Following Steve Jobs’s essay A Greener Apple, Greenpeace have responded on their anti-Apple campaign website with this article. The link on their homepage proudly reads “Breaking News: Steve Jobs announces change in policy.”
Change in policy? Hm, as I recall, his essay was just a report on what has already been done and what improvements are underway. They must be talking about this bit:
It is generally not Apple’s policy to trumpet our plans for the future; […] Unfortunately this policy has left our customers, shareholders, employees and the industry in the dark about Apple’s desires and plans to become greener. […] So today we’re changing our policy.What a bunch of clowns. They’ve taken Steve Jobs’s words completely out of context to make it sound as if Apple is doing an about-face on their practices. To put the cherry on top, they then go on to claim responsibility for this “revolution”:
And to all the Apple fans who have contributed their thoughts and blogs and creativity to this campaign, reach over your shoulder and pat yourself on the back. Put a happy tune on your ipod and do a happy dance. You’ve proven you can make a real difference. You convinced one of the world’s most cutting edge companies to cut the toxic ingredients out of the products they sell.
Congratulations! If this was their doing, Greenpeace must also deserve credit for effectively removing the basis for their own campaign being focused on Apple rather than computer makers with more market share. (I really like their anti-Dell web site. Ahem.) They acknowledge:
Apple has declared a phase out of the worst chemicals in its product range, Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) by 2008. That beats Dell and other computer manufactures’ pledge to phase them out by 2009.However, since they obviously can’t admit that the original motivation must have been “Hey, they’re popular. Let’s ride the wave!” they only try to distract from this issue by suddenly changing their tune:
Way to go Steve!
“Er, now what do we do with this web site?”
Way to go indeed, Steve.
3 comments:
Greenpeace has a long history of trying to claim credit for things that had nothing to do with them. There are countless cases where they hear about a local environmental group making some progress, and they sweep into town to make a big press splash and soak up the donation money.
NEVER confuse greenpeace with environmentalists. They're nothing but a PR-whoring outfit.
I heartily disagree with Anonymous.
And for the record, Amar, Greenpeace is not anti-Apple, never has been, never will be. They're just trying to put pressure on leaders in the electronics industry so these leaders will set a good example.
People use Apple computers, iPods, and other Apple products here at GP, and nobody thinks anything of it. "We love Apple, we just wish it came in green."
Yes, Greenpeace have now lost all of their credibility, or better, they lost what little was left of it.
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