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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/08/greenpeace_it_leaderboar
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Analysis International hippie* collective Greenpeace has issued 
a "Cool IT leaderboard" of apparently randomly selected major 
firms which it has assigned meaningless self-generated scores 
intended to indicate how eco-friendly the companies are.

The list includes Google (top ranked with a score of 53 out of a 
possible 100) and other major names like Cisco, Microsoft, Dell 
and Oracle. However many others including Apple, Samsung, Nokia, 
Sony and Amazon (to name just a few) don't appear.

Also missing is Facebook, which is odd as the giant social 
network has lately been much loved-up by the hippies for issuing 
a meaningless agreement [PDF] - containing not a single number 
or date other than that of its publication - stating that its 
"goal is to power all of our operations with clean and renewable 
energy".

The "leaderboard" scores for those firms listed include sub-
ratings from Greenpeace on "solutions" and "energy impact", 
though these mostly don't reflect much in the way of actual 
carbon-emissions savings, as you can score big simply by 
announcing plans and targets or releasing figures (in effect the 
scores reflect a willingness, or lack of willingness, to have 
any dialogue with the hippies at all).

In any case as most estimates indicate that the IT sector is 
responsible for a few percent of humanity's greenhouse-gas 
burden at best, even the most swingeing genuine cuts in IT-biz 
emissions wouldn't mean a whole lot in the doomsday global-
warming scenarios advocated by Greenpeace**. This is perhaps why 
there's another scoring area, "advocacy", where each IT company 
is rated on its efforts to push green policies on governments 
and the energy sector.

In theory this ought to be a place where the hippies could get 
some traction, as the tech biz heavies don't actually use very 
much energy in Western countries - not compared to other 
industries anyway. They wouldn't mind too much if Western energy 
prices went up, provided this happened to their competitors too: 
as electricity and other energy prices rise, they could flog a 
lot of IT equipment for smart metering, smart grids and the 
like, kit which is only marginally necessary at best given 
current prices. And with Western political leaders often seeming 
rather mesmerised by IT companies at the moment, they might have 
the clout to get some policies in place.

But it seems that the IT majors are nonetheless unwilling to be 
seen as trying to hurt the Western economies in these times of 
hardship.

�The IT sector might like to consider itself forward-thinking, 
but it is keeping far too quiet while the dirty energy industry 
continues to exert undue influence on both the political process 
and financial markets," laments Greenpeace IT hippy Gary Cook.

As you were, then. �

Bootnotes
* We've had various mail and comments from people who object to 
the characterisation of Greenpeace as a bunch of hippies. We 
would refer you to the words of Greenpeace International's 
Director of Information Technology & New Media, Brian 
Fitzgerald, a multi-decade veteran of the organisation and its 
top worldwide mouthpiece and IT expert. In an induction speech 
for new Greenpeace people which he has given "again and again 
and again" he says:

Greetings, hippies!

Aha, I see a few of you cringing � but you�re in Greenpeace 
now... I�m here to tell you, kids, a hard truth: your parents 
were hippies. And I hope you�re sitting down, because it�s 
genetic. Which means you�re hippies too ... everything you�ve 
heard about Hippies is wrong. Hippies have been trashed by 
history and mass media because they were the ultimate threat to 
power and the status quo.

I spent a winter writing poetry and communing with nature and 
all that hippy stuff. The cabin belonged to a doctor in Boston 
. miraculous victories that this group of hippies pulled off 
in the early days of Greenpeace, despite (or maybe because of) 
fuck ups like sailing in circles because somebody put the 
magnetic tape player on the compass so they could listen to the 
Grateful Dead, or sailing along the track of the moon or 
following a rainbow in search of the Russian whaling fleet...

And if you, dear hippies, are going to make a difference in this 
organization, you�re going have to embrace that madness. You�re 
just gonna have to honor your hippy roots, find your inner 
mystic...

So, welcome hippies... hold on to your hippy heart.

If you work for Greenpeace, you're a hippy - it's compulsory. 
This is just a fact, and one confirmed by the organisation 
itself. QED - Greenpeace are a bunch of hippies.

** Though there is plenty of respectable science casting doubt 
on these, and many respectable figures doubt the need for any 
especially urgent action. Nobody's saying temperatures didn't go 
up a bit in the last decades of the last century: but quite a 
few people doubt that this heralds the end of the world, or 
offers a valid reason to abandon economic growth.

In any case it's quite clear that most of the major emitters - 
the USA, China and soon, other emerging mega-economies - have no 
intention whatsoever of cutting emissions. This is because the 
idea that a reasonably comfortable human civilisation can run on 
renewable power is comically unrealistic and - in large part 
thanks to Greenpeace - the option to move to nuclear power is 
seen as too much effort, so the debate is all a bit academic 
really.