Nintendo once again swats down Greenpeace’s ridiculous strawman
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 4:29pm by Jack
Greenpeace was at it again this week, “reviewing” the electronics manufacturers and giving them bad marks for poisoning the kiddies with their foul innards, and otherwise generating press about itself so newspapers and other outlets that don’t know any better would run their story.
Nintendo, as you may know, once again “failed” Greenpeace’s test. Not because of any poison, mind you, but because it chose not to participate in Greenpeace’s completely voluntary survey.
“Nintendo has not been badly rated by Greenpeace. Greenpeace chose to conduct a survey and produce a report, which graded companies upon the voluntary submission of information. Nintendo decided not to take part in the survey and were therefore ‘ungraded’ in the resulting report. Nintendo provides detailed information regarding our compliance to EU Directives via the Consumer Section of our website and therefore we felt it unnecessary to take part in the Greenpeace survey. Furthermore, we fully comply with all the necessary EU Directives on the Restriction of Hazardous Substances aimed at environmental protection and consumer health and safety. Furthermore, in order to ensure our products are safe for use by young children we also take into consideration the standards applicable to toys.” – Nintendo spokesperson
Believe me, there are much bigger environmental problems out there than a few stupid kids who eat their Wii consoles and die from poisoning. Let’s focus on those (and, did I just create a strawman of my own? I did!).
May 21st, 2008 at 4:59 pm
didnt think they would be able to shame nintendo. third time i have heard this report being made, and hasnt it been only less then 1 1/2 years since they started doing this. they doing it every quarter?
nintendo puts alot of care into the making of the devices, and i believe greenpeace even tested the materials of nintendos console and found traces of materials they dont like to be so small it didnt seem to be a bother, but they want zero se of certain materials. yet i am sure nintendo allows their use for a practical reason given todays manufacturing capabilities. nintendo has done so much for environmentalism that i doubt they have any intent on poisoning the earth any more then necessary.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Hey, for all we know, Nintendo could be the worst environmental video company out there, but who gives a flying fuck? Let’s start with pollution problems in cities like Las Angeles and NYC before we work our way down to the smaller fish.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Careful with the language, DmNt.
Personally, I don’t care either, though. Never heard of this “Greenpeace.” Don’t care for this “Greenpeace.” Unless they have a specific major reason that something’s horribly bad (Nintendo Wii containing lead? Don’t think so.), pfft.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:37 pm
It’s not about kids eating their consoles. It’s about toxic emissions when the consoles are destroyed or recycled at the end of their life span.
I don’t see why Nintendo can’t be more open with Greenpeace about this. I’m sure they’d come out better than Sony and Microsoft, so why not go for the publicity? It fits in with the kind of image they’re promoting with things like Wii Fit: the Wii as a healthy, family-friendly, green console.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I agree with Red Mozzie — Nintendo’s refusal to participate is odd, particularly given the company’s “blue ocean” strategy and the widespread concern about the environment. Nintendo’s repeated lack of participation makes me think the company does have something to hide.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:50 pm
@ Red Mozzie
You sir are a Kool-Aid drinking, global warming doomsaying, Al Gore worshipping, hipocritical liberal. Are you you not? I wonder if Greenpeace is upset about all the oil it took to make all those Inconveniant Truth DVDs and the slew of knock offs that followed it? My local walmart has a huge cardboard and plastic display of “Be Green” merchandise that is of course made entirely from paper and petrol. When Greenpeace says “you aren’t being green!” I say go fuck yourselves you fat wastefull jackasses.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Whoa, I kinda agree but uh… I rather be discussing nintendo stuff right now.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:09 pm
HyperSonic,
I apologize. From now on I will not use any strong swear words.
Red Mozzie,
I agree.
GrumpyDavid,
Lol, funny joke. Wait, you’re not joking?
Oh, well…Let’s get back on topic like GradiusFan said.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:10 am
good for Nintendo… all the environmentalists need to stop shoving their garbage down our throats!
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:08 am
zyblorg: The thing that gets me is that I genuinely don’t believe Nintendo is hiding anything. That’s why I can’t fathom their refusal to participate. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. Wii uses less toxic chemicals, less packaging, and much less power. Why don’t they capitalise on it?
I’m not even going to dignify that other moron with a response.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 am
Dude – that’s like “why not just submit to police searches…if you’re NOT hiding anything”.
Greenpeace LOVE garnering media coverage for their extreme views. All their fans should stop playing video games if they’re concerned about their own health. This is from their website:
“Know what you’re playing with…
The game consoles all contained high levels of bromine – used in circuit boards and plastic casings, brominated flame retardants do not break down easily and build up in the environment. Long-term exposure can lead to impaired learning and memory functions. They can also interfere with thyroid and oestrogen hormone systems and exposure in the womb has been linked to behavioral problems.
Components of the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation3 also contained high levels of phthalates, one of which – DEHP – is known to interfere with sexual development in mammals: including humans and, especially, males.”
Have fun!
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Jaime — Greenpeace can often distort an important message through their delivery. Their extremism can definitely be off-putting. But it doesn’t meant that the scientific data they’re providing is necessarily off-base. Unfortunately, it’s pretty widely accepted that PCs and laptops (and by extension, game consoles) are chock-full of chemical badness, and that throwing into landfills is bad for the environment. It’s why you see plenty of information online about how to build or buy a green(er) PC.
What Greenpeace is doing is raising awareness that these ultimately disposable products have consequences for the planet at the end of their lives. It doesn’t mean that we have to stop playing games; it means that we as consumers need to pressure the manufacturers to a) create proper disposal plans for the current generation and b) make a less toxic version next time around.
Anyone, no matter what side of the political spectrum, should agree that the consumer drives the market, and if the consumer speaks with dollars and public pressure, then the sellers will respond. There’s no more lead in paint, or asbestos in insulation … can’t we do away with these chemicals, too?
I just don’t understand why this has angered so many people. If the status quo doesn’t bother you, go about your business (no need to insult anyone), and if you’re concerned, act.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
So green peace takes the owrd of these companies at face value instead of examing all of these electronic devices themselves and see what they’re really capable of?
There are devices that will tell you how energy something uses, they can pop open a wii and check the components inside, and as for the company recycling stuff, eh they just don’t do it. It’s not so much them failing Nintendo for press, but them being a lazy organization.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I worded that wrong, I didn’t mean badly rated, but I guess you get what i was saying. I’m a bit off today.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Are the world’s ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?
Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.
Moreover, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual, challenging the global warming crusaders and buttressing arguments of skeptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.
The Daily express recalls the photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg which has been widely hailed as proof of the need to fight climate change and has been used by former Vice President Al Gore during his “Inconvenient Truth” lectures about mankind’s alleged impact on the global climate.
Gore fails to mention that the photograph was taken in the month of August when melting is normal. Or that the polar bear population has soared in recent years.
As winter roars in across the Northern Hemisphere, Mother Nature seems to have joined the ranks of the skeptics.
As the Express notes, scientists are saying the northern Hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades, adding that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966. The newspaper cites the one exception — Western Europe, which had, until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10 C in some places, been basking in unseasonably warm weather.
Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the United States, and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of snow.
Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman, and northern Saudi Arabia report the heaviest falls in years and below-zero temperatures. In Afghanistan, snow and freezing weather killed 120 people. Even Baghdad had a snowstorm, the first in the memory of most residents.
AFP news reports icy temperatures have just swept through south China, stranding 180,000 people and leading to widespread power cuts just as the area was recovering from the worst weather in 50 years, the government said Monday. The latest cold snap has taken a severe toll in usually temperate Yunnan province, which has been struck by heavy snowfalls since Thursday, a government official from the provincial disaster relief office told AFP.
Twelve people have died there, state Xinhua news agency reported, and four remained missing as of Saturday.
An ongoing record-long spell of cold weather in Vietnam’s northern region, which started on Jan. 14, has killed nearly 60,000 cattle, mainly bull and buffalo calves, local press reported Monday. By Feb. 17, the spell had killed a total of 59,962 cattle in the region, including 7,349 in the Ha Giang province, 6,400 in Lao Cai, and 5,571 in Bac Can province, said Hoang Kim Giao, director of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, according to the Pioneer newspaper.
In Britain the temperatures plunged to -10 C in central England, according to the Express, which reports that experts say that February could end up as one of the coldest in Britain in the past 10 years with the freezing night-time conditions expected to stay around a frigid -8 C until at least the middle of the week. And the BBC reports that a bus company’s efforts to cut global warming emissions have led to services being disrupted by cold weather.
Meanwhile Athens News reports that a raging snow storm that blanketed most of Greece over the weekend and continued into the early morning hours on Monday, plunging the country into sub-zero temperatures. The agency reported that public transport buses were at a standstill on Monday in the wider Athens area, while ships remained in ports, public services remained closed, and schools and courthouses in the more severely-stricken prefectures were also closed.
Scores of villages, mainly on the island of Crete, and in the prefectures of Evia, Argolida, Arcadia, Lakonia, Viotia, and the Cyclades islands were snowed in.
More than 100 villages were snowed-in on the island of Crete and temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.
If global warming gets any worse we’ll all freeze to death.
link to story http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming_or_cooling/2008/02/19/73798.html?s=sp&promo_code=4582-1
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:00 am
Oh, geez, this post just attracts the right-wing nutjob spam-monkeys, doesn’t it?
May 24th, 2008 at 3:34 am
I’m you’re perfectly moderate in your belief, heh, Red? If Greenpeace weren’t a bunch of left-wing nutjobs, this post would never exist. I have NO problem contributing to less waste & doing what we can. In fact, my wife and I cloth-diapered our last two children, we have our own shopping bags for groceries AND we recycle (something hardly anyone in our neighborhood does). That said, when people on the VERY ENDS of the political spectrum (Ann Coulter and Michael Moore, for example) say things, even true things, it’s easy to dismiss them because of all the other baloney they’ve spouted before. Such is the case here.
I’m not an alarmist. I don’t believe in fighting preemptive wars for fear of “terrorists” nor giving Nintendo a bad rating just because they didn’t play Greenpeace’s little game.
May 24th, 2008 at 3:35 am
“I’m *sure* you’re perfectly moderate…”
Too late to be typing…