Greenpeace Ejected from MacExpo

[JobsRules]

If, say, Steinberg didn't like the fact that girls were hanbding out Protools leaflets in the aisles near their stand do you think Protools would have been kicked out?

No.

It's a huge over-reaction and shows that we now live in a world so devoid of genuine public spaces where debate can freely take place that Governments and corporations can silence anyone on a whim.

 

[thworple]

I was there yesterday, and all Greenpeace did was hand out leaflets at the entrance to people entering the Expo at the Olympia. Hardly the actions of a "militant eco-group". I honestly didn't see them do anything else out of the ordinary, especially compared to other stand-holders who also roamed freely around the exhibition giving out leaflets etc.

I saw them in the pub across the road in the afternoon, and they looked they were having a hasty meeting about what had transpired. One would assume that "chucking them out" is only going to have an adverse effect on the publicity Apple receives about its attitude to "green issues" (although in this instance it wasn't Apple themselves that had Greenpeace removed, instead it was the MacExpo organisers).

Its a real shame, as they weren't doing any real harm, I think they have probably been harshly treated in this instance!

 

[bitfactory]

So all Greenpeace did was hand out leaflets in areas other than their stand? So they didn't smash up the Apple stand or invade Adobe chanting and shouting.

They handed out leaflets and were ejected because no one's ever allowed to talk about the downsides of our throwaway consumer-trinket technojunk culture without being told to shut up.

Heck, every trade show I ever go to has girls with their tits half hanging out wondering the halls handing out leaflets nowhere near their particular stand.

Sad to see so many people now happy to have people's free speech stamped all over. No wonder Bush can dismantle the Bill of Rights and his lapdog Blair can swiftly remove centruries-old liberties with barely a whisper. I agree with Greenpeace's concerns. Vast toxic waste dumps with no proper processing are springing up across China.

If some fat overfed Westerner's kids had to live and play near a site like that they'd be up in arms! But, no, let's pretend the problems are somehow 'made up' by 'subversives' and need stamping out with the jackboots.

This way, please.

 

[Roy Hobbs]

Steve Jobs is a hippie.

In my opinion you can't have true hippie values and be a CEO of a major cooperation.

 

[Maxx Power]

But this particular crap from Greenpeace has already been debunked.

They have gone from a respectable environmentalist group to a militant anti-business lobby.

I am Green, but I am not Greenpeace!

link at /. where this has been gone over a while ago, what a bogus Greenpeace report: http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=198431&cid=16258305

I don't know if you can call that debunking. I see a lot of greenpeace arguments as well that are valid. If anything, I'd say the author and the posts go so far as to trivialize what greenpeace had to point out, but not invalidating it. You can't invalidate environmental risks that occur sometime down the road by purely using data from now.

Same thing with global warming, which should be renamed into a non-misleading term "global weather change" since strictly speaking some regions will warm up, others will cool down (like europe, right now, with the gulf stream cut short, they've been getting snow in Germany and France for example, consistently over the last few years where there wasn't any before), we know for a fact we can affect our weather, we know for a fact that in many regions (mine for example), the weather has been consistently warming up and gradually changing on the yearly scale (last year the temp record in winter was broken again by 1 degree, and has been since the beginning of records), so it's not a debate about whether or not global warming is an observable fact, it should be a debate about how much it is caused by us and to what extent it'll affect us and what can we actively do about it. Anymore debate into its existence is a stall of time and a waste of effort.

I think that any argument against greenpeace implying that "artificial chemicals, when dumped into our ecosystem, will not do harm as long as we don't observe it" can be safely ignored. If you put it this way, the scientific industry that does this kind of environmental research doesn't even close to the funding that R&D gets, and that it isn't revenue generating. There isn't nearly as big of a chance that the eco-scientists will catch problems as fast as they are made.

 

[bitfactory]

If, say, Steinberg didn't like the fact that girls were hanbding out Protools leaflets in the aisles near their stand do you think Protools would have been kicked out?

No.

It's a huge over-reaction and shows that we now live in a world so devoid of genuine public spaces where debate can freely take place that Governments and corporations can silence anyone on a whim.

Dude, it's a MacWorld convention, not an environmental love-in. GP needs to get their own convention. They were on private property - the conf organizers have the right to do what they want. Never mind their rights, huh?

 

[JobsRules]

I was there yesterday, and all Greenpeace did was hand out leaflets at the entrance to people entering the Expo at the Olympia. Hardly the actions of a "militant eco-group". I honestly didn't see them do anything else out of the ordinary, especially compared to other stand-holders who also roamed freely around the exhibition giving out leaflets etc.

