Greenpeace flies blimp over Silicon Valley to praise Apple, others for 'building a greener Internet'
While Greenpeace and Apple have had their clashes in the past, the environmental advocacy group took to the skies to instead praise Apple this week, championing the iPhone maker, along with Facebook and Google, for "building a greener Internet."
Apple's logo was displayed on Greenpeace's blimp, which flew over Silicon Valley on Thursday as part of a publicity stunt to encourage technology companies to adopt sustainable energy.
The other side of the blimp was used to call out four technology companies that Greenpeace feels are not going "green" with their cloud-based operations. The airborne vehicle displayed app logos for Amazon, Netflix, Twitter and Pinterest with the question "who's next to go green?"
The display comes a day after a report from the organization declared that Apple's data centers are the most environmentally friendly in the technology industry. Greenpeace also identified Apple as "the most innovative and most aggressive" company in Silicon Valley at finding ways to feed its data centers with renewable energy.
While Apple was given a score of "A" and ranked 100 percent in the group's "Clean Energy Index," Amazon and Twitter both earned failing grades. Google also earned an "A," but its servers still utilize some natural gas, coal and nuclear power, which gave the search giant just a 48 percent on the index.
Racks of Apple's iCloud servers in Maiden, NC
Greenpeace also praised Apple in February for reducing its use of conflict minerals in products like the iPhone. The group hailed Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook for increased transparency at the company under his watch.
The organization's endorsements of Apple are a change from years past, when Greenpeace singled the company out over environmental issues. In 2012, the group held protests in both Cupertino, Calif., and Cork, Ireland, accusing Apple of using coal-based power at its massive data center in Maiden, N.C. The company responded by pledging to rely on 100 percent renewable energy by the end of the year, and now lays claim to some of the greenest data centers on the planet.
Apple's logo was displayed on Greenpeace's blimp, which flew over Silicon Valley on Thursday as part of a publicity stunt to encourage technology companies to adopt sustainable energy.
The other side of the blimp was used to call out four technology companies that Greenpeace feels are not going "green" with their cloud-based operations. The airborne vehicle displayed app logos for Amazon, Netflix, Twitter and Pinterest with the question "who's next to go green?"
The display comes a day after a report from the organization declared that Apple's data centers are the most environmentally friendly in the technology industry. Greenpeace also identified Apple as "the most innovative and most aggressive" company in Silicon Valley at finding ways to feed its data centers with renewable energy.
While Apple was given a score of "A" and ranked 100 percent in the group's "Clean Energy Index," Amazon and Twitter both earned failing grades. Google also earned an "A," but its servers still utilize some natural gas, coal and nuclear power, which gave the search giant just a 48 percent on the index.
Racks of Apple's iCloud servers in Maiden, NC
Greenpeace also praised Apple in February for reducing its use of conflict minerals in products like the iPhone. The group hailed Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook for increased transparency at the company under his watch.
The organization's endorsements of Apple are a change from years past, when Greenpeace singled the company out over environmental issues. In 2012, the group held protests in both Cupertino, Calif., and Cork, Ireland, accusing Apple of using coal-based power at its massive data center in Maiden, N.C. The company responded by pledging to rely on 100 percent renewable energy by the end of the year, and now lays claim to some of the greenest data centers on the planet.
Comments
^, okay you beat me to the punch...
I would love to see greenpeace members on the naked and afraid and see how well they would do without modern conveniences
But even I know a giant gasbag when I see one.
So they celebrate conservationism by wasting massive amounts of helium (which is short supply at the moment) in a ridiculously expensive PR stunt. Awesome, GP, just awesome.
Wonder what the carbon footprint is of the Greenpeace blimp.
About the same as a moped: http://www.rotaxservice.com/rotax_engines/rotax_582ULs.htm
I always say the best way for anyone overly concerned about their carbon footprint is to 1) not exist and 2) not-have children, and you might as well take out as many hippies as you can before kill yourself.
What's a "hippie"?
• http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s09e02-die-hippie-die (21m:26s)
Greenpeace stand for effecting change, and they can't do that without expending some energy to get there. To expect otherwise would be ludicrous.
If you had a serious point to make, they should at least be murdering big environmental offenders. But very few people in Greenpeace are as nasty-minded as you.
You got me! I am encouraging others to murder each other then commit suicide¡
But seriously, was a sarcmark really necessary to prevent you from believing I'm encouraging you to murder people? :rolleyes:
Greenpeace stand for effecting change, and they can't do that without expending some energy to get there. To expect otherwise would be ludicrous.
Greenpeace stands for BS - they were hassling Apple when Apple was much greener than anybody else a few years ago just because it was good publicity and could help them drum of donations.
Unless the blimp is filled with hydrogen (Oh the humanity!), it's filled with a completely unrenewable gas that comes from oil wells that the Earth is running out of.
what powered that blimp, Gas? how Green is that
^, okay you beat me to the punch...
I would love to see greenpeace members on the naked and afraid and see how well they would do without modern conveniences
What powered the blimp?
I think it was Cow Flatuence?!?
But more importantly, what was used to fill the blimp?
Greenpeace Hot Air?
You didn't know what I was saying but you made a decision on what I was saying anyway to be nasty to me? That doesn't sound reasonable to me.
Now if you had inquired and made the above quoted statement about not liking it either literally or sarcastically I can accept that as a reasonable statement.