Greenpeace Slams Apple Over "World's Greenest Family of Notebooks" Claim

DailyTech - Greenpeace Slams Apple Over "World's Greenest Family of Notebooks" Claim

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/conte.../reports/greener-electronics-apple-rank-5.pdf

Typical Greenpeace. The only way they can get a headline is by slamming Apple... yawn.

Personally this issue is important but not a deal breaker. I just spent 20 mins reading Greenpeaces website and then realized I didnt care at all.

I AM TAKING MY MACBOOK PRO BACK NOW!


These tree huggers will only be satisfied when all of humanity is dead and life can go on without us...

why don't they go scream at the volcanoes for spewing out all those pollutants.

lol, honestly who really cares about greenpeace???

wow... the lack of insight here is astonishing.


i guess if your house were nearly full of garbage and fouled air, and your fridge had barely enough food for your family - who was far more likley to die from some enviornmentally vectored disease your ancestors never had to worry about, you'd complain if dr. phil came into your house with a 'clean team' to help you out just because you hate dr. phil.

seriously, the enviornment is a disaster, it is getting worse, and calling people/companies on claims of being "green" when they could be doing so much more, or at least doing less harm is not only sound, but patriotic (wherever you live).

I don't necessarily disagree with what Eric just said (although I don't see it as a lack of insight, simply as a lack of caring that I too share) in principal, but the fact that Green Peace has admitted in the past that they target Apple simply for the publicity makes their entire argument dubious at best, at least in this case. In Apples case they are one of the more green companies out there.

Lets not turn this into a silly environmental thread.

well, it's easy to target someone who so willfully boasts about something they're doing especially if the claims are not exactly open and honest.

just like bush jr made himself a target of ridicule when he flew onto that carrier festooned with the "mission accomplished" banner.
if you make that kind of noise, people will take more notice and target you if you're wrong or being deceitful.

eric said:

wow... the lack of insight here is astonishing.


i guess if your house were nearly full of garbage and fouled air, and your fridge had barely enough food for your family - who was far more likley to die from some enviornmentally vectored disease your ancestors never had to worry about, you'd complain if dr. phil came into your house with a 'clean team' to help you out just because you hate dr. phil.

seriously, the enviornment is a disaster, it is getting worse, and calling people/companies on claims of being "green" when they could be doing so much more, or at least doing less harm is not only sound, but patriotic (wherever you live).

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Just to be clear, my argument with Greenpeace is that they unfairly target Apple, when the rest of the industry has done little to nothing to make their products more environmentally friendly. Apple in the last few years has taken great pains to ensure that they are in front of the problem - and for every step Apple takes, Greenpeace slaps them with another negative article.

eric said:

well, it's easy to target someone who so willfully boasts about something they're doing especially if the claims are not exactly open and honest.

just like bush jr made himself a target of ridicule when he flew onto that carrier festooned with the "mission accomplished" banner.
if you make that kind of noise, people will take more notice and target you if you're wrong or being deceitful.

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Sure, but Apple has been regularly making strides in eliminating toxic materials in their products, steps that the majority of the industry has not been doing. In addition, they release regular updates as to the steps they're taking, and again the rest of the industry is mute on the subject.

There's only so far you can go in making a given product environmentally friendly without also compromising quality and longevity. I think Apple has done an excellent job in doing what they can.

well i don't think the rest of the industry has done little to nothing - i'd like to see some sort of report backing that up.

apple seems to be doing the hybrid car thing, making some thing appear better, while maybe not addressing key issues, and perhaps making some things worse. again, while the rest of the industry that is likley making quiet gains here and there, apple markets green like there's no tomorrow, they make themselves a target.

eric said:

well i don't think the rest of the industry has done little to nothing - i'd like to see some sort of report backing that up.

apple seems to be doing the hybrid car thing, making some thing appear better, while maybe not addressing key issues, and perhaps making some things worse. again, while the rest of the industry that is likley making quiet gains here and there, apple markets green like there's no tomorrow, they make themselves a target.

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What other company regularly reports on the efforts they've made in greening their product lines? I can't think of a single other laptop model in which toxic compounds have been purposefully removed and marketed as a selling point.

"marketed as a selling point" that's the key.

even if you monkey with that greenpeace link a bit, to get here:
Reports | Greenpeace International

you can pretty easily go to various manufacturers and see where they're slacking and where they're making improvements. just because they don't go shouting it from the mountain doesn't mean they're not making efforts.

eric said:

"marketed as a selling point" that's the key.

even if you monkey with that greenpeace link a bit, to get here:
Reports | Greenpeace International

you can pretty easily go to various manufacturers and see where they're slacking and where they're making improvements. just because they don't go shouting it from the mountain doesn't mean they're not making efforts.

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Agreed, but I still think it's obvious that Greenpeace targets Apple over and above anyone else - and that's what I take issue with.

again, i think it's visibility. apple takes advantage of mildly dubious claims for the sake of advertisment. since apple puts themselves out there, greenpeace has an easy target, and is basically doing the same thing - using something easy for the sake of advertisement.

kind of a pot calling the kettle black attitude to attack greenpeace for a similar tactic apple is using.

and, don't get me wrong, i'm proud that apple has taken the steps it has. but it can do more (as we all can), not necessarily all within the build of an item, but with company policy, practices, etc.

eric said:

apple seems to be doing the hybrid car thing, making some thing appear better, while maybe not addressing key issues, and perhaps making some things worse. .

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exactly! Hybrid cars are a joke and in turn are worse for the invironment due to the waste created my the battery cells

I still say that the whole green movement is nothing more than a cashcow.....

the problem is that it's unfocused and the public is ignorant. companies make claims of green when they may not actually be doing that much - or might just be doing different harm. the auto industry just had two gigantic examples of that with hybrids and corn-based ethenol, two technologies that at this point are really doing much more harm than good.

the idea of being green is necessary, and not being green is doing more and more harm to us, in terms of health, healthcare costs, the economy, the environment, etc. the method, at least the highly popularized methods, at this point suck. the idea, the movement, is the only thing that will save us as a species - just too bad it's left such a bad taste in people's mouths recently.

eric is right i was saving for a MBP but i am going to buy a toshiba right now. they are the greenest... see for yourself....greenpeace


p.s. changing my name to toshiba wannabe

LOL good luck with it.

ha!

i was actually looking at a 17" toshiba at some point recently...

though, i know you're being facetious, keep in mind, those ratings are for a company, not for a model, or branch (tvs / computers / etc) of a company. so, as an example, buying a toshiba laptop could be on par with buying a macbook - but maybe buying a toshiba television / flat panel monitor may be more "green" than buying an apple one. or just by simply supporting toshiba, you'd be supporting a company with greener factories or practices.


compare that to vehicles...

if i buy a toyota prius, i may save some fuel and contribute less to my local carbon footprint and reliance on foreign oil.

but, if i buy a standard honda civic, i'd get almost as good milage, a very clean running engine, and it could be that honda has a cleaner factory than toyota. and of course there's no extra nickel being mined for a few hunderd pounds of battery strapped to the bottom of the car.

and if i buy a subaru impreza, i'm getting worse fuel economy for sure, but i can rest assured that the factory it came from is zero landfill, and actually contributes in a positive way to the environment of the region it resides in.

and of course, if i stick with an old used car a new car does not have to be created for me, saving a great amount of 'carbon footprint'