Greenpeace Activists Protest at Apple's Irish Offices over Data Center Energy Use

[iZac]

High profile target makes high profile news. This is almost as ridiculous as the crap that PETA pulls.

 

[y3k]

Geez, there are so many companies in the world really ignoring environmental issues and these idiots are attacking Apple, probably the greenest computer manufacturer on Earth?

 

[Fraaaa]

Come on. They listed on the 14 companies even Yahoo that has 50% of renewable energy, as in: "No matter the effort will make you pay!" .

 

[JAT]

Apple's math actually doesn't add up because a 20 MW solar farm only generates 15-20% of its rating. There's no way you get 60% renewable penetration based on what they've built, you can't even get 50%. If Greenpeace wanted to attack Apple they could get them on bad math. But they won't because they're too lazy to do the math in the first place.

Based on which panels? There's been a lot of change. Plus, I thought for the entire farm/array, they use output as the rating.

 

[Starflyer]

This has been proven to be a fake letter over the years, I think the site Snoops or something verified that info. Sadly.

Now, how bout that "Mountain Lion"? Thoughts? ... Anyone? ... Bueller? ... Voodoo economics?...

I have never heard that. I did a quick google search and I can't find anything saying it was fake.

 

[Bubba Satori]

The proles have to obey dictatorial environmental laws
but Greenfleece doesn't have to obey tresspass, vandalism and extortion laws.

How special.
Another ******* double standard.
Don't do as we do, do as we say.

Frauds, hypocrites and unaccountable envrionazis forcing their irrational ideology down our throats.
They won't be satisfied until they've ground Western Civilization a halt
and were all sitting in the dark, shivering as we gaze at our green navels.

The billionaire carbon credit mobster poster boy of environmental hypocrisy.

 

[justperry]

I feel like there are much more environmentally-damaging companies they could be protesting instead of Apple, which actually has an amazing record for a computer company.

Steel companies use massive amounts of electricity in their furnaces.

 

[3282868]

I have never heard that. I did a quick google search and I can't find anything saying it was fake.

The letter was fake but not Moore's change in stance. Interesting as to why. Hmmm. I just read this info, seems like the two are just going back and forth, however Moore has made a s**tload of cash from corporations in lectures, speeches, tours, etc. Just basic mudslinging that goes nowhere. Shame as I try to be as eco-conscious as anyone, but Greenpeace sometimes gives the environmental movement a bad rap. Sucks. I just hope that this doesn't make people on here anti-environmental. We need to be more aware of the impact that we (as techies) have on the environment. I'm disappointed in a lot of the comments, not because of their points but because of such comments as "*******s", "idiots", "get a job", etc. We may all not agree, but I just wish more on here would do so civilly. In the words of Rodney Kind, "Why can't we all just get along" lol

Greenpeace Statement On Patrick Moore
Media release - October 10, 2008
Patrick Moore often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental “expert” or even an “environmentalist,” while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance. He also exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson, usually taking positions that Greenpeace opposes.
While it is true that Patrick Moore was a member of Greenpeace in the 1970s, in 1986 he abruptly turned his back on the very issues he once passionately defended. He claims he "saw the light" but what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.

Patrick Moore promotes such anti-environmental positions as clearcut logging, nuclear power, farmed salmon, PVC (vinyl) production, genetically engineered crops, and mining. Clients for his consulting services are a veritable Who's Who of companies that Greenpeace has exposed for environmental misdeeds, including Monsanto, Weyerhaeuser, and BHP Minerals.

Moore's claims run from the exaggerated to the outrageous to the downright false, including that "clear-cutting is good for forests" and Three Mile Island was actually "a success story" because the radiation from the partially melted core was contained. That is akin to saying "my car crash was a success because I only cracked my skull and didn't die."

By exploiting his former ties to Greenpeace, Moore portrays himself as a prodigal son who has seen the error of his ways. Unfortunately, the media - especially conservative media - give him a platform for his views, and often do so without mentioning the fact that he is a paid spokesperson for polluting companies.

The following provides a brief overview of Patrick Moore's positions and his history of working for corporate polluters.

TRUTH V. FICTION ON PATRICK MOORE:

Patrick Moore claims he is an environmentalist and represents an independent scientific perspective on forest issues.

