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Lego Ends Shell Partnership Under Greenpeace Pressure

jones_supa writes Since 1960s, we have been seeing the oil company Shell logo being featured in some Lego sets, and Legos being distributed at petrol stations in 26 countries. This marketing partnership is coming to an end, after coming under sustained pressure from Greenpeace. The environmental campaign, protesting about the oil giant's plans to drill in the Arctic, came with a YouTube video that depicted pristine Arctic, built from 120 kg of Lego, being covered in oil. CEO of Lego, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, wants to leave the dispute between Greenpeace and Shell, and the toy company is getting out of the way.

8 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Sooooo... by jpellino · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Tesla Supercharger stations from now on?

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  2. Re:Another corporation falls... by stepho-wrs · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Religious? When did Greenpeace become religious?

  3. Re:Pixie Dust by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Because Legos are made out of pixie dust, not oil.

    Thanks for your insight AC. Because anyone opposed to drilling for oil in the artic of course, must be opposed to use of all oil products, produced anywhere in the world for any reason.

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  4. Re:Pixie Dust by Urkki · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because Legos are made out of pixie dust, not oil.

    While production of oil has its own huge environmental problems, at least Lego bricks themselves are very stable, so they are good for storing carbon and keeping it off the atmosphere and oceans. And if they were made from, say, metal instead of plastic, the environmental impact of production wouldn't be any less, I bet.

  5. Re:Fuck Greenpeace by radtea · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you have a bone to pick with an organisation target that organisation. Going for non related entities because they make a softer target is wrong. The end does not justify the means. Where I work we have had death threats directed at us because some of our clients are in the mining and oil & gas space. There is nothing that can justify that type of action.

    Greenpeace and other anti-science groups like the Republican Party all take this stone-age "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and "the friend of my enemy is my enemy" approach to human relations.

    Roy Baumeister, in this truly excellent book Evil discusses idealism as a cause of evil, and Greenpeace are a pretty good representation of the logic he describes: if you believe yourself to be purely and ideally good, then anyone opposing you and anyone who helps them in any way must be purely evil. And what lies, threats and violence aren't justified in the name of fighting pure evil?

    Baumeister uses actual cases (and lots of them) to show how false-to-fact this kind of thinking always is, and how much moral thinking is actually about delusions of evil rather than evil as it is done. Anyone even mildly interested in making the world actually better, rather than just feeling good about themselves while helping to make things worse, would do well to read this book. It does more for the study of good and evil than three thousand years of fact-free philosophical imaginings.

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  6. Re:Pixie Dust by dave420 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Lego are actively researching alternative materials from which to make their blocks, so your criticism is merely illustrating your lack of knowledge of the subject, and not a well-thought-out attack on Lego.

  7. Re:So, will they now be promoting "Greenpeace"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What gets me is their opposition to GMO crops. I actually work in the field of crop improvement, and the stuff Greenpeace says and does put them right up there with anti-vaxxers in my opinion. They will protest biofortified or insect resistant crops in developing countries (just look at the Bt brinjal on Golden Rice controversies, both non-corporate by the way), then pat themselves in the back when the research gets blocked/destroyed, meanwhile farmers go back to spraying shitloads of pesticides and clearing more land to make up for the lost yields and children suffer malnutrition. They're just a bunch of scientifically illiterate book burning thugs using environmentalism to cover their naturalistic superstitions.

  8. Re:Pixie Dust by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Greenpeace is like any other religion. Guilt with different holidays.
    One could form another organization that pollutes 10% less than Greenpeace and then start protesting Greenpeace.

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