News Consumers ignoring 'green' products

I am not against "Green" products as such, but I recently did some sums as to how long it would take me to save money on changing over to green things, and it came out as something over 5 years!

I have just bought a 1.5TB EcoGreen though, it was cheap

 

There should be some sort of universal rating scheme so people could tell how green a product is withouth having to rely on the manufactures information. Many of these so called "green" products are only slightly more green than their normal counterparts.

 

It's the same as most ethical decisions. I'd prefer if the item I was buying was green, but it's not the number 1 factor on my list. It's quite a way down my list TBH.

The number 1 factor is quality, then money. For many others it will be money then quality. If green products save you money (power supplies) then people will care more as it benefits their wallet and the planet.

But I doubt many people want to pay extra for a product that doesn't poersonally benefit them in any way over a different product.

 

I think the results of the Vote need to be split up between Countries that have cheap Electricity / Fuel and ones that don't, simply put my theory is most People don't give a damn about the Environment but rather about their Bankaccounts.

 

I recently put 1TB samsung eco green in my PC. Only reason i went for it was I wanted a quiet HDD and it turned out to be the cheapest. Its been shown a few times that "green" products are a false ecconomy. Take processors, lower power use normally sacrifices speed, you may save power but itll take longer to complete the task. It balances out in the long run. Then constantly swaping out old hardware for newer green stuff is also wasteful. Who green movement is flawed.

 

well my 2 1.5tb sammy's are fast for what i do and are cheap, i've ordered a 2tb sammy which will be amazing for what i need, in my book green is good but not when it cost 25% more than the original product.

 

as i have said many times before, co2 is good for the environment. we should actually release more if we have the choice between it and another gas.

and "green" gadgets are 100% pure, distilled marketing BS. there is nothing, and i mean nothing, truthful about it. as a few of you have mentioned, "green" products (like CFLs) actually contain far more hazardous materials than what they replace, even if they do use less power. but using less power is not "green," it just saves you some money on your energy bill, and typically a marginal sum at that.

and then there is the whole assumption that "environmental friendliness" means 0 impact on "natural things." i find that definition absurd, because it overlooks the fact that we are, in actuality, part of the natural environment. *anything* we do is natural, even if it means the end of all life on earth. no one said nature was nice.

here is my personal definition of environmentally friendly:

1. preserve, and *actively maintain,* beautiful ecosystems, so that others can enjoy them, and perhaps great discoveries can be made.
2. do not poison the environment with long lasting chemicals that will prevent us (or other life forms) from making effective use of the space. that does not mean don't use those chemicals, just don't release them into the environment at large, keep them contained. of course the flip side of the issue is don't flip out and waste resources on trivial spills. a single CFL is not worth the resources of a hazmat team expends cleaning it up. it is not a danger to even people who are in the room when it brakes. know what your are dealing with, and when it actually is a hazard. don't just go off of the MSDS (check out here for why: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/05/26/on_the_uselessness_of_the_msds.php)
3. don't worry about things that "nature" can handle on her own. most things that humans produce are pretty benign and are not worth the effort expended "cleaning them up." think biodegradable things, or things that are pretty much 100% inert as far a biological organisms are concerned, and don't try to "clean up" co2 at all, that is 100% wasted effort.
4. humans come first no matter what.

 

@LucusLoc: +1. co2=plant food.

 

Utter rubbish. Pure energy company gibberish. I challenge you to produce a single, credible, non-energy company linked source that supports this (depending, of course on what this mysterous 'other gas' is)? I can give you a dozen or more from science-based sourced with no particular axe to grind that says the opposite. If you start giving me the 'co2 is good because plants need it to live' line, I swear I'm going to scream down my broadband line at you. Seriously! Think for a minute!

As far as green gadgets, the considerations are myriad, and generally go way beyond headline figures, so I think consumer choice takes a back-seat to government regulation on this one. Though I do try to go green when I can. There's also a performance issue, as someone mentioned before, and I'd rather cut back in other areas that play my games in slide-show-vision. Perhaps this is selfish, but at the moment it's the way I work.

 

*Sound of my kneeling down next to my phone socket and going 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH'*

You know what? Chilli peppers are human food, so lets pump tons of gas-form chilli pepper into the atmosphere and see what happens.

 

Sounds about right to me.

 

Just to ruin every one's facts here. What ever either of you uses to counter argue, you cannot prove. You at this very moment in time cannot say that other galaxies exist, that mars exists. Why? because everything you've been told or learnt has come from another person or research that you have not produced. You have never set foot or seen them with your own naked eye.

Just as you've never seen evidence to support global warming or not, you cannot be 100% certain as you've most likely never been to the polar ice caps and examined to test if increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere has an affect on the ice caps and so forth.

Not that I believe this theory, but as it stands for us it's true. Heck, I cant even prove the earth is round by myself. It's a pointless argument for us which may as well be followed up by people who can actually do something with it.

