Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot Com. Hello everybody,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette,
Speaker 1: and I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Sitting next to me, as usual, looking bemused, is senior
Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, all right, then I have
Speaker 1: a question for you. Yeah, go ahead. Is green technology
Speaker 1: just a trend? Oh? Good? I thought we're gonna ask
Speaker 1: if it was easy being green? No? No, um, I
Speaker 1: do have a frog in my throat, but I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna ask that. No, no, no, um. So is green
Speaker 1: technology just a trend? That is the the topic for
Speaker 1: our podcast? My answer is no. All right, thanks for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Alright, that's good talking to you again. I
Speaker 1: want to learn more about green technology. I guess we
Speaker 1: should probably go a little longer about that than that.
Speaker 1: All right. So green technology, UM, it seems a bit
Speaker 1: trendy because it is everywhere right now. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is one of those things where companies are all claiming
Speaker 1: that they're going green. Um, it's it's sort of the
Speaker 1: political thing to do being environmentally conscious to suddenly very
Speaker 1: fashionable lack of a better word, and UH and technology,
Speaker 1: of course is is right there with everyone else. And
Speaker 1: you might wonder if this is just sort of a
Speaker 1: passing fad, a fancy if you will, uh, But I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I think it's probably more important than that.
Speaker 1: And while it may lose some of the support and
Speaker 1: focus that it has right now, over time, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's ever going to go away completely. But I
Speaker 1: can see why you might think that it would be
Speaker 1: just a trend because jokes aside, to your point, it's
Speaker 1: not easy and green. These these companies who are making
Speaker 1: uh computers and electronics have to do quite a lot
Speaker 1: of retooling to you know, take into account a lot
Speaker 1: of the environmental trends, getting rid of certain chemicals during
Speaker 1: the manufacturing process, cutting down on the amount of electricity
Speaker 1: that it takes to run the machines that manufacture those things,
Speaker 1: taking into account uh ways to reduce electricity used by
Speaker 1: those machines. You know, these are processes that require a
Speaker 1: lot of research and development and you know, new machinery
Speaker 1: and retooling to to take into account. And it's I'm
Speaker 1: gonna use take into account six more times if I can.
Speaker 1: But sorry, um, but um, yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult. And you might say, yeah, they're gonna
Speaker 1: do this just long enough to get a good reputation
Speaker 1: for being green, and uh, then they're gonna just gonna
Speaker 1: dump it or only gonna take it so far before
Speaker 1: they really just sort of say, oh, yeah, well we've
Speaker 1: we've taken these new measures. Uh, we're gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: with it. And another part of that equation is that
Speaker 1: they have to, you know, those costs go somewhere. Either
Speaker 1: they have to pass those costs along to the in
Speaker 1: consumer so that we end up paying more for the
Speaker 1: electronics that we're used to having at cheaper costs, you know,
Speaker 1: across the board, either we're the ones paying for it,
Speaker 1: or they have to eat those costs. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: know how much you know about economics, but in general,
Speaker 1: companies don't like eating costs. You look at these these
Speaker 1: I mean you have again we talk about sort of
Speaker 1: the whole domino effect of this affects that, which affects that.
Speaker 1: When we talked about our electronic versus Paper um podcast,
Speaker 1: we got into a lot of details about that kind
Speaker 1: of thing about how you can't just take into account
Speaker 1: the production cycle. You also have to take an account
Speaker 1: transportation of materials and all these other sort of factors.
Speaker 1: Same thing here. When you're looking at the cost of
Speaker 1: producing a truly green friendly product versus the normal, you know,
Speaker 1: wasteful or possibly hazardous version of that product, it's more
Speaker 1: expensive in most cases. And if you're a company, you're
Speaker 1: either answering to your private owners or shareholders who I mean,
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of them buying into that company is
Speaker 1: to make money. At the end of the day, they
Speaker 1: do it, you know, different ways, either through products or services,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, the reason for
Speaker 1: that to exist is to make money, and if you
Speaker 1: are taking away from that, then there's no reason for
Speaker 1: it to exist anymore. So someone has to meet those
Speaker 1: costs somewhere, and it's usually going to be the end consumer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the end consumer maybe well, actually, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the end consumer is the person around which this trend
Speaker 1: is going to play out. I think it's whether it
Speaker 1: becomes a trend or not, it's going to be based
Speaker 1: on the end consumer, I think, yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: fully depends upon the end consumer and how much he
Speaker 1: or she is willing to pay in order to go green. Um.
