back to article Greenpeace releases 'Cool IT' rankings

Greenpeace has issued a "Cool IT leaderboard" of apparently randomly selected major firms which it has assigned meaningless self-generated scores intended to indicate how eco-friendly the companies are. The list includes Google (top ranked with a score of 53 out of a possible 100) and other major names like Cisco, Microsoft, …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Ian Ferguson
    Thumb Down

    Journalistic standards

    Could we have an objective article on Greenpeace's leaderboard, rather than Lewis Page's rather narrow-minded anti-environmentalism?

    1. Kevin Johnston

      Ha ha ha ha...ha

      Said this many times but it is still valid. Greenpeace are an out of control, unrepresentative group of people who deny accountability other than some wishy-washy 'protecting humanity' type of guff.

      They make bold statements and encourage public outrage (and often mass criminality such as firebombing petrol stations in Germany etc) but when it is proven that they are talking bo***cks they just make a quiet comment suggesting no shame or apology and consider the matter closed.

      Their annual-ish announcement of who is green and who isn't falls into this camp with no scientific basis behind their labels and little, if any, similarity to the real world.

      The sooner Greenpeace are relegated back to a niche group of people who understand what they are protesting and why the better. In their early days they actually were relevant and had a big impact but then it went to their heads.

      1. HMB

        I thought Greenpeace were still busy working on making energy more expensive to better impede the development of starving children in Africa.

    2. Dominic Connor, Quant Headhunter

      Greenpeace is a party

      As in people drinking and setting the world to rights, over a beer I might say Dell is a greener firm than HP, but no one would care.

      That's because I don't know what I'm talking about, since measuring the environmental impact of a big firm is stupidly hard, far more than I have the time to do properly, or even at all.

      The difference between Greenpeace and other outfits is not their lack of personal integrity, I get press releases of various credibility, but that people believe their nonsense far more than some random pub based opinion.

      Greenpeace are treated as if they are "experts" when they are simply a PR firm for various interest groups, not unlike the British Bankers Association.

      Greenpeace is an emotional response to vague assertions made at parties, it doesn't to "rational". :One example of this is the complete absence of any real effort by Greenpeace to actually ever do anything about the issues we face. It does publicity stunts and "awareness raising", because that is fun.

      Here's something Greenpeace will never do:

      Windmills use lots of lubricants and the gears waste a lot of their power, so they could raise money to research more efficient gears.

      ,,,,or they could occupy some building and break some stuff, maybe shout a bit as well.

      Which do you think they will choose ?

      1. Luther Blissett

        Greenpeace is political - who knew?

        Greenpeace too political to register as charity, NZ court rules

        http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1105/S00305/greenpeace-too-political-to-register-as-charity-nz-court.htm

    3. Msan
      FAIL

      Let me get this correct ...

      A minor industry in terms of whatever the Hippies are spunking over + an arbitrary mix of companies + no facts or figures = no validity : Lewis 1,568, Hippies 0.

      What did hippies ever achieve? Didn't see any of them leading the charge for civil and social rights etc etc etc.

      1. jake Silver badge

        @Msan

        "What did hippies ever achieve?"

        Well ... Most of SillyConValley was built by hippies. The entire Internet was conceived, designed and built by hippies. UNIX[tm] was built by hippies. iApple iComputer, iNC (c)[tm](r) was built by hippies ... need I go on?

        1. JohnG

          "The entire Internet was conceived, designed and built by hippies"

          I don't think the folk at the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and the originators of ARPANET are/were hippies?

          1. itzman

            that depends...

            ..on your definition of a hippy.

            Steve Jobs was an acid- head, for example.

            yer real hippy was a psychonaut. Looking at new and interesting things to do with the mind.

            It was only the weekend hippies who couldn't be arsed to have jobs, learn anything or work at anything that got the whole movement a bad name :-)

            Basically looking for a replacement for Christianity to tell them what to think and what to believe.

            Greenpeace cleaned up on that desire.

