The Great Green Debate

The roiling debate over green products in the electronic manufacturing sector is a strange hybrid of cultural assumptions: there seems to be a background cultural trope that says, technology is good, technology is what helps us achieve low-environmental impact, etc… and then, there are the practices of large scale consumer product manufacturing and economic realities. As witnessed in the recent Apple MacBook Air or the iPod vs. Greenpeace’s Green My Apple campaign, change can happen, even if it requires some aggressive techniques. There are even a few organizations devoted to buying pools for educational institutions fostering support for offsetting the green technology conundrum. But its still a ways away, and as the global economy goes through its various recent throes of ambivalence, its to be seen if the bottom line will involve integrating green manufacturing techniques on broad consumer scales.