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How to Spot Greenwashing
Organizers of this weekend's Green Living Show say they rejected 100 would-be exhibitors because their goods were not terribly environmental.
Sensing a lucrative green wave, some entrepreneurs are pushing products that make promises they cannot keep, spinning them as "natural" or "earth friendly," terms that are meaningless.
• Look for products that have been certified by independent parties, such as EcoLogo, right, or Green Seal. Both have set standards and perform ongoing checks.
• Check if the certification claims are true. Reputable certifiers offer public lists of their companies.
• Ask whether a company is emphasizing good work in one area but hiding negative practices in another.
• Examine the product label for directions that tell consumers how to find proof of its claims.
• Is the claim evident? Or so vague (such as "all natural" or "Earth friendly") that it is meaningless?
4-25-2008
Moira Welsh
Toronto Star
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to do some research before going green, or even, at the bare minimum, read the freakin' labels of your shiny new green product. I work in grocery/gm retail, and I've developed a pet peeve roughly the size of Jupiter, when it comes to jackasses who buy every product in green packaging. Every product that claims to be natural. Every nonsensical, hippy-dippy homeonaturorganic product, without understanding what 'organic' means. Most of all, I'm tired of people who preach greening, without considering the problem holistically.
Memo to idiots: 'natural' products are not better for the environment if they were shipped across the continent. Reusable bags are not better for the environment if they contain possibly dangerous, untested due to grandathering chemicals, that are never broken down by the bodies of living things. Your energy efficient light bulbs, appliances and insulation are not better for the environment if you landfilled the less efficient versions.
And while we're on the subject of greenwashing - stainless steel drinking bottles. Actually green? I'm a bit leery of the mining/refining/manufacturing process. This requires investigating, because I'm sure I've seen ss bottles that claim to be green.
NASA has a stunning image of the day - Uvs Nuur Basin, Mongolia
The Uvs Nuur Basin sits on the northern edge of the Central Asian steppes, bounded on all sides by mountains. Though largely arid, the basin is dotted with water. A large salt lake, the Uvs Nuur Lake, sits at the center of the basin, and several smaller lakes are scattered across the region. Rivers, the largest of which is the Tes-Khem, run from the surrounding mountains into the basin, but no rivers flow out of the basin. This image shows one of the smaller lakes near the western edge of the basin.
PA Semi customers asking Department of Defense to intervene in Apple sale
Apple has long served as a haven in the Valley for engineers with a taste for hallucinogens and pacifism. The same can not be said of PA Semi, which Apple recently acquired. The PWRficient processor was an instant hit among defense contractors building the latest in hyper-efficient killing technology, such as Curtiss-Wright Controls. As the EE Times reports:
"We've had customers saying they are going to the DoD on this one," said a source in one of the several companies making embedded computer boards with the processor.
I'm sure Apple will be happy to simply license the design to a fabricator with no qualms about dealing in death. God bless America.
4-24-2008
Jackman West
ValleyWag
I'm linking this for the comments, such as:
Blow that shit up. My SUV needs oil, as I need to drive it to the mechanic because I got so many weak omega-male crybabies caught in my tires when I went plowing through the torch protest crowds. Hopefully he can get the smell of entry-level wage and patchouli off of the rubber as well.
and
Also, your pacifist snark aside, what do you think gives us the ability to wage war without unintentionially killing thousands of civilians? Targeting technology that uses advanced electronics. The fact is, having more effective and more accurate weapons saves lives: first, those of American troops, who have the right to demand the best technology available, given the risk we ask them to take; second, those of non-combatants, as we no longer have to level cities to take out crucial infrastructure and we can target military facilities embedded among civilian infrastructure; and third, enemy combatants, who know that we can put a bomb through the skylight of a treehouse and are more likely to surrender as a result.
Well, it's true that casualties in Iraq don't come close to casualties in say, WW2, it's specious to claim that targeting technology as it stands was developed in order to reduce civilian casualties. It's certainly a selling point when firms shop their wares to the DoD, in the sense that reducing collateral damage means less ill will from the international community, but it's not THE selling point. Increasing remote capabilities is imo mainly driven by projected cost-cutting and risk aversion.
And come on, the whole 'we can put a bomb through the skylight of a treehouse' thing is so patently false - under ideal conditions the technology can do this, but in practice? Not so much. DoD yahoos have been predicting theFinal Crisis Revolution To End All Revolutions In Military Affairs, since like, the start of the Cold War and it still hasn't materialized. In practice what we've got is one country that's seventy bajillion lightyears ahead of everyone else when it comes to defense technology, and lots of other countries and non-state actors who spend all their time figuring out how to get around this snazzy new tech. Hello IUDs! (Did your know that garage door openers are key weapons in insurgencies, guerrilla wars and terrorism all over the world?)
Let's also not forget that a lot of America's woes have been the result of this aversion to putting boots on the ground.
And! All the victims of: bombs that hit the wrong treehouse; pilots who had bad intel; and lots and lots of HUMAN ERROR.