TRUTH: Moore was paid by the British Columbia Forest Alliance, an industry-front group set up by the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller (the same PR firm that represented Exxon after the Valdez oil spill and Union Carbide after the Bhopal chemical disaster). The BC Forest Alliance is funded primarily by the logging industry. He also has ties to other corporations including Monsanto and Weyerhaeuser.

According to Moore, logging is good for forests causing reforestation, not deforestation.

TRUTH: Webster's Dictionary defines deforestation as "the action or process of clearing of forests." The argument advanced by forest industry spin-doctors that clear-cutting "causes reforestation, not deforestation" is without basis in fact. It is like arguing that having a heart attack improves your health because of the medical treatment you receive afterwards.

According to Moore: "Forward-thinking environmentalists and scientists have made clear, technology has now progressed to the point where the activist fear mongering about the safety of nuclear energy bears no resemblance to reality."

TRUTH:

- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) concluded years ago that the lack of containment on Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored advanced nuclear reactor designs constituted a "major safety trade-off."

- Patrick Moore has recently begun touting the "safety" of nuclear energy at the behest of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which is being bankrolled by the nuclear industry to promote nuclear energy as clean and safe energy. The public relations firm Hill & Knowlton has been hired to roll out a multi-million dollar campaign to repackage Moore's propaganda to convince congressional leaders of public support for the building of new nuclear plants.

Hill and Knowlton are most well known for their public relations work defending the tobacco industry. The PR firm has also worked for industry interests to stall action to protect the ozone layer by executing "a carefully designed campaign attacking the science behind the ozone depletion and delaying government action for two years. This was enough time for DuPont to bring new, ozone-friendly chemicals to market." Austin American Statesman, Cox News Service Jeff Nesmith June 26, 2005 http://www.statesman.com/search/content/insight/stories/06/26doubt.html

More information on Hill and Knowlton can be found at:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hill_&_Knowlton

Moore's recent call that the U.S. should generate 60 percent of U.S. electricity from nuclear power is ludicrous. These plants are acknowledged by the federal government's own National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States - commonly referred to as the 9/11 Commission - as terrorist targets. An accident or terrorist attack at a nuclear plant could result in thousands of near-term deaths from radiation exposure and hundreds of thousands of long-term deaths from cancer among individuals within only fifty miles of a nuclear plant.

His proposal not only fails to address the risk posed to the American public by our existing plants, but also fails to address the urgent issue of global warming. According to Dr. Bill Keepin, a physicist and energy consultant in the U.S., "given business-as-usual growth in energy demand, it appears that even an infeasibly massive global nuclear power programme could not reduce future emissions of carbon dioxide. To displace coal alone would require the construction of a new nuclear plant every two or three days for nearly four decades…in the United States, each dollar invested in efficiency displaces nearly seven times more carbon than a dollar invested in new nuclear power."

According to Moore, "Three Mile Island was actually a success story in that the radiation from the partially melted core was contained."

TRUTH:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that 10 million curies of radiation were released into the environment by the Three Mile Island Meltdown. Expert witnesses in the TMI law suits estimated that 150 million curies escaped, because the containment at Three Mile Island was not leak tight and the NRC ignored many of the potential escape routes for the radiation.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Based on which panels? There's been a lot of change. Plus, I thought for the entire farm/array, they use output as the rating.

No, they use nameplate capacity, AKA the farm's output if it was generating at max 24/7. Only thing is the sun goes down so solar panels never generate 24/7.

And the panel improvements just mean you're able to get more MW out of a smaller footprint.

 

[keiths29]

Pick on the ones trying the hardest

Greenpeace has named the companies doing the most to be green. How many other companies are much worse? How many countries are worse? Its sad how a once great organization who used to fight real causes are now just trolling for press.

 

[Bodycalming]

Look closely, you will see them calling home on their mobile phone. . Do Greenpeace have a data centre, or do they use flags to communicate across the world?

 

[powers74]

Nuts

What are all the seeds then? Pathological liars?

Just nuts.

 

[MrNomNoms]

Datacenters are green. Massive servers that replace thousands of servers that would be required otherwise... It's like mass transit. The thing itself uses a massive amount of juice, but the alternative is far worse. I suppose it's just short-sightedness on their part?

Yes it is sorted sighted on their part; combine the cloud with high speed networks and telecommuting then one could imagine millions of cars off the road for starters, considerably smaller sized office buildings since a fair chunk of work is done at home etc. If technology is properly utilised and rolled out to all areas then it would be a boom for energy efficiency and conservation long term.

