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Dell Offers Virtual Saplings For Earth Day

Posted by kdawson on Sun Apr 22, 2007 02:56 AM
from the virtual-carbon-credits dept.
Role Playing (Games) Businesses The Internet
theodp writes "The expansion of Dell's Plant a Tree for Me program into Second Life has the Silicon Valley Sleuth wondering if this represents a new low in Earth Day marketing tie-ins. You may wonder, too, after reading Dell's invitation to its Earth Day Party at Dell Island in SL ('get your own tree sapling to plant in Second Life!')."
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Dell Offers Virtual Saplings For Earth Day 25 Comments More /

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  • For Dell's environmental initiatives to make any difference in the real world, people need to get involved. That takes publicity and advertising. I'm sure we're about to get flooded by math majors explaining how each virtual tree required X pounds of fossil fuels to appear on the server, but frankly I don't care. Greenpeace prints their literature on paper, after all.

    If this is really all we have to complain about, the world is already perfect. Kudos to Dell for finding a way to bring attention to their Plant A Tree program.

    (Note: none of that was/is the opinion of my employer).

    • Actually, Dell's environmental initiatives are quite laudable:

      Is Dell the brand for EcoGeeks? [ecogeek.org]

      • Re:Call it a "new low" if you will... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by asninn (1071320) on Sunday April 22 2007, @03:42AM (#18830261)
        That's nice, but I fail to see what's so great about this. Unless I'm misunderstanding things, it's the customer that donates the money, right? Dell is just collecting and forwarding it, and while that is certainly nice, it's not really a big deal. Call me back when they actually donate money themselves. (And as for "virtually" eliminating lead in certain components etc... that's nice, too, but again, I fail to see what the big deal is, or how it sets them apart from their competitors.)

        And in any case, "planting" trees on Second Life might not be a new low, but it certainly is pretty stupid - even if you can't or don't want to plant a real tree, it'd make much more sense to tell people "please leave your computer turned off and don't play Second Life today". Yeah, it'd just be a feel-good measure that'd hardly have any real impact, but planting *virtual* trees? Come on. That's such a blatant attempt at commercialisation that I can understand the submitter's sentiments.

        • I'm an enthusiastic Mac user, but I've signed that petition. I also run an environmental website (LighterFootstep.com), where the issue will be coming up again soon ...

          So, Apple, if you're reading this -- please green my Apple!

    • Re:Call it a "new low" if you will... (Score:4, Funny)

      by chromatic (9471) on Sunday April 22 2007, @03:20AM (#18830179) Homepage

      For Dell's environmental initiatives to make any difference in the real world, people need to get involved. That takes publicity and advertising.

      Wow, that really raised my awareness of the value of raising awareness! I'm nominating your post for the 2007 Awareness awards.

    • Re:Call it a "new low" if you will... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zCyl (14362) on Sunday April 22 2007, @05:13AM (#18830587)

      For Dell's environmental initiatives to make any difference in the real world, people need to get involved.

      Err, yes. Everyone can get involved with planting virtual trees so they don't have to think about real ones?

      I feel like this completely misses the point of Earth Day, since the focus seems to be on improving a fake environment.
    • Greenpeace prints their literature on paper, after all.

      This makes me laugh, actually. I'm a member of the UK's Green Party (not for any specific environmental reason, just for the rest of their policies) and every couple of months or so they send me through a massive bundle of magazines and such which I...don't do anything with, and have to throw away.

      Quite ironic, really.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by maxume (22995)
        What about Earth Day isn't a feel good measure for consumers? Planting trees and what not is cute, but it isn't going to do anything to mediate poor behavior the other 364 days of the year, except that it 'raises awareness', so I'm not sure attacking a bastard corporation that re-purposed resources that were going to be used anyway(unless you are on crack you won't think that Second Life's servers are working harder because of this) in order to help with the awareness raising makes much sense.

        A much better

  • Ahh ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by kitzilla (266382) <paperfrogNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday April 22 2007, @03:04AM (#18830113) Homepage Journal
    ... I can smell the virtual fresh air already.

  • What's the bet that... (Score:3, Funny)

    by femto (459605) on Sunday April 22 2007, @03:21AM (#18830187) Homepage
    the energy used to run the servers to render a virtual tree is about equivalent to burning a real tree?

  • McDonalds has real saplings in MN for free (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rick Richardson (87058) on Sunday April 22 2007, @05:10AM (#18830573) Homepage
    McDonalds has real saplings in Minnesota for free on Earth Day.

    Did you know that twice as much wood is grown in Minnesota compared to harvesting?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jimmydevice (699057)
      Rick Richardson (87058)
      "Did you know that twice as much wood is grown (planted - fixed it for ya ) in Minnesota compared to harvesting?"

      And the're probably all about 5" high or dead. Just like in the west.
  • The trees might offset the enormous amounts of methane generated from fat nerds farting and burping in second life.

  • Plant a real tree (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rackrent (160690) on Sunday April 22 2007, @05:46AM (#18830699)
    Join the National Arbor Day Foundation [arborday.org] and they'll send you 10 living saplings for cheap (10-15 bucks).

    Of course, that means that people might have to get outside once in a while.

  • First virtual tree post (Score:3, Funny)

    by mobby_6kl (668092) on Sunday April 22 2007, @07:06AM (#18831077)
    *

    Viewed from above of course. There, I feel better already. Gotta go now, I wanted to take my humvee for an offroad drive today.
  • In America, when you kill a tree, you have to plant a tree (or rather, two trees). So we've got a law on the books that says papermills either tree farm; get trees from outside the country; use corn stalks; or have trees planted to replace the ones they kill. Development companies are pretty well stuck having trees planted when they tear out a forest to build houses.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Irvu (248207)
      Not exactly. While that law is on the books in some places I do not believe that it is fully national. Moreover it encodes a rather incorrect understanding of the way things work. Firstly 1 old-growth redwood != 2 saplings. So the net impact is not balanced out and if we kill old trees faster than the new ones can grow then we will still have a destructive impact.

      Seconslu the costs to the environment is not entirely about the trees, there is the brush and underbrsh, the animals, etc all of which are dis
  • This is so lame on Dells part, I don't even know where to start.

  • Online Ordering Real Saplings Planted? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Sunday April 22 2007, @10:36AM (#18831641) Homepage Journal
    Is there a service which lets me click to plant a real tree somewhere on the real Earth?

    I'd love to see a service which calculates the CO2 impact of, say, an email server (and its own operations), and orders trees planted to offset that CO2 by the amount trees consume during that time.

    People could get periodic reports of their "email pollution" and the trees they've planted to balance it. With an offer to buy more trees to offset the rest of the Greenhouse pollution we generate, including writing and reading this message.
  • Why not plant some real fucking trees and make a difference instead of this "feel good" marketing shit.
    • They're just following the lead of prominent Democrats on how we solve global climate change. Don't reduce carbon, BUY carbon credits from some Eskimo!
  • The stupid housing community I'm currently renting in keeps trying to grow grass in places that really don't want grass, using the usual massive seed-fertilize-water approach. They dumped some seed and overfertilized again this morning; I spread six cans of wildflower seed into the area while they were at lunch break. I have high hopes for colorful ground cover this time. =)

    • ...I get some chains and tie my Second Life avatar to some trees in the virtual forest?
      That sounds potentially, ah, "kinky". Especially the bit about the chains. I understand they're fairly popular there. If you go for it, you could find yourself making some, ah, interesting new friends.

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