 

To be honest if you have multiple machines you flick the ATX switch on the back of one of the PSUs and that's the 1-4w you save with a green hard disk, right there. Same with speaker adaptors that use power even when you've turned the speakers off at the master unit, but left them plugged in - I have those on a separate strip to stop them wasting power. This old CRT I'm using here uses less than 50W. Can't think of many areas left to save power, I only go around switching things off because it was winter and the power went on heating. That said, if AMD/ATi wants to make cards like the 5770 which are fast enough and power efficient for the cost, that's a better example of green tech where performance won't suffer for the price, unlike hard disks.

 

This is true, but it's more a philsophical argument than anything else, and you can take it further. The things that you sense are mediated by your senses, and do not represent the TRUE world. Indeed they never can. Consider the way we perceive things through a pool of water, for example: a few meter away from the 'real' position. In some senses this is what we are ALWAYS doing. However, on a practical level, you can't view the world at large in that way. It just doesn't work.

To draw this back to global warming, you need to look at the validity of the sources, to cross-reference one against the other, and against the other things already filed away as 'fact' in your head. Look at how far each argument is internally consistant, and the degree to which it is able to deal with the objections filed by the opposing camp. If you can do all that and come out thinking that 'CO2 is good' then I salute you, I truely do. For an enchore, you might wish to prove that black is white, though I'd watch out for zebra crossing .

 

want to get into the whole "CO2 is a horrible pollutant" argument? i have written on ti before. here is the quote:

this is unedited from here:http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/01/08/nintendo-still-most-eco-unfriendly-console/1 in case you need context.

 

I think Some one should point out the logic flaw in most of the arguments here against improved efficiency and power (speed).
Has every one forgotten without improved CPU efficiency there would be a lot less OVER CLOCKING potential. Remember the old P4
now that was a nightmare to over clock because it got too hot v.s. i7 and i5 and i3 which use a more power efficient design, thus lowering the heat generated ie The w ratings...... So please don't let Intel see these posts I like improved design on my CPUs (same goes for GPUs too, the cooler the card runs the more I can overclock it).

One massive example of good ECO products is the Apple Laptop. (install win7 of course) Runs 7 Hours and has decent gaming potential, if only it where not so expensive.

Nvidia's Optimus will be called ECO too and that looks great. Think of it all the low power benefits for browsing and working and only turn on the main GPU for gaming. It should not only lower the watts used but might help those hot running GPUs to live a bit longer.

So I am all for eco and energy efficient products, but they must make a real difference Take LED back light TFTs for example. They are much more eco friendly then older models on two fronts energy consumption and Life time is at least 4 times longer.

As for people having problems with Florescent lighting. BUY name brand, like Osram or GE. They are much better and last longer.
If you don't like the color. Look for the ones marked WARM LIGHT or 20% larger spectrum or go full hog and get full spectrum florescent. LEDs are great but they are still too expensive, not a nice warm yellow and produce far too focussed light.

1W LED torch lights being the massive exception, their amazing got the LED upgrade for my MAG light. It is a world above the normal torches.

I guess LEDs are like Solar panels. Great if you can afford them......
Yes there are many new Diesels that are more effiecient then Hybrids Ford's Duratech TDI for example but it can shake a dirty rag at Tesla Motor's cars either model S or Roadster.

OK thats my rant over just please don't go around telling every one eco is bad for computers.
Intel or Jobs might hear you and then we are back to P4 and no competition in the internet enabled Mobile phones.

 

You're right, some companies are using the situation to boost up their sales. Now that we are experiencing serious environmental problem, most take advantage about it.

 

my next hardware purchase will be one of those low power green 2tb hard drives. Its only used for music and movies so why would i need a fast loud drive? better off with a slower quiet drive that does what i need just as good.


BTW, is there any way I can make my caviar black drive run a little slower to reduce noise? some sort of option in windows?

 

yep, on balance most 'green' products are just marketing gimmicks. If you work out the CO2 from source to shelf they are quite often more than the equivalent 'non-green' product.

We are screwed anyway, methane being released by the permafrost is unstoppable now and will finish the job off.

Oh, and LucasLoC, nice argument however the adaptability of such a finely balanced system over time is very very small, so that 1-2% is plenty to do the job. Although i believe we have done it already. Oh, the medieval warm period, nice try. However this was a short term ramp up of natural variation, what we have now is a long term build up of CO2 etc and it is now going to help any 'natural' warming of the atmosphere be maintained.

 

I notice that with bit-tech's "what hardware should I buy" articles some times, you often recommend older generation graphics cards for systems because they are cheaper with almost the same performance.

but that just isn't true, that price difference is nullified pretty fast when you take idle power consumption into account, if the PC is running every day it could take only a year until you would have paid what you saved on the cheaper card for your electricity bill.
so you shouldn't only look on the product price but also the running costs, because that makes the newer generation cards much more attractive.

I don't care much about "green" either, but yes I do care about my bank account, and the electricity bill is a part of that.