Apple Is Tech's 'Least Clean' Company: Greenpeace

[Vehl]

Moving to the cloud could be making acid rain.

While U.S. companies are not required to disclose energy information, such as carbon emissions, a report by Greenpeace revealed the high cost of the data centers tech companies rely upon to deliver their services. Apple was the least green of all, with its data centers at 54.5 percent reliance on coal, followed by Facebook at 53.2 percent and IBM with 51.6 percent. Yahoo, Google and Amazon were highlighted for their clean energy use.

..
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North Carolina is the hub for what Greenpeace calls a "dirty data triangle," referring to a trio of giant data centers run by Apple, Google and Facebook. North Carolina provides an attractive set of tax incentives, as well as the promise low-cost energy, offered in an initiative by local economic development agencies to battle high unemployment and draw IT companies to the area. But the generation mix in the area is one of the dirtiest in the country, drawing only 4 percent from renewable sources, and 61 percent from coal.
..
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But many of Google's practices prove to be far more eco-friendly than those pursued through its North Carolinian data hub. The company has shown a commitment to green goals, signing a 20-year power purchasing agreement with a wind energy company in Iowa, and investing $100 million in an Oregon wind farm, as well as setting up subsidiary Google Energy to let it buy and sell wholesale energy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/apple-green-ranking-greenpeace_n_851939.html

Macbook Green Commercial from Apple
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TubjfUFhecg


This piece of news fits in well with what Apple generally does. It has an awesome marketing team...that is all.

[Avant Guardian]

1. Crappy OS too

[Tesha]

3. It's okay; even with you posting your opinion, they still made a shitload of money. (NT)

[Avant Guardian]

7. Yeah, well so did BP

Yer point?

[Tesha]

8. My (admittedly-oblique) point...

...was that every major corporation has folks who trash-talk
that corporation, and often the trash talk is *NOTHING BUT*
woefully-uninformed opinion.

But at least for Apple, enough people like them, even in the
presence of all of the trash talk, that they just made another
shipload of money and their stock is again flirting with record
high values.

This puts an apt counterpoint on your opinion.

Tesha

[Avant Guardian]

10. I run an IT helpdesk

Including two MAC labs. I speak from experience.

[peace4ever]

11. So if it wasn't for MS many issues, you'd be out of a job

Interesting...

[Avant Guardian]

12. No quite, but...

...at work we do call Microsoft, 'job security.'

[Tesha]

13. I find that people who run IT help desks almost-universally discourage the use of Macs.

I've come to the same conclusion you have.

Tesha

[fascisthunter]

21. yup!

[fascisthunter]

20. damn straight Skippy!

So many IT folks despise OS X for this very reason.

[walldude]

16. You know what it is right?

People who love Mac are basically computer illiterate. I'm not saying that's a bad thing but, they do seem to get an attitude about it. Mac was designed for people who don't really like computers basically the OS is dumbed down so that anyone can use it within 5 minutes of looking at it. Great for some people but not for all of us.

I like a machine I can work on. tinker with. I like a machine where when something goes wrong I don't have to go see the so called "Genius" at the Genius Bar in an Apple Store. I like to figure out what's wrong and fix the damn thing myself. You being IT have probably run into the same thing I do the "Genius" is nothing of the sort. I have yet to meet an Apple employee who knows more than I do about Macs.

All that is besides the point, here's Apple in all their glory, tracking your every move:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=935512&mesg_id=935512

Yeah keep praising them as they are tracking you.

[Awsi Dooger]

17. You really want to rely on that?

One group of millions of computer owners is considerably less computer literate on average than many millions more who use a different system? Unbelievable.

It reminds me of my friend Darryl in Las Vegas, one of the sharpest bettors in town. Whenever he hears a TV commentator make a ridiculous overreaction he turns and asks, "How'd you like to be able to push a button and bet "No" on that? For all the money in the world."

The burden on that type of summary is surreal. Yet it's tossed around like a frisbee. PC users don't like the underlying theme that Mac products and users are more "cool" so they defensively label Mac users as sheep or simplistic.

Funny, not too long ago the reputation was exactly the opposite of what you described. Mac user groups were everywhere, meeting monthly or weekly if not more often. I remember PC big shots mocking the situation, saying the Mac nerds frenzied to get together and decipher every detail of their beloved machine and operating system and peripherals.

Whatever fits.

I'm sure the same themes will be prevalent in every Apple related thread a decade and several stock splits from now.

[Tesha]

18. You have no idea what you're talking about.

> People who love Mac are basically computer illiterate.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Mr. Tesha and I have both been computer professionals
for about a third of a century; his experience spans
computer hardware and operating system design as well
as a number of embedded systems, some of which are
critical to our nation's defense.

But we want to *USE* our computers, not dink around
with them, and Macintosh computers *JUST WORK*. And
we're not alone in that; read any high-end science
magazine or watch television programs about science
and you'll see that some of the smartest people
around use Macs. I suspect that they, like us, have
better things to focus their minds upon than the
next tweak they'll make to their computers.

If you like to tinker with your computer(s), more
power to you. But I want my computer to be a tool
that aids me in my work, not an end in itself.

Tesha

[fascisthunter]

22. yeah, that's what it is

lol

[sudopod]

14. double posten nt

[sudopod]

15. It is always hilarious to watch people charge in to defend their favorite enormous corporation

Why do people get so emotional about a company, a company to which they have apparently pledged their everlasting loyalty and faith? Whether it's Toyota, Apple, their competitors, or whatever -- LOL, lol, lol, and lol.

I mean really, out of all the things in the world to use as your avatar, the image that you choose for the rest of the world associate with you, you picked a consumer device. Of all the controversial threads on GD to choose from touching all aspects of world events, this is the one that really rustles your jimmies.

LOL.

[fascisthunter]

23. and when people attack certain corporations because they are fans of their competition

[meegbear]

9. Oh SNAP!

[fascisthunter]

19. the best operating system I have used so far

me thinks you are dishonest

[Robb]

2. Percentage is meaningless. 51% of IBM is much more than 54% of Apple, I assume.

[Tesha]

5. Is IBM known for operating big data centers for hire?

They used to do some of this, but I don't think they have
a cloud presence similar to the other companies named.

And Apple as a whole is a bigger company than IBM these
days. (Remember when folks use to say IBM should buy
Apple? The deal would go the other way these days.)

Tesha

[peace4ever]

4. Apple offers much more than good marketing, otherwise they wouldn't be the industry leader

Marketing might get folks to notice something, but it has nothing to do with the user experience, which many smart people can't seem to get.

[orwell]

6. Google is also putting...

...R&D dollars into the green economy, backing electric car production and clean energy research.

Green is good business for those who can look beyond the next quarter's profit statement...

[underpants]

24. "dirty data triangle,"

:evilgrin: