On Tuesday, following a rally at SUNY-Purchase, Greenpeace activist Eva Resnick-Day confronted Hillary Clinton, asking her whether she would stop taking money from the fossil fuel industry. Clinton, frustrated, jabbed her finger in Resnick-Day’s face: “I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me.”
According to Greenpeace, radiation levels have actually increased in parts of Ukraine that were contaminated by the 1986 nuclear plant explosion. Key isotopes, such as cesium-137 and strontium-90, are still lingering in the forests.
When one thinks of a pristine ocean habitat, like a thriving ecosystem that has gone mainly unmarred by the creeping fingers of humans, one usually also thinks: “Hey I could really make some money here.”
Advertising agencies of the world, I send you this request with the greatest urgency: Please stop reanimating dead people to be in your ads. We've seen Fred Astaire selling vacuums, John Wayne selling beer, and scary Orville Redenbacher selling his popcorn from beyond the grave. It's got to stop, because who knows what terrifying undead army is massing against us on The Other Side to take revenge for the commercialization of their legacies? Now the very dead John F. Kennedy, looking like some sort of monster out of DOOM, has taken to the airwaves to harangue the public on behalf of Greenpeace, his long-decayed vocal chords screeching out a chilling simulacrum of his Massachusetts twang. Watch environmentalists flirting with the undertaker, after the jump:
Nobu—the sushi restaurant chain co-owned by Robert Deniro that caters to celebrities like Madonna, Leo DiCaprio and Sean Combs—has been busted in an undercover sting for selling critically endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna while concealing it from customers. Greenpeace sent spies to three London Nobu franchises, where they specifically ordered the near-extinction fish, and were told that the restaurants didn't stock it. But the cunning Greenies took their sushi back to the lab, where DNA tests revealed that the restaurants were indeed serving bluefin to moneyed gourmands. It's legal to serve bluefin, but people who claim to care about the environment—like Deniro, DiCaprio, Combs and Madonna—would supposedly never knowingly touch the stuff, preferring instead the less endangered, but less delicious, yellowfin. Which explains Nobu's sneakiness.
God, the internet has really proven to be detrimental to our collective national psyche. It's gotten to the point that we won't even consider thinking about any organization that hasn't produced some god damn "viral video." And some porn! Must we impose these outlandish standards even on the gentle nature-lovers at Greenpeace? Yes, we demand they cater to our short attention spans and stunted penchant for sex jokes. So they have obliged with this "tree porn" video clip. Sexy stumps! Sultry openings in bark! And some guy standing just off camera moving leaves up and down over a forked branch like a giggling 12-year-old! Ha, "wood." Watch it below in order to save the earth or something!
The dirty little secret behind the keyboard-tapping, button-mashing, cell phone-yapping, Valley lifestyle? Electronics manufacturing and waste are incredibly toxic. The cycle of planned obsolescence may drive profit growth. It also drives continuing shipments of used and broken electronics to places like Guiyu, China, where workers like the one pictured here make pennies picking over silica wafers for precious metals, while drining water polluted by lead and other industrial contaminants. Amidst all the cleantech hype that venture capitalists and entrepreneurs will save the world with technology, companies like Apple and Microsoft are still busy polluting it with old iPods and Xboxes. Microsoft is the second-worst polluter amongst large electronics manufacturers, according to Greenpeace. And while Apple's charming fakir Steve Jobs has made a public commitment to improving the company's environmental record, it lags behind less "innovative" rivals Dell, HP and Sony. But hey, can you believe the gas mileage you can get in a plug-in hybrid?(Photo from Getty Images)
Greenpeace has found a couple of new targets in its latest "Guide to Greener Electronics": Microsoft and Nintendo. Particularly Nintendo, which scored the first perfect zero rating. The environmentalist group, once remembered for facing down fisherman armed with machine guns with rubber dinghies and rainbow flags to save the lives of endangered whales, has been hanging on to its diminishing relevance by attacking Apple for more than a year. The manufactured notoriety has backfired. Steve Jobs tore apart Greenpeace's charges in an open letter. Critics have savaged the organization's Electronics Guides as arbitrary and unscientific. So how is Greenpeace to remain relevant?
Apple wants you to know that the iPhone is 100 percent crotchsafe, despite Greenpeace allegations to the contrary. "Like all Apple products worldwide, iPhone complies with RoHS [Restriction of Hazardous Substances], the world's toughest restrictions on toxic substances in electronics," an Apple spokesperson told Macworld. But already, Greenpeace has responded saying that, whether Apple complies with regulations or not, it should still disclose its toxic materials, just like rivals Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson already do.
After testing the iPhone in U.K. laboratories, Greenpeace researchers said they found it contains toxic brominated compounds, indicating the prescence of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and hazardous PVC. Sounds unpleasant. Greenpeace published a full report here. In reaction to the news, The U.S. National Center for Environmental Health said it will file suit against Apple for breaking a Californian law which requires products containing certain chemicals to carry a warning label, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The takeaway? However much you love your iPhone, please, for the love of Jobs, do not pry open the case and rub its innards up and down your crotch. It's tempting, we realize. But don't.
TIM FAULKNER — Now that the "greener" Apple has made an effort to openly discuss their environmental policies, they are being more proactive with new initiatives. They have just announced an educational recycling program open to all accredited K-12 and Higher Education institutions with at least 25 systems (from any manufacturer) to recycle. The only problem: the offer is only available from now to June 30th, a very small and inconvenient window of time considering the glacial pace of school bureaucracies and their many responsibilities at the end of school year. Jobs certainly isn't going to quiet Greenpeace with one-time, limited offerings. However, given their record with Leopard, maybe the offer will be extended to October.