(Man, do you guys remember that episode of ToS, where two neighboring planets had outsourced their war to their computers, in order to reduce collateral damage, and the civilians were required to calmly report to a nearby disintegration facility, when it was calculated that they'd been 'victims' in the latest 'attack'?
Awesome sauce. Oh Stark Trek, you continue to win at lulz even now).
Organizers of this weekend's Green Living Show say they rejected 100 would-be exhibitors because their goods were not terribly environmental.
Sensing a lucrative green wave, some entrepreneurs are pushing products that make promises they cannot keep, spinning them as "natural" or "earth friendly," terms that are meaningless.
• Look for products that have been certified by independent parties, such as EcoLogo, right, or Green Seal. Both have set standards and perform ongoing checks.
• Check if the certification claims are true. Reputable certifiers offer public lists of their companies.
• Ask whether a company is emphasizing good work in one area but hiding negative practices in another.
• Examine the product label for directions that tell consumers how to find proof of its claims.
• Is the claim evident? Or so vague (such as "all natural" or "Earth friendly") that it is meaningless?
4-25-2008
Moira Welsh
Toronto Star
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to do some research before going green, or even, at the bare minimum, read the freakin' labels of your shiny new green product. I work in grocery/gm retail, and I've developed a pet peeve roughly the size of Jupiter, when it comes to jackasses who buy every product in green packaging. Every product that claims to be natural. Every nonsensical, hippy-dippy homeonaturorganic product, without understanding what 'organic' means. Most of all, I'm tired of people who preach greening, without considering the problem holistically.
Memo to idiots: 'natural' products are not better for the environment if they were shipped across the continent. Reusable bags are not better for the environment if they contain possibly dangerous, untested due to grandathering chemicals, that are never broken down by the bodies of living things. Your energy efficient light bulbs, appliances and insulation are not better for the environment if you landfilled the less efficient versions.
And while we're on the subject of greenwashing - stainless steel drinking bottles. Actually green? I'm a bit leery of the mining/refining/manufacturing process. This requires investigating, because I'm sure I've seen ss bottles that claim to be green.
NASA has a stunning image of the day - Uvs Nuur Basin, Mongolia
The Uvs Nuur Basin sits on the northern edge of the Central Asian steppes, bounded on all sides by mountains. Though largely arid, the basin is dotted with water. A large salt lake, the Uvs Nuur Lake, sits at the center of the basin, and several smaller lakes are scattered across the region. Rivers, the largest of which is the Tes-Khem, run from the surrounding mountains into the basin, but no rivers flow out of the basin. This image shows one of the smaller lakes near the western edge of the basin.
PA Semi customers asking Department of Defense to intervene in Apple sale
Apple has long served as a haven in the Valley for engineers with a taste for hallucinogens and pacifism. The same can not be said of PA Semi, which Apple recently acquired. The PWRficient processor was an instant hit among defense contractors building the latest in hyper-efficient killing technology, such as Curtiss-Wright Controls. As the EE Times reports:
"We've had customers saying they are going to the DoD on this one," said a source in one of the several companies making embedded computer boards with the processor.
I'm sure Apple will be happy to simply license the design to a fabricator with no qualms about dealing in death. God bless America.
4-24-2008
Jackman West
ValleyWag
I'm linking this for the comments, such as:
Blow that shit up. My SUV needs oil, as I need to drive it to the mechanic because I got so many weak omega-male crybabies caught in my tires when I went plowing through the torch protest crowds. Hopefully he can get the smell of entry-level wage and patchouli off of the rubber as well.
and
Also, your pacifist snark aside, what do you think gives us the ability to wage war without unintentionially killing thousands of civilians? Targeting technology that uses advanced electronics. The fact is, having more effective and more accurate weapons saves lives: first, those of American troops, who have the right to demand the best technology available, given the risk we ask them to take; second, those of non-combatants, as we no longer have to level cities to take out crucial infrastructure and we can target military facilities embedded among civilian infrastructure; and third, enemy combatants, who know that we can put a bomb through the skylight of a treehouse and are more likely to surrender as a result.
Well, it's true that casualties in Iraq don't come close to casualties in say, WW2, it's specious to claim that targeting technology as it stands was developed in order to reduce civilian casualties. It's certainly a selling point when firms shop their wares to the DoD, in the sense that reducing collateral damage means less ill will from the international community, but it's not THE selling point. Increasing remote capabilities is imo mainly driven by projected cost-cutting and risk aversion.
And come on, the whole 'we can put a bomb through the skylight of a treehouse' thing is so patently false - under ideal conditions the technology can do this, but in practice? Not so much. DoD yahoos have been predicting the
Let's also not forget that a lot of America's woes have been the result of this aversion to putting boots on the ground.
And! All the victims of: bombs that hit the wrong treehouse; pilots who had bad intel; and lots and lots of HUMAN ERROR.
(Man, do you guys remember that episode of ToS, where two neighboring planets had outsourced their war to their computers, in order to reduce collateral damage, and the civilians were required to calmly report to a nearby disintegration facility, when it was calculated that they'd been 'victims' in the latest 'attack'?
Awesome sauce. Oh Stark Trek, you continue to win at lulz even now).