I saw them in the pub across the road in the afternoon, and they looked they were having a hasty meeting about what had transpired. One would assume that "chucking them out" is only going to have an adverse effect on the publicity Apple receives about its attitude to "green issues" (although in this instance it wasn't Apple themselves that had Greenpeace removed, instead it was the MacExpo organisers).

Its a real shame, as they weren't doing any real harm, I think they have probably been harshly treated in this instance!

Exactly. There was no violence, no rowdiness. This is how the current mindf*cks work. People hear that a group or activist with views counter to the needs of govenrment and big business and their heads immediately fills with images of extreme millitancy. As I said - they handed out leaflets. That's it.

It's the same when the intelligence services and police stage 'terror raids' on houses where the inhabitants have no connection to terror. People immediately think 'Ahh, they've got those terrorist scum...' When the suspects are released without charge no one asks how zero evidence can possibly lead to an armed raid.

 

[nagromme]

So, basically:

* Greenpeace takes actions that hurt their own worthy cause (the problems are real, but the ranking stuff is the wrong kind of attention-seeking) 😱

* Apple takes action to suppress the message and instead draws even more attention to it 😱

The fallout from the above missteps, we should hope, is that Apple AND other companies DO improve their environmental practices. For ALL our sakes. Apple should be praised for what they have done right (which is a lot--look at the shrinking of packaging in certain cases) and should not be let off the hook for what they still should do better.

Still, there are always people looking for a reason to be pro-corporations and anti-anyone-working-for-good-causes. So that bandwagon has seating available 🙂

 

[JobsRules]

Dude, it's a MacWorld convention, not an environmental love-in. GP needs to get their own convention. They were on private property - the conf organizers have the right to do what they want. Never mind their rights, huh?

As I said, fewer and fewer spaces where public debate can take place. Shopping malls are the same - 'public spaces' that aren't. Soon streets that have been public for years will start to be be privatised to provide 'better value for taxpayers' and the takeover will continue.

Then where can free debate take place? Some postage-stamp size bit of turf you call home?

 

[bitfactory]

As I said, fewer and fewer spaces where public debate can take place. Shopping malls are the same - 'public spaces' that aren't. Soon streets that have been public for years will start to be be privatised to provide 'better value for taxpayers' and the takeover will continue.

Then where can free debate take place? Some postage-stamp size bit of turf you call home?

Huh? Here, this might help.

... and who thought shopping malls were public places? WTH? Honestly.

 

[Machead III]

Whilst I think it's highly unlikely Apple are the 4th worst for environmental damage of any electronics company in the world, I imagine just like every other major corperation on planet earth their playing their part in the destruction of species, and so I have to side with Greenpeace every time.

 

[benthewraith]

To quote the provocative and renowned philosopher Eric Cartman,

“No, I hate hippies! All they do is talk about the environment and then they drive cars that get bad gas milage!”

😛

I lost all respect for that character when he fed Scott Tenorman's parents to him in chili.

 

[Shadow]

I. Hate. Greenpeace. I've wasted seconds of my life 'listening' to them and its all rubbish.
http://www.apple.com/environment/

 

[thworple]

Dude, it's a MacWorld convention, not an environmental love-in. GP needs to get their own convention. They were on private property - the conf organizers have the right to do what they want. Never mind their rights, huh?

Hmmmm, so what you're saying is that a quiet protest (which as an eye-witness I can say this was!!) about a subject they feel strongly about isn't allowed at certain conventions because of the political orientation of the people in charge.

The whole point of the MacExpo is to show the services that Apple and its Third-Party agents can supply to the public. I don't see what the harm is in advertising what they DON'T offer (ie:- in the opinion of Greenpeace - a sound environmental agenda) at the same time.

I'm not going to side with any particular viewpoint about Apple's "green policy" here, as I simply have not read enough about it to convey an honest and balanced opinion. however I do feel that it is within Greenpeace's right to advertise the issues they feel strongly about in an orderly manner (which as far as I'm concerned they did on Thursday!).

 

[ju5tin81]

By getting press coverage, by being ejected, they have got what they wanted: To raise awareness of their cause.

In addition, the british press just LOVE to bring down a sucessful person/product/brand... brace yourselves for a lot of anti-apple press, now everyone knows how un-green apple are.

I was there today, and was offered a leaflet, and an organic apple, on leaving olympia tube station. They do have a valid point...

It hurt when I saw my work arrange for a broken tangerine iMac to be taken to the tip, when Dell came personally to take their broken PC...

I love apple, they could do more than simply offer to recycle their PACKAGING! Finish the job Apple. (We pay enough for the privelige)

Edit: Apple can you also put a spell check into Safari please 🙂

 

[combatcolin]

Liked the short advert.

