Is green technology a trend?

just a trend? Oh? Good? I thought we're gonna ask if it was easy being green? No? No, um, I do have a frog in my throat, but I'm just gonna ask that. No, no, no, um. So is green technology just a trend? That is the the topic for our podcast? My answer is no. All right, thanks for tuning in. Alright, that's good talking to you again. I want to learn more about green technology. I guess we should probably go a little longer about that than that. All right. So green technology, UM, it seems a bit

trendy because it is everywhere right now. I mean, this is one of those things where companies are all claiming that they're going green. Um, it's it's sort of the political thing to do being environmentally conscious to suddenly very fashionable lack of a better word, and UH and technology, of course is is right there with everyone else. And you might wonder if this is just sort of a passing fad, a fancy if you will, uh, But I don't think so. I think it's probably more important than that.

And while it may lose some of the support and focus that it has right now, over time, I don't think it's ever going to go away completely. But I can see why you might think that it would be just a trend because jokes aside, to your point, it's

not easy and green. These these companies who are making uh computers and electronics have to do quite a lot of retooling to you know, take into account a lot of the environmental trends, getting rid of certain chemicals during the manufacturing process, cutting down on the amount of electricity that it takes to run the machines that manufacture those things, taking into account uh ways to reduce electricity used by

those machines. You know, these are processes that require a lot of research and development and you know, new machinery and retooling to to take into account. And it's I'm gonna use take into account six more times if I can. But sorry, um, but um, yeah, I mean I think

it's it's difficult. And you might say, yeah, they're gonna do this just long enough to get a good reputation for being green, and uh, then they're gonna just gonna dump it or only gonna take it so far before they really just sort of say, oh, yeah, well we've we've taken these new measures. Uh, we're gonna go ahead with it. And another part of that equation is that

they have to, you know, those costs go somewhere. Either they have to pass those costs along to the in consumer so that we end up paying more for the electronics that we're used to having at cheaper costs, you know, across the board, either we're the ones paying for it, or they have to eat those costs. Now, I don't know how much you know about economics, but in general,

companies don't like eating costs. You look at these these I mean you have again we talk about sort of the whole domino effect of this affects that, which affects that. When we talked about our electronic versus Paper um podcast, we got into a lot of details about that kind of thing about how you can't just take into account the production cycle. You also have to take an account transportation of materials and all these other sort of factors.

Same thing here. When you're looking at the cost of producing a truly green friendly product versus the normal, you know, wasteful or possibly hazardous version of that product, it's more expensive in most cases. And if you're a company, you're either answering to your private owners or shareholders who I mean, the whole purpose of them buying into that company is

to make money. At the end of the day, they do it, you know, different ways, either through products or services, but at the end of the day, the reason for that to exist is to make money, and if you are taking away from that, then there's no reason for it to exist anymore. So someone has to meet those costs somewhere, and it's usually going to be the end consumer. Yeah, but the end consumer maybe well, actually, in my opinion, the end consumer is the person around which this trend

is going to play out. I think it's whether it becomes a trend or not, it's going to be based on the end consumer, I think, yeah, I think it fully depends upon the end consumer and how much he or she is willing to pay in order to go green. Um. And to make matters more complicated, of course, we're in a global recession, so we have people who are more cautious about spending money. They realize that the environment is

an important issue. And I would say that maybe not a vast majority, but I would say at least a small majority realizes that that in the negative environmental impact of technology and other um, corporate and and and consumer market type things, are you know, that's something we have to address. UM. The question is is it something that we have to address that will affect my pocket? You know, like am I willing to pay for us to address this?

And And traditionally that's been kind of a sticky situation. I mean, it's one of those things where we want to fix, but we don't want to be the one to have to pay for it. So I think more people are willing to give up a little bit more or to switch to different products right now than we've ever seen in the past. I think there's more of an environmental consciousness out there than has ever been in

the past. UM. But I think the next year or two will really show us whether or not people are willing to to really take the sacrifices that are going to be necessary to to have a truly green lifestyle. I mean, it's not just the companies that are gonna be making these decisions. We make them by the way we purchase products and the you know, the way we live out our daily lives. So the way you live out your life really does make a difference. That's true.

That's true. UM. You know, it was funny because when we started talking about doing this podcast, I was I was trying to think of places I could go to get more information, and UM, one of the people I trust a lot in that regard would be our friend Jamie Himbach over a tree hugger, and she she writes about tech um and it's environmental impacts all the time. It's all sorts of great blog posts. UM, but I was looking at one of them, and it's kind of

illustrated a point for me. UM, as this transitional period we're in where people want to buy green stuff and the manufacturers aren't quite there yet. Um. She was talking about Sony Ericsson's new phones, the green Heart Phones, UM, and Uh, Basically the point is that the phone itself is not really all that much different from a regular phone, but they've produced the the amount of packaging and uh, you know, made the charger a little bit more energy efficient.

