Too Many Dirty Words

I constantly try and find 'ins' to get green computing into computing environments. As I've said before, one of the biggest problems is the convincing part of the equation, and I'm not convinced that calling 'green computing' 'green computing' helps. This is because the 'green' already has a lot of connotations, not all of them bonuses.

Take 'save the whales', for example. This is a terrible slogan on so many levels. First, it has the word 'save' in it. No one wants to save anything, because saving things is full of taking dangerous risks, being thrifty, or being brave, all of which just aren't available in any great quantity at a given moment. Second, it has the word 'whale' in it. Fact is, not a lot of people know about whales except that they are big, and I bet less than 1 percent of people have actually seen one. So, 'Save the Whales' comes down to doing something that you really don't want to do, to something that you really don't have any familiarity with, except you know that it's large.

But hope is not lost - we have folks like George Lakoff who have made a career out of reframing these slogans, and his article of Winning Words is well worth reading. George explains why phrases like 'Tax Relief' and 'Compassionate Conservatives' have solidifed their causes. This, followed up with the Reframing the Planet discussion, makes for some tasty reading. Here's a quote:

We need to constantly and consistently frame environmental protection as the path to prosperity -- and not in any abstract "quality of life" sense, but in real dollars-in-your-pocket terms. Environmental protection is the path to create clean power industries, hybrid car industries, green building industries. There is no future which is bright without being green. We must show our opponents to be what they are: job-killers, willing to mortgage both the future of the country and the health of the planet.

Now just rephrase this as:

We need to constantly and consistently frame green computing as the path to prosperity -- and not in any abstract "quality of life" sense, but in real dollars-in-your-pocket terms. Green computing is the path to clean technologies, industry breakthroughs, cost efficient buildings. There is no future for our company which is bright without being green. We must show our competitors to be what they are: job-killers, resource wasters. willing to mortgage both the future of the country and the health of the planet.

There's a lot more.