Speaker 1: And to make matters more complicated, of course, we're in
Speaker 1: a global recession, so we have people who are more
Speaker 1: cautious about spending money. They realize that the environment is
Speaker 1: an important issue. And I would say that maybe not
Speaker 1: a vast majority, but I would say at least a
Speaker 1: small majority realizes that that in the negative environmental impact
Speaker 1: of technology and other um, corporate and and and consumer
Speaker 1: market type things, are you know, that's something we have
Speaker 1: to address. UM. The question is is it something that
Speaker 1: we have to address that will affect my pocket? You know,
Speaker 1: like am I willing to pay for us to address this?
Speaker 1: And And traditionally that's been kind of a sticky situation.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of those things where we want
Speaker 1: to fix, but we don't want to be the one
Speaker 1: to have to pay for it. So I think more
Speaker 1: people are willing to give up a little bit more
Speaker 1: or to switch to different products right now than we've
Speaker 1: ever seen in the past. I think there's more of
Speaker 1: an environmental consciousness out there than has ever been in
Speaker 1: the past. UM. But I think the next year or
Speaker 1: two will really show us whether or not people are
Speaker 1: willing to to really take the sacrifices that are going
Speaker 1: to be necessary to to have a truly green lifestyle.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not just the companies that are gonna
Speaker 1: be making these decisions. We make them by the way
Speaker 1: we purchase products and the you know, the way we
Speaker 1: live out our daily lives. So the way you live
Speaker 1: out your life really does make a difference. That's true.
Speaker 1: That's true. UM. You know, it was funny because when
Speaker 1: we started talking about doing this podcast, I was I
Speaker 1: was trying to think of places I could go to
Speaker 1: get more information, and UM, one of the people I
Speaker 1: trust a lot in that regard would be our friend
Speaker 1: Jamie Himbach over a tree hugger, and she she writes
Speaker 1: about tech um and it's environmental impacts all the time.
Speaker 1: It's all sorts of great blog posts. UM, but I
Speaker 1: was looking at one of them, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: illustrated a point for me. UM, as this transitional period
Speaker 1: we're in where people want to buy green stuff and
Speaker 1: the manufacturers aren't quite there yet. Um. She was talking
Speaker 1: about Sony Ericsson's new phones, the green Heart Phones, UM,
Speaker 1: and Uh, Basically the point is that the phone itself
Speaker 1: is not really all that much different from a regular phone,
Speaker 1: but they've produced the the amount of packaging and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, made the charger a little bit more energy efficient.
Speaker 1: But you know, her point being essentially, I'm sorry what,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, you know it makes a difference, but you
Speaker 1: know the difference it's making right now isn't isn't really
Speaker 1: all that significant? And the greater impact of the entire industry,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that now. I mean, people
Speaker 1: need to basically vote with their pocket and say, you know, look,
Speaker 1: I want a greener product so that the companies no, yes,
Speaker 1: people will pay for it and they will continue to
Speaker 1: make strides and recycling, which actually Sony Errickson is you know,
Speaker 1: saying that is going to come out of this this project,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, it's it's just sort of not
Speaker 1: there yet. And recycling is another one of those things. Sure,
Speaker 1: you know, because a lot of these companies are taking
Speaker 1: back uh products. I see that Dell has a partnership
Speaker 1: with Goodwill of all people to take back computers at
Speaker 1: Goodwill locations. Um, but um, you know that that's one
Speaker 1: good move, certainly, But there also been reports of some
Speaker 1: manufacturers basically just you know, dumping them or you know,
Speaker 1: sending them to uh other countries to be yeah, to
Speaker 1: be basically roasted on fires and the chemicals drip into
Speaker 1: the ground, you know, contaminating groundwater and poisoning the people
Speaker 1: who are supposed to be taking them apart. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have you of nearby villages where people's health is
Speaker 1: affected by this sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, it
Speaker 1: really does pay to to research any company before you
Speaker 1: just go ahead and uh and assume that their green
Speaker 1: claims are true. Um, for example, the the whole the
Speaker 1: whole recycling thing. Uh. Yeah, just a little research goes
Speaker 1: a long way, because there are legitimate recycling programs out
Speaker 1: there where these companies will take your electronics, they will
Speaker 1: take them apart in safe environments, uh and recycle everything
Speaker 1: that can be recycled and and then dispose of everything
Speaker 1: else in a responsible manner. But that costs a lot
Speaker 1: of money, so you know, you have to you have
Speaker 1: to look around, because even though there are a lot
Speaker 1: of recycling programs, many of them take the cheap route,
Speaker 1: which of course is shipping them to some other country
Speaker 1: and just getting them out of the way. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not you know, you're no longer polluting the immediate area.