          2. jake Silver badge

            @JohnG

            The students & staff at Stanford, Berkeley & UCLA (and later Utah) had DARPA (later ARPA, later still DARPA again) money, yes. But the feds weren't looking over our shoulders. In fact if they HAD been, we probably wouldn't have been allowed to get on with it. Trust me, with the exception of the prudes at Utah, we were all typical California college kids.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ah! "In any case it's quite clear that most of the major emitters - the USA, China and soon, other emerging mega-economies - have no intention whatsoever of cutting emissions. "

    Doesn't matter, because the UK is going to slash its emissions so much that their cuts will make up for USA, China, India, and the rest of the world too!

    Thanks for the vow of poverty, blokes! Enjoy your poverty with the clean conscience that can only come from using - sparingly - clean energy!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Ian Ferguson

    Did you even look at Greenpeace's leaderboard? Exactly how would *you* write an objective article on a load of utterly meaningless bollocks?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get that Slayer CD playing in that office

    ...hippies hate Slayer.

  5. Steve Crook

    Yawn

    I suppose Greenpeace have to be seen to be 'doing something'. I guess they've given up trying to tell us that the world is doomed because we've all got fed up with that, and are more worried about whether we'll have a job next week and have the money to pay the mortgage on the house that's in negative equity.

    Which all goes to show that when it comes to dealing with problems, stuff that's happening now is always going to trump stuff that may happen in 50 years time. Looking back on it 1995-2005 might be seen as the period where the industrialised world had the luxury of being able to get its knickers in a twist about impending global climate meltdown because it had nothing better to worry about.

  6. MrPatrick
    Thumb Down

    something something

    Fuck you Page.

    I've just spent five minutes writing an ad hominem directed at you, and at Dickheads on the whole, but I realise that you would dismiss me as a hippy or some other throwaway term used by the simple minded.

    Fuck you and your fucking tedious attack pieces.

    *Yes - I am aware that this could seem hypocritical. Fuck you too.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Voted you down for lack of moral fibre - you could have vented your spleen properly but bottled it.

    2. Alfie
      Childcatcher

      Up voted you just for the gratuitous swearing. Well done that man!

      Nice to see someone giving a shit, even if they cant be bothered to back it up with an argument.

      ^ Wont someone think of the planet?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I'd love to see an argument in support of those Greenpeace rankings. I really would - I could do with a laugh.

    3. Northern Fop
      Happy

      @Mr Patrick

      I think you need to light a joss stick, put on some whale song, eat a nice lentil salad and chill out.

      Man.

      1. nsld
        Coat

        @northern Fop

        Or he should burn some tyres and fridges, eat some whale sushi and chill out, maybe he doesnt know what he's missing......

    4. Richard Wharram

      @MrPatrick

      The asterisk footnote relates to nothing. There's no matching asterisk above it.

      Also, just post the ad hominem. What have you got to lose?

    5. MrPatrick

      ....

      I feel I should point out that I

      a) think that this Greenpeace report is a load of bullshit

      b) I'm pro nuclear power, anti wind turbine. Although I think it should be backed up by significant increases in efficiency, decreases in waste and things like microgeneration where its effective (does that make me hippy?).

      I was angry because this kind of worthless attack, not on the bollocks report but on the whole idea of people who push an agenda of reducing waste and decreasing our impact on our planet. Any argument with that I view as short sighted and ultimately self destructive.

      The reason I pulled my own post was that it had descended into vile incoherent rage, mainly that this dick is allowed to publish his voice and get paid for it.

      1. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
        Go

        @MrPatrick 9th February 2012 12:04 GMT

        "...this dick is allowed to publish his voice and get paid for it."

        Jeepers! I have to post for free.

    6. Yag

      At least you did not went the cowardly anonymous way...

  7. jake Silver badge

    Greenpeace is neither green, nor peaceful.

    They ARE good at separating fools from their money.

    Please stop giving them press (free advertising). Ta.

    1. Charles Manning

      After 16 years of being a GreenPeace supporter

      I realized they were broken. What really did it for me was seeing http://www.greenpeaceblackpixel.org/#/en

      The savings from black pixel, even if you're using a really bad CRT screen, are so low, that it would take years to recoup the energy expended watching their flash animation or downloading their software.

