Cringely: Sometimes going green hurts more than it helps

The operating logic of most environmentalists is:

* Something must be done.

* This is something.

* Therefore it must be done.

Most environmental activists (and sadly, even many environmental policy-makers) tend to see you as standing in the way of progress if you try to get them to understand the engineering implications of what they want to do.

The key is that they understand "negative environmental externalities" (== "Destroying The Earth") in emotional rather than engineering terms, so they have no way to access concepts like "good-enough solution," "necessary evil," or "minimal impact." There are only environmental problems they know about ("Nuclear Fuel Comes From Satan's Pooper") and ones they don't ("Several of the reactants used to make solar cells are toxic enough to use as chemical weapons").

As someone with a materials science/engineering background, I'm a bit skeptical of the claim that no-one knows why the whiskers grow. Usually a given material changes its state/configuration because that's the lowest thermodynamical configuration for that material to be in given the particular temperature/pressure. Maybe I'm way off base here, but I think the whiskers are growing due to elevated temperature caused by resistance heating...?

The "Green" agenda (or at least the one pushed by marketing departments) always seems to ignore the fact that money has an environmental cost attached to it.

That $400 "green" desk lamp? There is probably more environmental cost associated with buyers working jobs to earn an extra $400 than with just manufacturing a more traditional $20 lamp in the first place.

From the article: "just the cost of changing to lead-free solder stands right now at $280 BILLION and climbing. That cost is borne by all of us."

Suddenly, getting 20, end of line, lead solder, crystal oscillators for 4.5 pence each doesn't seem like such a bargain.

Surely, adequate ventilation would have been sufficient? Something like a chemistry extraction chamber?

Any idea if the claims of silver and bismuth being more harmful than lead (!) have any truth to them?

Silver is used in cake toppings and bismuth is what turns Pepto-Bismol pink. I realize ubiquitous != safe, but c'mon.

Completely fascinating rant.

Somewhere there's a counter argument in favor of non-critical systems achieving planned obsolence through joint failure and the economic benefit of consumers purchasing replacements. I'm not about to make it myself, but it is available.