Speaker 1: But you're definitely contributing to a negative environmental impact. And
Speaker 1: I think letting the companies that you work with, you know,
Speaker 1: the people that you buy a PC from or an
Speaker 1: electronic device from, know that this is something that's important
Speaker 1: to you. UM. You know that that makes a difference
Speaker 1: and UM, or it should UM. And you can always,
Speaker 1: if it really matters to you, vote with your pocketbook
Speaker 1: and say, you know what, I'm not going to buy
Speaker 1: this thing because I know that that you that you
Speaker 1: are not sincere in your environmental claims. You know, green
Speaker 1: Piece has a report they put out every so often,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know a lot of the electronics folks
Speaker 1: just you know, don't do so well. No, but I
Speaker 1: think ahead I was going to say, of course, there's
Speaker 1: always the term that that we've mentioned a few times
Speaker 1: and that you'll eventually run around. Uh, you'll run into
Speaker 1: if you start researching green technology. UM. It's called greenwashing.
Speaker 1: And greenwashing is when you are are trying to come
Speaker 1: across as an environmentally conscious entity, uh and say that
Speaker 1: your products or services are environmentally friendly, when in fact
Speaker 1: it may be that that some other aspect of producing
Speaker 1: that product. UM is actually very harmful to the environment.
Speaker 1: So you might concentrate on one or two really good
Speaker 1: things about your product and ignore everything else. So it
Speaker 1: may be that, you know, you could say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this monitor consumes less electricity than the average monitor out there.
Speaker 1: But what they might not tell you is that the monitor,
Speaker 1: in order to produce the monitor, they had to use
Speaker 1: this very dangerous chemical that if it's ever released into
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, is you know, sixteen thousand times more potent
Speaker 1: than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping greenhouse gases,
Speaker 1: which is more or less a true story. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: made up the sixteen thousand I can't remember exactly how
Speaker 1: much that would be the less Yeah, yeah, that would
Speaker 1: be the less part of the more or less. But
Speaker 1: that's that's greenwashing, where you you're you're playing up certain
Speaker 1: aspects as being really environmentally friendly, well kind of pushing
Speaker 1: the others under the carpet so that, uh, you look
Speaker 1: like you're a responsible company and you're you're trying to
Speaker 1: do the right thing. Um, and it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: pretty common practice. And it's not just electronics. It's lots
Speaker 1: of different quote unquote green businesses. But it's one another
Speaker 1: one of those things that a little research can really
Speaker 1: help you out. There are plenty of blogs out there
Speaker 1: that make it their mission to to investigate the claims
Speaker 1: and make sure that these companies are in fact telling
Speaker 1: the truth when they say that their products are environmentally
Speaker 1: friendly or make the smallest amount of impact on the
Speaker 1: environment as possible. Uh, you were when you were mentioning
Speaker 1: the whole people can vote with their pockets. That's one
Speaker 1: of the things that kind of scares me in a way,
Speaker 1: only in the sense that if we see companies offer uh,
Speaker 1: things like the the green phones, you know you were mentioning.
Speaker 1: I've seen several green phones come out that we're very
Speaker 1: very basic phones, you know, just essential cell phone technology,
Speaker 1: so nothing smartphone ish about it, nothing like that, nothing
Speaker 1: sexy or sleek, and the big selling point was that
Speaker 1: it was green, not that it had all these cool features.