      Using black pixel for your whole life would only save a minuscule amount of energy. You would do better to skip one cup of coffee a year or one warm shower in your life.

  8. dwieske

    indeed "hippies" is a bad work "pathological lyers" would be correct, or "scam artist" as they try to scare you into donating through obscene lies (notice eg. their anti-nuke arguments have absolutely no basis in science)

    Tbh scammers like Greenpeace do more harm to the ecological cause than they contribute....

    no wonder so many people (founders , former directors) want nothing to do anymore with this entity that exploits environmental concerns for financial gain thru misinformation campaigns like this one

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wow... a short article about a non-topic, followed by an equal amount of appended opinionated anti-green Lewis Page-ism.

    That was useful. Not.

    Do you give him these things to write just to keep him away from real news? I do hope so.

    1. dwieske

      anti-greenpeace DOES NOT mean anti-GREEN, it means ANTI-scam, ANTI-misinformation and ANTI-damaging the green cause...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hippies are so Establishment nowadays

    It's more anti-establishment to beat a baby seal to death than to protest baby seal beating.

    1. Poor Coco

      As they say on KOL...

      I ♣ SEALS

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Globalisation

    Greenpeace is a multinational global corporation.

    I wonder when the Occupy protesters will start picketing/occupying Greenpeace's offices in any one of over 50 countries they operate in?

    1. Davey
      Trollface

      o rly?

      Globalization in this context refers to the perceived failings of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation...but then, you already knew that ;)

  12. Barney Carroll
    Thumb Up

    Keep trollin trollin trollin trollin

    I've always been a bit irate at The Reg's policy of climate change denial, but always thoroughly encouraged by the nukes are cool dogma, and Lewis always wraps it up with the just the right mix of calm rationalism and knowing sensationalism to hit the right amount of levity.

    A fair few of my mates are hippies, but a lot more of them are generally not interested enough to muster much interest on anything perceived as too big of an ideological issue in terms of environmentalist concern… other than the Greenpeace nuke mythos, which is fairly sacred among many people who'd describe themselves as rationalists. It's the inability to conceive of any of the myriad aspects of the green ethos from small personal results through to macro economics and geology but still have such massive faith in that one big cause that irritates me the most.

    Especially seeing as nuclear is by far the cleanest and cheapest way of sustaining industrial human civilisation we have.

    But I digress. Where's the IT / martial sci tech angle?

    1. Risky
      Flame

      "Climate Change Denial"

      ..because not accepting that any and all global warming claims are true is just a bit like claiming six million Jews killed themselves in the years to 1945 or something.

      This newspeak attempt to make it unacceptable to question whether the science of climate change is settle is appalling. Personally I find the global warming hypothesis plausible, but the proposed action to stop it varies between the daft and the dangerous. However I'm most concerned by the science being driven to support a political position, rather that left to work itself out.

      1. Davey

        Eh...what?

        Judge: "Do you deny interfering with the farm animal in question?"

        Defendant: "No your honour, I wouldn't want to trivialise the holocaust"

        If anything though, they should be called physics deniers, because that's essentially what they are.

        "I've heard a lot of hippie scientists making claims about the behaviour of methane molecules, but until I've seen one myself, I'm staying out of it"

        1. hplasm
          Devil

          Just for balance...

          I thought the pro- warming lot were the sheep-fondlers?

  13. Desk Jockey

    Par for the course

    Selecting green companies by using a darts board? I like that. It explains how their policies work anyway!

    I (very briefly) did work with some greenpeace people once. On the whole they were quite nice (they smoked a lot of hash!) and seemed to attract lots of pretty and gullible girls! I have yet to ever see a coherent policy backed by proper analysis and evidence from them though. The Scottish Government did ask them to produce some once on how they could economically recover area around the Clyde submarine base if they got rid of the nuclear subs. It was perhaps the worst, publicly funded document it has ever been my misfortune to read!

