planet but to sell themselves. They are an evil megacorp just like any other... with well meaning and concerned individuals working for them, but ultimately self-serving as an institution.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...