Is the Apple Green?

Just read a blog post over on MacWorld's MacUser blog about how Greenpeace is still giving Apple less than a green rating.

I'll be blunt... who cares what Geeenpeace thinks? Most, not all, but most of the whackos in the green movement have totally lost site of reality. Is Apple a totally green company... no, but they have made great strides towards that end.

I think that the main problem that green movement folks have is that none, or almost none, of them were alive during a time when things with the environment really were bad. I was alive during the 1960's and 1970's when air and water quality in the US was really bad. Back then, when the EPA got started and people really started to take a look at how we deal with our environment, we really did a fairly poor job of dealing with the land and the air and water. I don't have any numbers in front of me to share with you, but the reality of my experience says that water and air quality today is way improved over what it was 30-50 years ago.

Now, does that mean that we can't do any better, no, of course not. But my guess is that the collective inexperience of the whackos in the green movement keeps them from appreciating the great strides that we have made in the last 30-50 years. It's the same shortsightedness that keeps my kids from understanding that there was a time without computers and game systems.

There was a story that I heard several years ago about some body of water that was heavily polluted. Environmentalists got going and started a campaign to clean up this body of water. They succeeded and at the time of the story, it was estimated that the water in there was now somewhere around 95% clean. But that wasn't good enough for these folks... they wanted it to be something like 97% clean. It appears that they had no real appreciation for what had been done or to the fact that gaining that extra few percentage points of cleanliness would most likely be a massive financial burden to those responsible for the water and not really noticed by those using it.

Am I suggesting that Apple or we consumers should just ignore our environment just because we've made great strides? Of course not. but to be blunt... who is Greenpeace and who put them in charge of anything? Apple needs to keep doing what it can to be a good steward of the environment, as do we all. So I say let Greenpeace keep giving out their ratings and let's just ignore them and let's use our own good judgement to see if a company is doing due diligence in doing their part for the environment. If a company is not being a good steward of the environment then we can vote with our dollars. And if we ignore organizations such as Greenpeace... perhaps they'll just go away.

A respondent to the article on the blog about Greenpeace's rating of Apple said it best: "They won't be happy until Apple use tree limbs, leafs, and acorns for their products.

Personally, I'd like to know what kind of computers Greenpeace use that are so environmentally friendly."