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Microsoft Makes Ambitious Carbon Neutral Pledge
Qedward writes "Chief operating officer Kevin Turner says Microsoft will be 'carbon neutral across all our direct operations including data centers, software development labs, air travel, and office buildings' from July 1, the start of the 2012 fiscal year. Turner added: 'We are hopeful that our decision will encourage other companies, large and small, to look at what they can do to address this important issue."
They use a lot of electricity. Unless Microsoft is planning to buy "carbon offset" credits, so they can pollute and yet just handwave it away.
I'd prefer they take a pledge to be megabyte neutral, and learn to develop a new OS that doesn't use any more megabytes of RAM (or virtual ram) then Windows 7. Ditto for Office, Visio, and other products.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Heh. "Carbon neutral" is mostly a bunch of BS.
The cheapest way to be "carbon neutral" is to hand some country, preferably the cheapest one possible, a bunch of cash to plant some trees that they might have been planning to plant anyway, probably some monoculture to replace hills that had been burned or chopped clear of trees already.
Or you can pay someone to promise not to burn stuff through a project they may not have been wanting to do anyway.
If the world actually tried to make the human race anywhere *near* carbon neutral it *would* be hideously expensive.
"herp derp"
As I always say: the level of your charity is defined by how much you have left when you're done.
A poor man with two dollars who gives one is far more generous than a rich man with 40 billion who gives 39 billion.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
As I always say: the level of your charity is defined by how much you have left when you're done.
A poor man with two dollars who gives one is far more generous than a rich man with 40 billion who gives 39 billion.
On the other hand, one dollar isn't enough to buy a single cup of coffee these days, whereas 39 billion dollars could improve the lives of a substantial number of people.
Your definition of generosity might be useful for deciding who gets in to Heaven, but it doesn't have much to say about who is making a difference in the world.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
This is a canard that helps us sleep at night. If only poor people worked harder or planned ahead, they would dig themselves out of poverty. For every story you find where this is successful, I could show you 100 people who worked as hard, planned as well, and ended up still poor. Bad planning or a bad work ethic is not what makes people poor. It's a confluence of factors that are by and large out of the individual's control.
To suggest otherwise simplifies a very complex and important global issue. Certainly there are elements of any population that just don't work hard, but that is generally not the case. You can argue that it isn't your place to help someone out of poverty; you can say that poverty is inevitable, but to allay your fears or guilt by claiming a person with only two dollars should write a five year plan to solve his woes and provide for others is extremely overly-simplified, don't you think? His idea of charity is not stupid. It is noble. We could compromise and say foolhardy if you wish. Nevertheless, kindness to another human being, whether you think people who do so are indoctrinated by religion or just plain caring, is something beautiful.
I know I'm blowing against the wind, but I'd suggest you tone down the name calling too. I know, I know...this is /., but I'm a romantic and believe people can have a civil discourse on important issues.
An important change for education.
And you would be wrong with that argument. Even if you assume MS is responsible for all the jobs lost at netscape and word perfect plus 10 other companies of similar size you would be wrong. Those people went on to get other jobs and life went on. Weigh that against the 10s of thousands of lives that MS money has saved and harm done just doesn't compare.