Dell's Plant a Tree program misses the point

Dell announced today what it is calling a "carbon-neutral" initiative that "plants trees for customers to offset the carbon impact of electricity required to power their systems." Well it almost sound like a good idea. But Dell's "Plant a Tree for Me" program is going to cost. For every PC a customer buys, the customer can donate an additional $2 for a notebook and $6 for a desktop to go toward the planting of t

Dell announced today what it is calling a "carbon-neutral" initiative that "plants trees for customers to offset the carbon impact of electricity required to power their systems."

Well it almost sound like a good idea. But Dell's "Plant a Tree for Me" program is going to cost.

For every PC a customer buys, the customer can donate an additional $2 for a notebook and $6 for a desktop to go toward the planting of trees.

What I want to know is why isn't Dell paying for this?

Why does the customer have to put in the $2 or $6?

Why the difference between a donation for a notebook and for a desktop?

Better they figure out ways to reduce pollution in the manufacture of their PCs than to make amends for destroying the environment after the fact.

They sell so many PC they must have some leverage with the companies that actually do the manufacturing.

Over time, a Dell spokesperson told me you don't even have to buy a computer from Dell you can just go to their site and donate the money. That's a pretty sneaky way of getting names and address of potential customers.

I have to admit that Dell does do some good stuff for the environment.

It has a global recycling policy that offers free product recycling worldwide. It also has as a company goal to use 50 percent recycled content by 2009.

What I object to is the propagation of the lie that consumers are responsible for the terrible shape the environment is in. The implication of the Plant a Tree for Me program is that if you donate money the environment will improve.

It avoids the truth that government and its politicians are in bed with manufacturers and if we really want to have a major impact on air quality and the environment in general it is up to them to do something in a major way.

How can buying a $2 tree be the equivalent of spewing 10 tons of soot,dirt and CO2 into the air on a daily basis from just a single manufacturing site?