I'm as green as the next guy. I recycle, I use compact fluorescent light bulbs, I drive a fuel efficient hatchback, I use public transportation to get to/from work, and I have unkempt facial hair. So when I read today that Greenpeace gave Nintendo a zero rating in its Guide to Greener Electronics the first thing I did was pull up a copy of the report online. What I discovered was shocking...

I'll be honest, Nintendo and I have history. Sure, it's been a rocky relationship over the years, but we've been through thick (SNES) and thin (Virtual Boy) together. To hear that my beloved Nintendo might be run by seal-clubbing bastards shook me to my very core. There's just one problem. As I delved deeper into Greenpeace's extensive four (4) page magnum opus on Nintendo's environmental faux pas, I was stunned at the complete and total lack of information. In fact, two (2) of the four (4) pages in the report (fifty percent for the math impaired) are composed solely of charts which, for all intents and purposes, contain the exact same information. Please note, I use the term "information" loosely.

Nintendo received a "bad" rating in four (4) of the nine (9) categories because, as the relentlessly efficient researchers at Greenpeace revealed, there was "No Information" available. Let that digest for a moment. Greenpeace released an evaluation of Nintendo's environmental policies, but was unable to obtain information on approximately 45 percent of the criteria by which it judged the company. Even the CIA doesn't miss that much information. The other five categories received "bad" ratings based upon Nintendo's extensive environmental polices, which are available online here. Wait! That's not Nintendo's corporate environmental policies! That's a painfully generic corporate FAQ that answers softball questions the likes of which any Wikipedia urchin could answer.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and it smells a lot like Patchouli.

I'm all for exposing the seething underbelly of evil corporate empires, but that requires actual research. At this point, the only thing Nintendo is guilty of is not posting their internal corporate policies, in their entirety, in a publicly accessible forum. Maybe I'm being too harsh with Greenpeace, but I like my reports to be well researched documents aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts. Then, just because I'm demanding, I expect a conclusion to be extrapolated from those facts. Call me a jackass, but that's just how I roll.

In an attempt to keep this objective (or just play devil's advocate, as I am prone to do), it's entirely possible that Nintendo is secretly planning a guerrilla marketing campaign to increase consumer awareness of Super Mario Galaxy by stomping the world's turtle population into extinction. It's also likely that somewhere in the Nevada desert, 1,000,000 buried Power Gloves are a significant source of groundwater contamination for the United States. I honestly don't know. However, until I see proof of these alleged indiscretions I'm forced to assume that this hard hitting report is nothing more than the inane ramblings of a bunch of environmental fanboys. Man I hate fanboys.