Nintendo: The Stylish Option

Greenpeace recently released their quarterly guide entitled The Guide to Greener Electronics.

What’s the guide all about? In Greenpeace’s words:

“The Greener Electronics Guide is our way of getting the electronics industry to face up to the problem of e-waste. We want manufacturers to get rid of harmful chemicals in their products. We want to see an end to the stories of unprotected child labourers scavenging mountains of cast-off gadgets created by society’s gizmo-loving ways.”

Nintendo came bottom of the league with no public policy on toxics elimination or recycling. And although the guide describes the behaviour of electronics giants regarding toxic waste, energy usage is not taken into account – something I want to discuss here.

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It’s important to try and keep our chins up when outlining environmental issues – sometimes an extremely tough exercise, because I’m haunted by Nintendo’s name.

You browse their website, looking for clues as to who their target audience is, but you don’t need a keen eye for demographics to know that it is the younger generation that feeds off Nintendo’s products.

And in so doing, they’re feeding off the national grid to fire them to the next level of each game.

It bothers me that, just as humankind wakes up to carbon emissions, the generation behind me seems indifferent. I’m no eco-saint. Far from it.

How did I spend my leisure time when younger? On my bike, playing football, all the usual things. Now I feel old for even admitting that.

You speak to kids these days and ask them for their views regarding the energy usage resultant from computer games. Shrugs, a lack of concern, apathy. Climate change a million miles away. That seems the attitude here in the UK anyway.

Green energy is not a widespread commodity. Not yet. Until that becomes a reality, we must continue to tighten our grip on energy use per se.

And for that to become a reality, green alternatives must become the stylish options. Currently, the games console is the stylish option, environmentalism the choice of the martyr.

Responsible parenting and green issues central to a school’s curriculum are the voices of authority and therefore, by their very nature, a complete turn-off for the kids.

So how do we lead the young away from electricity? How do we inject style and fashion into what is still seen by the young as a lifestyle frought with sacrifice?

If the next generation are more reliant on electricity as a means to fending off boredom than ever before, where does the buck stop?

Sources:

Greenpeace

Picture courtesy of Flickr

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