    Why are we surprised? Now pass over the pipe good chap!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Register Recipe

    Eco group release report

    AO and/or LP rubbish report regardless of quality

    Commenters support or deride article regardless of actual content

    Did I miss something ? Or is there anything of value in this ping-pong ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Here, I fixed it for you

      You forgot the last two steps:

      Someone holds a gun to your head and makes you read it all

      You make a comment about the article and the other comments being rubbish

  15. Ian Stephenson
    Pint

    Saying this leaves a bad taste in my mouth but...

    The French had the right idea.

    DGSE1 Rainbow Warrior Nil.

    Beer to wash the taste away.

    1. Jim Bob
      Thumb Down

      Correction...

      "DGSE1 Rainbow Warrior Nil"

      DGSE 1 (Rainbow Warrior + Fernando Pereira) Nil

      Yay! Murder is fine when it's state sponsored... guess you support the actions of the Met too?

      1. Ian Stephenson
        FAIL

        The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism so as to include not only violent offences against persons and physical damage to property, but also acts "designed seriously to interfere with or to seriously disrupt an electronic system" if those acts are (a) designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and (b)be done for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

        Lets see :

        "seriously disrupt an electronic system" - forcing us to power generation that will lead to rolling brownouts? I'd say that was serious disruption of the Grid let alone houseolders own ring main.

        So by this, it would seem that anyone who is anti-nuclear and pro-renewables (such as Greenpeace) should be considered a terrorist.

        And yes I do support the actions of the Met.

        You only ever hear of the mistakes, not the successes in these situations.

  16. This post has been deleted by its author

  17. Evil Auditor Silver badge
    Boffin

    @Lewis re hippies

    "If you work for Greenpeace, you're a hippy - it's compulsory."

    No, it's not compulsory. Instead it's simply cause and effect. Cause: you're not a hippy. Effect: you won't be willing to join Greenpeace.

  18. min

    Go Lewis.

    that's really all i have to say.

    (wait, MrPat-thick has encouraged me, so...) fack, pi$$, sh!t and Bollox.

    it's amazing you spent 5 minutes composing an ad hominem attack at our man Page here. it usually takes a few seconds to come up with something sturdy. did we forget to eat our weetabix today?

  19. rayofsunshine

    Proper Ethical Ratings

    Slightly off topic, but there is one set of ratings for IT suppliers that's objective and reliable, covering policies and performance across environmental issues, humna rights, worker rights etc - from Ethical Consumer

    For an example see http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/buyersguides/computing/laptopsandnetbooks.aspx and drill down any products to the company scores and info.

    Disclosure - I do a bit of work for EC, and sit on their Board, so this is a blatant plug.

    1. Aaron Em

      I did

      From /buyersguides/computing/laptopsandnetbooks.aspx: "Best Buys for new netbooks is the HP Mini range (£300). The 5103 model came fourth in Greenpeace’s Green Electronics Survey."

      Speaking as a member of EC's Board of Directors, how do you reconcile your organization's use of Greenpeace rankings with your own obvious implication here that Greenpeace rankings are subjective and unreliable?

  20. Ray Simard
    FAIL

    Greenpeace: Part of the problem, not the solution

    Over the years Greenpeace has tried to evolve from its almost purely ideological genesis into something commanding respect for its science and has succeeded-a little. Nonetheless, it remains, at the core, an anti-Establishment, flowers-and-beads outfit, and it lacks credibility as a result.

    The environmental movement is opposed by a very well-organized and powerful opponent-the environmental movement. Yes, they are indeed their own worst enemies, and that's because they can't seem to help politicizing the issues they address. Too many of their so-called solutions to the problem of global warming seem driven more by lusts for wealth transfer from the more wealthy nations to the less so, the Occupy-Wherever type of mentality of revulsion for business--the industries that figure prominently in the global-warming debate are inherently very large and tend to be multi-national--and an idealized, romantic fantasy of a bygone world plucked from fairy-tale imagery than by the pure science underlying it. When they pick up the polemic bullhorn and start emitting blather that connects greenhouse-gas emissions with those bad, evil corporations making [enormous | obscene | you-pick-your-favorite-hot-button-term] profits, they delight those who agree with them and infuriate the very people whom they need to persuade to look more favorably upon their position, or, at least, that part of it that is actually relevant.