 

[guzhogi]

For its part, Greenpeace believes that Apple is continuing to obfuscate its energy numbers and release only those that make the company appear in a positive light.

And some would say Greenpeace is continuing to obfuscate other companies' energy numbers and release only those that make the companies appear in a negative light.

 

[spice weasel]

I feel like there are much more environmentally-damaging companies they could be protesting instead of Apple, which actually has an amazing record for a computer company.

Yeah, but then they wouldn't get as much press out of it. They're going after Apple in particular because of the popularity of its products and the name recognition it has.

I'm am completely down with the environmental cause, but Greenpeace is a joke.

 

[Sabenth]

i havent gone through all the pages but why protest outside a call center and not the actual server centers in america were these things are based? Just of late these protest things that have been happening do not seem to change a thing. Bankers are still raking in money apples going to carry on brining in the money and were all still going to use cloud based products .

 

[rcappo]

My laptop, iPhone, and iPod are solar powered. But, I'll agree that Apple isn't who they should be protesting. They have done a lot, and modern laptops are much more efficient than older desktops.

It is the coal ash ponds, the mining run-off, drilling, and air pollution that is the problem... The issue is that they get a lot more media coverage by protesting Apple than some mining operation in West Virginia.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Greenpeace is a joke. Apple get those servers fired up and EXPAND!

 

[Dirtfarmer]

Datacenters are green. Massive servers that replace thousands of servers that would be required otherwise... It's like mass transit. The thing itself uses a massive amount of juice, but the alternative is far worse. I suppose it's just short-sightedness on their part?

Absolutely not. Diesel buses pollute more, on average, than if the riders simply drove efficient gasoline cars.

Why? Because buses actually do not have that many riders, on average, and because diesel engines release thousands of times the pollution of gasoline ones: they just measure their emissions differently. Look it up.

Don't believe anyone's greenwashing BS hype, ever. Any chance that the green movement had of accomplishing their very important task has been lost. The movement has been hijacked by every profiteer, terrorist, and agenda-pusher on planet earth, and now means nothing.

 

[Tiger8]

noise

guys, this is normal, it is typical for every joe, jane, and tom to try to pass their agenda and using the world most valued company name as a vehicle for free publicity. Kinda reminds me of PETA and them 'protesting' celebrities for things like wearing FAKE fur or not speaking about animal rights.

 

[ciociosan]

Judging by the tone in here, I'm assuming this is going to get downvoted, but here goes.

While you may or may not like Greenpeace's tactics or their singling out Apple and not Lockheed, Union Carbide or whichever other corporation you'd like to name, it seems there's something rather important that's being overlooked here.

Apple, together with Google, is driving the move to the cloud. This is not something that was completely necessary, in my humble opinion, but a conscious business choice on Apple's part. It takes a whole lot of energy to move things back and forth over the Internet, at least compared to having it stored locally, so where that energy is coming from is important.

Now, while one might point out that no one's being forced to use cloud services, by Apple or any other company, with Apple's size and their legendary insistence on us doing things the way they want us to, by way of making "their" solutions (App Store, iCloud etc etc) more prominent than the alternatives, they have a role to play here.

Apple is a major player in consumer electronics, and Greenpeace has always been about raising awareness, in one form or another. This means that if they get Apple to change the way it's going about something, it affects the carbon footprint of A LOT of products and users.

And let's not forget, Apple didn't move to BFR free components and lower power consumption parts (on the desktop side anyway) because they're good people who care about people drowning in the Maldives or the coral reefs dying. They did it because they're a company that cares about bad PR and the effects it has on their profits. They changed things in large part because of organizations like Greenpeace.

Oh and all of you "IT'S A HOAX & AL GORE IS FAT!1!1!!!" types: Go back to sleep, we'll wake you when your house is under water.

 

[tmroper]

The Greenpeace people out in front of my local Apple store every day around lunchtime never try to mention this, they're still talking about the whales.

 

[Boisv]

This is all energy that could be spent going after companies with a strong pollution record, like perhaps BP.

 

[subsonix]

The billionaire carbon credit mobster poster boy of environmental hypocrisy.

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Ironically, Al Gore is on Apples board of directors. I'm not sure what that does to your argument.

 

[notabadname]

The attack was of course likely coordinated on iPhones and MacBooks.

Reminds me of the occupy Wall Street protests and all the Apple laptops and devices that were shown being used to coordinate the events against the big "evil" corporations then.