But you know, her point being essentially, I'm sorry what, yeah exactly, you know it makes a difference, but you know the difference it's making right now isn't isn't really all that significant? And the greater impact of the entire industry,

you know, and I think that now. I mean, people need to basically vote with their pocket and say, you know, look, I want a greener product so that the companies no, yes, people will pay for it and they will continue to make strides and recycling, which actually Sony Errickson is you know, saying that is going to come out of this this project, but um, you know, it's it's just sort of not

there yet. And recycling is another one of those things. Sure, you know, because a lot of these companies are taking back uh products. I see that Dell has a partnership with Goodwill of all people to take back computers at

Goodwill locations. Um, but um, you know that that's one good move, certainly, But there also been reports of some manufacturers basically just you know, dumping them or you know, sending them to uh other countries to be yeah, to be basically roasted on fires and the chemicals drip into the ground, you know, contaminating groundwater and poisoning the people who are supposed to be taking them apart. Right, Yeah, you have you of nearby villages where people's health is

affected by this sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, it really does pay to to research any company before you just go ahead and uh and assume that their green claims are true. Um, for example, the the whole the

whole recycling thing. Uh. Yeah, just a little research goes a long way, because there are legitimate recycling programs out there where these companies will take your electronics, they will take them apart in safe environments, uh and recycle everything that can be recycled and and then dispose of everything

else in a responsible manner. But that costs a lot of money, so you know, you have to you have to look around, because even though there are a lot of recycling programs, many of them take the cheap route, which of course is shipping them to some other country and just getting them out of the way. So yeah, you're not you know, you're no longer polluting the immediate area.

But you're definitely contributing to a negative environmental impact. And I think letting the companies that you work with, you know, the people that you buy a PC from or an electronic device from, know that this is something that's important to you. UM. You know that that makes a difference and UM, or it should UM. And you can always, if it really matters to you, vote with your pocketbook and say, you know what, I'm not going to buy this thing because I know that that you that you

are not sincere in your environmental claims. You know, green Piece has a report they put out every so often, and uh, you know a lot of the electronics folks just you know, don't do so well. No, but I think ahead I was going to say, of course, there's always the term that that we've mentioned a few times and that you'll eventually run around. Uh, you'll run into if you start researching green technology. UM. It's called greenwashing.

And greenwashing is when you are are trying to come across as an environmentally conscious entity, uh and say that your products or services are environmentally friendly, when in fact it may be that that some other aspect of producing that product. UM is actually very harmful to the environment. So you might concentrate on one or two really good

things about your product and ignore everything else. So it may be that, you know, you could say, oh, well, this monitor consumes less electricity than the average monitor out there. But what they might not tell you is that the monitor, in order to produce the monitor, they had to use this very dangerous chemical that if it's ever released into the atmosphere, is you know, sixteen thousand times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping greenhouse gases,

which is more or less a true story. Yeah, I made up the sixteen thousand I can't remember exactly how much that would be the less Yeah, yeah, that would be the less part of the more or less. But that's that's greenwashing, where you you're you're playing up certain aspects as being really environmentally friendly, well kind of pushing the others under the carpet so that, uh, you look like you're a responsible company and you're you're trying to do the right thing. Um, and it's it's it's a

pretty common practice. And it's not just electronics. It's lots of different quote unquote green businesses. But it's one another one of those things that a little research can really help you out. There are plenty of blogs out there that make it their mission to to investigate the claims and make sure that these companies are in fact telling the truth when they say that their products are environmentally friendly or make the smallest amount of impact on the

environment as possible. Uh, you were when you were mentioning the whole people can vote with their pockets. That's one of the things that kind of scares me in a way, only in the sense that if we see companies offer uh, things like the the green phones, you know you were mentioning.

I've seen several green phones come out that we're very very basic phones, you know, just essential cell phone technology, so nothing smartphone ish about it, nothing like that, nothing sexy or sleek, and the big selling point was that it was green, not that it had all these cool features.

I think that's also a problem is that if companies aren't willing to invest both in the green technology and in presenting the sort of features that people expect these days, there's a danger that consumers won't buy the green products at all because it just doesn't do what they needed to do. So then you've got companies who can say, well, look, they're not interested in the environment because no one's buying this phone. It may not be because the phone is

green or not green. It's because it's not doing what the consumer wants it to do. That's a good point. So that's a good point. That's that's kind of a that's that's something that legitimately worries me because you know, I would hate to see a product, a line get abandoned just because people weren't buying it because it didn't have the the suite of functions they expected it to

as opposed to it being green. I mean, I'm willing to pay a little bit more for technology that is legitimately a green, environmentally friendly technology if it in fact

does what I needed to do right right. But you know, um, I was also thinking about how slow, how much time it takes to get real green, genuinely green technology into the process of making uh well, electronics and computers and all kinds of other things, other materials, building materials and things like that, and um, you know that may actually work in the favor of eliminating the trend nous of green and actually making it a day to day normality and you know, because it takes a lot of time

and a lot of money to convert. And if uh, the trend sustains itself long enough, uh, it won't be a trend anymore, and it will be you know, people will have converted. And if people say, well, you know, I don't care anymore, well, by that point it will be very expensive to convert back to the old way of doing things, and so it will establish itself in in a permanent way. Um. You know, even even the financial meltdown has caused you know, one good thing in

a way. Um, it's not really good for the people of munc, Indiana, because there were factories there where GM and ford um had closed their plants and a lot of people are out of work, and that's certainly not a good thing. Um. But there's an Italian company actually that wants to uh put a lot of those people back to work making um wind energy equipment, turbines and things like that. Yeah. Yeah, basically they would, they would.

