It is not surprising that Greenpeace was unable to find a green laptop, even a CeBit the largest show of its kind in the world. It is the sad truth that all the fun electronic gizmos that we love so much are absolutely horrible for the environment. They are full of lead, mercury, arsenic, BFR (Brominated flame retardant), PVC (a nasty cancer causing plastic), and a host of other baddies. This is before you consider all the energy and water that it took to make the product in the first place.

The most obvious answer to these problems is to buy less crap. The second solution is to pressure companies to make greener products. The third is to buy less, of highly green products.

Lets be honest, people who have lots of money (America, Europe, Parts of Asia) are going to buy lots and lots of gadgets. It’s just the sad fact. So what we need to do is make it both economically and socially unacceptable to produce products that are bad for the earth.

This is not as hard as you might think. Public policy, industry standards, and public pressure can go a long way towards changing the products that people buy (No one in America fills up with leaded gasoline anymore, when was the last time you got anything with asbestos in it?)

The power is in our hands, lets use it.