The latest act of corporate stupidity comes from the computer maker Dell.
In its attempt to become the “greenest technology company on the planet,” Dell made much of achieving some farcically theoretical “carbon-neutral” status. But, like everything associated with AGW, there’s really no so thing. WSJ points out in a wonderful examination today:
In fact, that’s only a small fraction of all the emissions associated with Dell. The footprint doesn’t include the oil used by Dell’s suppliers to make its computer parts, the diesel and jet fuel used to ship those computers around the world, or the coal-fired electricity used to run them.
Again, it’s difficult to criticize Dell for claiming to have achieved something that exists only in theory and is of little or no value to the planet or its inhabitants.
Moreover, while Dell is improving its energy efficiency, it is claiming carbon neutrality mostly by purchasing environmental “credits.” These are financial instruments that bankroll environmental improvements made by others.
Hank Paulson, Al Gore, and George Soros are the masterminds behind these carbon credits. Each reaps millions from environmental morons like Michael Dell who seek, not truth, but popularity. And then only popularity with the shallowest, emptiest heads on the planet: the media and Hollywood.
Yet some of those improvements would have occurred whether or not Dell invested in them, according to some of the companies involved. That suggests Dell isn’t ridding the atmosphere of as much pollution as it claims.
Of course not. Dell is ridding its investors of their feigned guilt.
As thoroughgoing as the WSJ seems, there’s much missing. For instance, if PCs make their owners more efficient, then the use of the PC may save more carbon-releasing activity than the manufacture, sale, distribution, and operation of the PC consumes. Therefore, the mere existence and use of a computer may, itself, be carbon neutral or better. We don’t know.
Neither do Gore, Sorors, and Paulson know. Nor Hansen and Mann. No one knows. No one really cares. Instead, they wrap themselves up in a fantasy and call it concern.
I call it a bunch of hooey.
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