Speaker 1: I think that's also a problem is that if companies
Speaker 1: aren't willing to invest both in the green technology and
Speaker 1: in presenting the sort of features that people expect these days,
Speaker 1: there's a danger that consumers won't buy the green products
Speaker 1: at all because it just doesn't do what they needed
Speaker 1: to do. So then you've got companies who can say, well, look,
Speaker 1: they're not interested in the environment because no one's buying
Speaker 1: this phone. It may not be because the phone is
Speaker 1: green or not green. It's because it's not doing what
Speaker 1: the consumer wants it to do. That's a good point.
Speaker 1: So that's a good point. That's that's kind of a
Speaker 1: that's that's something that legitimately worries me because you know,
Speaker 1: I would hate to see a product, a line get
Speaker 1: abandoned just because people weren't buying it because it didn't
Speaker 1: have the the suite of functions they expected it to
Speaker 1: as opposed to it being green. I mean, I'm willing
Speaker 1: to pay a little bit more for technology that is
Speaker 1: legitimately a green, environmentally friendly technology if it in fact
Speaker 1: does what I needed to do right right. But you know, um,
Speaker 1: I was also thinking about how slow, how much time
Speaker 1: it takes to get real green, genuinely green technology into
Speaker 1: the process of making uh well, electronics and computers and
Speaker 1: all kinds of other things, other materials, building materials and
Speaker 1: things like that, and um, you know that may actually
Speaker 1: work in the favor of eliminating the trend nous of
Speaker 1: green and actually making it a day to day normality
Speaker 1: and you know, because it takes a lot of time
Speaker 1: and a lot of money to convert. And if uh,
Speaker 1: the trend sustains itself long enough, uh, it won't be
Speaker 1: a trend anymore, and it will be you know, people
Speaker 1: will have converted. And if people say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't care anymore, well, by that point it will
Speaker 1: be very expensive to convert back to the old way
Speaker 1: of doing things, and so it will establish itself in
Speaker 1: in a permanent way. Um. You know, even even the
Speaker 1: financial meltdown has caused you know, one good thing in
Speaker 1: a way. Um, it's not really good for the people
Speaker 1: of munc, Indiana, because there were factories there where GM
Speaker 1: and ford um had closed their plants and a lot
Speaker 1: of people are out of work, and that's certainly not
Speaker 1: a good thing. Um. But there's an Italian company actually
Speaker 1: that wants to uh put a lot of those people
Speaker 1: back to work making um wind energy equipment, turbines and
Speaker 1: things like that. Yeah. Yeah, basically they would, they would.
Speaker 1: There are all these skilled laborers right there. Um. The
Speaker 1: bad thing is, according I've heard this on Marketplace, the
Speaker 1: American public media show, and apparently the biggest problem is
Speaker 1: they've got hundreds and hundreds of people who need jobs
Speaker 1: and they just don't have that many jobs. Plus, um,
Speaker 1: they're not going to be able to get the factory
Speaker 1: online until apparently, UM, but it does. It does present
Speaker 1: a kind of opportunity, and you know, once they get
Speaker 1: that factory going, you know, there'll be another source of
Speaker 1: quality wind equipment, uh, you know, power generation equipment that
Speaker 1: you know will be um you know in the United States.