There are all these skilled laborers right there. Um. The bad thing is, according I've heard this on Marketplace, the American public media show, and apparently the biggest problem is they've got hundreds and hundreds of people who need jobs and they just don't have that many jobs. Plus, um, they're not going to be able to get the factory

online until apparently, UM, but it does. It does present a kind of opportunity, and you know, once they get that factory going, you know, there'll be another source of quality wind equipment, uh, you know, power generation equipment that you know will be um you know in the United States. So that's that it may be it may be something

you know, one advantage. And well there's also the fact that there are a lot of governments that are that are starting to pour money into green research, green businesses, giving incentives to businesses that are taking an environmentally friendly kind of approach UM, including the United States. Obama has stated multiple times that he's very interested in in uh encouraging this industry to grow within the United States and

create jobs. So in that sense, you're talking about entire countries getting behind this movement, which can change it from being a trend into a legitimate industry that's around for you know, decades, if not centuries. You're talking about really putting the power of an entire government behind it, and that that's a lot more powerful than just saying, hey, you know, you use this light bulb instead of that light bulb, and you're going to save yourself twenty five

bucks a year on electricity bills. So, I mean, we are seeing some of that play out right now, and I'm sure we'll see more of that in the future. UM, everything from upgrading the United States UH electric grid infrastructure to UH providing incentives to to auto manufacturers that look at ways of of making more fuel efficient cars or

electric cars. When we when you see that sort of thing with the government incentive again, that's that's showing where you're taking some of that cost out of that equation that we were talking about earlier, and then it becomes smart to go green. It makes financial sense to go green, um, as soon as it makes more financial sense to legitimately go green than it does to greenwash. We're in good

shape right now. I don't think we're there yet. Right now, I think it's still there are a lot of companies that are saying, hey, let's just talk about these one or two things that are really good about our product, and then hope no one knows is the other things, and we'll make a killing. Because the green movement is huge right now. Until that changes. Um, it's it's still gonna be a rocky road ahead, I think, and it may just seem trendy in the short run because so

many people are talking about it too well. Yeah, I mean, I think what happened is over the last couple of years, it's really taken hold. I mean, the environmental movement has been around for decades, but I think once al Gore started his his crusade, that really started to kick things off. And then uh, it became a pretty focal point in the the uh United States election campaigns. And now it's just it's firmly entrenched. I mean, we have entire television

networks based on it, so it's here to stay. I think. Yeah, it might be a little painful in the interim, hopefully that will pass more quickly, and it's the early days of the era. Yeah, I think. I think once we get past this rocky first stage where no one's really sure what's the right path right now, once we get past that and we get enough buy in from from consumers, then it'll really you know, the winds will change. Yeah. I am tapped out me too good because you know

what that means. Yes, it means listener mail dive dive, right, So this listener mail comes from Tim. Tim. Tim wanted to write to us about our recent podcast on spam, and he says, really, you can get spam even if you never give anyone your address, because a really determined spammer will try to send a message to every possible address on the domain simply by generating random user names. They can do that because normally, if an email address is messed up the domain, it is addressed to, example

at tech stuff dot com. That's not our email, by the way, so don't write. Then we'll reply back with a no such user message. If they don't get that message, they assume it's a live address on the list it goes um. Yeah, Tim, that's true. It's one of those things. It's it's one of those annoying things that spammers used to try and get that list as big as possible. It's called a dictionary attack. Yeah. You also see that happening with people who are trying to brute force a password,

where they're trying to figure out someone's password. They'll just use a dictionary attack to go through all the common words um in the dictionary as a possible password breaker, and then you'll even see things where they'll add numbers at the end because some people just tag a number. So my password is goober six. Um, that is not my password. Sure it isn't. Not anymore just hit inner okay, but anyway, Yes, those dictionary attacks are really irritating, and

they are also fairly effective. You just go through a list of potential names, and you may not hit everyone, but you're gonna hit a lot of people that way. Thanks to him for pointing out again how incredibly depressing it is to have email. We appreciate it. If you would like to write us, our email address is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com. If you'd like to learn more about green technology, you can read all

about it at how stuff works dot com. And Chris and I will talk to you again really soon for moralness and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com And be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog now on the how stuff Works homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you