  21. wookey

    Still claiming there's no such thing as climate change or peak oil?

    It's pretty dumb in 2012 to still be claiming that climate change isn't serious and real. The register's persistent attitude here just makes them seem like ill-informed ranters down the pub.

    It is nice to see someone sticking up for nuclear though, as far too many people think it's way scarier than overheating the planet, which is, well, wrong.

    Greenpeace have their hearts in the right place, but I do find their 'stunts first' approach a bit tiresome. The anti-nuclear stance has probably done nearly as much harm to the climate as some of the lesser fossil-fuel producers, which is a pretty hefty own-goal in my book.

  22. Karl 8
    Alert

    Cheap nuclear electricity?

    Am always intrigued about the claim that nuclear fission gives us cheap electricity. Waiting for the invoice for the waste storage to come through in about 200,000 years before deciding on that one.

  23. Grikath
    Childcatcher

    200.000 years...

    By which time the "human race" will have disappeared altogether, or our cockroach overlords, ( whom I will be the first to welcome,etc..) will have found a suitable way to re-use our refuse, so that in fact we will be providing a valuable and indispensible source of ingredients for Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters to future generations/species by switching to the dirtiest nucular reactors we with our patently troglodyte ( in retrospect) "intellect" can design.

    1. Ian Stephenson
      Mushroom

      We consider dinosaurs to be natures failures...

      given they were only round for about 2 million years or so.

      I'd be surprised if humanity survives the next millenium.

  24. JimC

    As a (well nearly) former hippy

    I rather object to being associated with Greenpeace.

  25. Davey
    Facepalm

    Lobbying Organisation in Wooly Press Release Shocker

    "Organisation release non-scientific press-release" is not news, sorry. I assume you apply this rigorous scrutiny to all organisations, not just Greenpeace.

    I don't follow Greenpeace, because I prefer the sober application of the scientific method to sensationalised exaggeration, which they are frequently guilty of. Funny enough, my respect for reason also means I can't take anything the Reg publishes about the environment seriously either. You lads really love your fringe science in that context, and it's become a standing joke.

    So Greenpeace take real studies and present "worst-case scenario" as reality, because they want to alarm and conscript everyone in the mission to bring about their version of saving the world. Ok.

    The Reg unquestionably reproduce the claims of Professor McNutjob when he/she is flying in the face of reason, be it out of genuine convictions or private funding, because, why? Page-views? Wouldn't get the right audience, techies like proper science. Trolling for links from elsewhere maybe? That said, it seems to me that after creationists, people who don't want to believe that humans could be making their environment less habitable for themselves are the ones who most ardently seek support for their standpoint, no matter how spurious that support may be. So maybe it's google gold.

    As for the bootnote about Greenpeace = hippies, it's a bit confusing. If we're not taking Greenpeace seriously when they say anything, why do we take it seriously (to the point of eschewing any perception of irony) when their leader says they're all hippies? It all smacks of confirmation bias.

  26. itzman
    Pirate

    I used to be a hippie...

    ..but now i am a post modern nuclear powered techno-shaman.

    Remember, beansprouts and watermelons kill more people than nuclear power.

    Even greenpeace have had to make the latest Rainbow Warrior 'motor assisted' thereby tacitly accepting that 'renewable power is all right, just not for the whole weekend'

    What a bunch of utter hypocrites they all are.

  27. itzman

    The belling of cats....

    is a greenpeace and indeed eco loon specialty.

    No one denies the problems that exist with the way humanity interacts with its sustaining ecosphere.

    The problem is when people of zero technical or scientific competence come up with cat belling solutions and think they are so smart..and worse,. when they convince other people.

    'Renewable energy' is a total cat belling* lunacy.

    The other fable that springs to mind is of the Bandar Log** - who were wont to utter the profoundly illogical statement that 'we all say it, so it must be true'.

    If you think it is odd that I must needs refer to children's stories to identify the primary characteristics of Greenpeace et al,. then you are probably right.

    They never grew up - poor things. They still believe in fairy tales, and magic.

    *http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/67.html

    **http://www.readbookonline.net/read/486/10059/

This topic is closed for new posts.