Did make me laugh.

Apple should rip out all there roofing at there HQ and replace it with Solar Panels and replace the heating systems with CHRP systems.

That would help a lot.

 

[lmalave]

If, say, Steinberg didn't like the fact that girls were hanbding out Protools leaflets in the aisles near their stand do you think Protools would have been kicked out?

If they had already been forewarned and did it anyway, then yes, a company would have probably been kicked out (especially if they continued after a second warning).

Have you ever been to a tech convention? It is *not* a free-for-all where people roam around handing out fliers anywhere on the convention floor. Vendors are expected to stick to their designated booth that they paid for. Conventions make money by charging for floorspace. What kind of leverage would they have to charge for premium or larger floorspace, if vendors could just get the smallest booth possible, but then flood the convention floor with people handing out brochures? Even though Greenpeace is not a vendor and probably received their booth space pro-bono, they should still stick to the convention floor rules.

 

[JobsRules]

If you actually look at Greenpeace's spoof Apple site, it's actually quite friendly to the corporation like, 'You're a great stylish brand but you could do better'.

Among 'activist types' Mac usage is far, far higher than amoung the general population. Greenpeace members are probably avid Mac users.

 

[alexf]

Thank you, Greenpeace. Public awareness is what it's all about. If Apple does not like it, maybe it's time to shape up and actually try to live up to the "environmentally friendly" image that they have been trying to create.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

And Greenpeace wonder why people don't take them very seriously.....

 

[thworple]

What kind of leverage would they have to charge for premium or larger floorspace, if vendors could just get the smallest booth possible, but then flood the convention floor with people handing out brochures? Even though Greenpeace is not a vendor and probably received their booth space pro-bono, they should still stick to the convention floor rules.

In that case I would love to know what happened to other half-dozen or so companies that handed out leaflets outside of their allotted "zone", or the chaps that went around spotting people who had red badges on, and handing out free USB Flash-drives to whoever they found! 😀

 

[nick004]

They must be from California, lots of smugg Greenpeace hippies hanging around there.

 

[steve_hill4]

I didn't even know there was an Expo on!QUOTE]
Oh it's on. It's nowhere near as big as MacWorld San Francisco or MacWorld Paris, but Mac Expo London is pretty good for those in the UK that don't want to travel too far. £12 per person on the door, but the first 5000 to order in advance got tickets for free, (including me, off there tomorrow).

From the Green point of view, I would want Apple to be as green as the fruit they name themselves after. I am all for recycling, minimising energy consumption and many other environmental issues. I don't however want to have to buy some godawful PC just on the basis of their green record. For example, why do all the Apple computers have to ship with the box, wrapped in a plastic bag, surrounded in polystyrene, inside another box? Surely Apple can reduce the amount and layers of packaging and make another smaller step to a decent green record.

Hope they're back tomorrow and I can have a small chat with them at some point.

 

[pyramid6]

I highly doubt Apple is the forth worse company in the world. Greenpeace is just trying to ride Apple's popularity. I love it when groups practice civil disobedience, get punished, and then complain about it. You break the rules, you are supposed to get punished. That is the point of civil disobedience. Anyway, Greenpeace isn't stupid, even if they have lost thier way.

 

[lmalave]

Exactly. There was no violence, no rowdiness. This is how the current mindf*cks work. People hear that a group or activist with views counter to the needs of govenrment and big business and their heads immediately fills with images of extreme millitancy. As I said - they handed out leaflets. That's it.

It's the same when the intelligence services and police stage 'terror raids' on houses where the inhabitants have no connection to terror. People immediately think 'Ahh, they've got those terrorist scum...' When the suspects are released without charge no one asks how zero evidence can possibly lead to an armed raid.

No, in the case of Greenpeace, most people's experience is probably formed from *first-hand* experience of being approached on city streets. I've certainly been approached dozens of times here in NYC. Personally, Greenpeace doesn't bother me. But Greenpeace reps usually *are* quite insistent, and that behavior is legal on a city street, but does not have to be tolerated on private property.

I mean, it's easy for me to brush people off here in NYC because I'm used to it (constantly get approached by panhandlers, palm readers, political activists, etc.). But at a convention, people whoe weren't used to that probably allowed themselves to be stopped and then had their ears talked off for a few minutes, because they were just too nice to brush off a pretty young girl (which most Greenpeace reps are because they know that people will be much nicer to them on average than to, say, a young punk-ass male). So these people probably didn't say anything to the Greenpeace rep's face, but then turned around and noted a complaint with MacExpo. MacExpo probably received a few of these complaints and decided enough was enough...