Speaker 1: So that's that it may be it may be something
Speaker 1: you know, one advantage. And well there's also the fact
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of governments that are that
Speaker 1: are starting to pour money into green research, green businesses,
Speaker 1: giving incentives to businesses that are taking an environmentally friendly
Speaker 1: kind of approach UM, including the United States. Obama has
Speaker 1: stated multiple times that he's very interested in in uh
Speaker 1: encouraging this industry to grow within the United States and
Speaker 1: create jobs. So in that sense, you're talking about entire
Speaker 1: countries getting behind this movement, which can change it from
Speaker 1: being a trend into a legitimate industry that's around for
Speaker 1: you know, decades, if not centuries. You're talking about really
Speaker 1: putting the power of an entire government behind it, and
Speaker 1: that that's a lot more powerful than just saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, you use this light bulb instead of that
Speaker 1: light bulb, and you're going to save yourself twenty five
Speaker 1: bucks a year on electricity bills. So, I mean, we
Speaker 1: are seeing some of that play out right now, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll see more of that in the future. UM,
Speaker 1: everything from upgrading the United States UH electric grid infrastructure
Speaker 1: to UH providing incentives to to auto manufacturers that look
Speaker 1: at ways of of making more fuel efficient cars or
Speaker 1: electric cars. When we when you see that sort of
Speaker 1: thing with the government incentive again, that's that's showing where
Speaker 1: you're taking some of that cost out of that equation
Speaker 1: that we were talking about earlier, and then it becomes
Speaker 1: smart to go green. It makes financial sense to go green, um,
Speaker 1: as soon as it makes more financial sense to legitimately
Speaker 1: go green than it does to greenwash. We're in good
Speaker 1: shape right now. I don't think we're there yet. Right now,
Speaker 1: I think it's still there are a lot of companies
Speaker 1: that are saying, hey, let's just talk about these one
Speaker 1: or two things that are really good about our product,
Speaker 1: and then hope no one knows is the other things,
Speaker 1: and we'll make a killing. Because the green movement is
Speaker 1: huge right now. Until that changes. Um, it's it's still
Speaker 1: gonna be a rocky road ahead, I think, and it
Speaker 1: may just seem trendy in the short run because so
Speaker 1: many people are talking about it too well. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think what happened is over the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: it's really taken hold. I mean, the environmental movement has
Speaker 1: been around for decades, but I think once al Gore
Speaker 1: started his his crusade, that really started to kick things off.
Speaker 1: And then uh, it became a pretty focal point in
Speaker 1: the the uh United States election campaigns. And now it's
Speaker 1: just it's firmly entrenched. I mean, we have entire television
Speaker 1: networks based on it, so it's here to stay. I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it might be a little painful in the interim, hopefully
Speaker 1: that will pass more quickly, and it's the early days
Speaker 1: of the era. Yeah, I think. I think once we
Speaker 1: get past this rocky first stage where no one's really
Speaker 1: sure what's the right path right now, once we get
Speaker 1: past that and we get enough buy in from from consumers,
Speaker 1: then it'll really you know, the winds will change. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I am tapped out me too good because you know
Speaker 1: what that means. Yes, it means listener mail dive dive, right,
Speaker 1: So this listener mail comes from Tim. Tim. Tim wanted
Speaker 1: to write to us about our recent podcast on spam,
Speaker 1: and he says, really, you can get spam even if
Speaker 1: you never give anyone your address, because a really determined
Speaker 1: spammer will try to send a message to every possible
Speaker 1: address on the domain simply by generating random user names.
Speaker 1: They can do that because normally, if an email address
Speaker 1: is messed up the domain, it is addressed to, example
Speaker 1: at tech stuff dot com. That's not our email, by
Speaker 1: the way, so don't write. Then we'll reply back with
Speaker 1: a no such user message. If they don't get that message,
Speaker 1: they assume it's a live address on the list it
Speaker 1: goes um. Yeah, Tim, that's true. It's one of those things.
Speaker 1: It's it's one of those annoying things that spammers used
Speaker 1: to try and get that list as big as possible.
Speaker 1: It's called a dictionary attack. Yeah. You also see that
Speaker 1: happening with people who are trying to brute force a password,
Speaker 1: where they're trying to figure out someone's password. They'll just
Speaker 1: use a dictionary attack to go through all the common
Speaker 1: words um in the dictionary as a possible password breaker,
Speaker 1: and then you'll even see things where they'll add numbers
Speaker 1: at the end because some people just tag a number.
Speaker 1: So my password is goober six. Um, that is not
Speaker 1: my password. Sure it isn't. Not anymore just hit inner okay,
Speaker 1: but anyway, Yes, those dictionary attacks are really irritating, and
Speaker 1: they are also fairly effective. You just go through a
Speaker 1: list of potential names, and you may not hit everyone,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna hit a lot of people that way.
Speaker 1: Thanks to him for pointing out again how incredibly depressing
Speaker 1: it is to have email. We appreciate it. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write us, our email address is tech
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com. If you'd like
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