The activists' "Clean our Cloud" campaign may have stumbled, but Greenpeace raised good questions about big tech companies and their influence on local clean-power generation.
Greenpeace makes a splash in Seattle by hanging this sign off a building near Microsoft and Amazon offices.
(Credit: Greenpeace)
Commentary In its trademark smashmouth style, Greenpeace this week took cloud computing companies to task for using dirty energy -- and then came under fire itself over its methods and assertions.
Whatever Greenpeace's shortcomings, though, its activists have a point.
In the latest event of its "Clean our Cloud" campaign, Greenpeace activists yesterday rappelled off a building near Amazon and Microsoft offices and attached a banner which reads "Amazon, Microsoft: How Clean is Your Cloud?"
Earlier, it released three videos that poke fun at Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft by showing workers shoveling coal into a smoky fire behind scenes of consumers using the companies' Web services. Sure, the cloud looks clean, the videos suggest. But do you know where the power that makes it possible comes from?
The campaign has been marred by an angry response from Apple, which claimed that Greenpeace greatly overestimated the power usage of its latest data center and discounted its reliance on renewable energy. Amazon, too, says Greenpeace's numbers are inaccurate. The environmental watchdog group continues to defend its analysis.
