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> Corporate Eco-Nomics in the 6th World, They're greedy and cruel and callous... but are they green?
Kerenshara
post Jun 30 2009, 12:33 AM
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I was thinking the other day about some of the population densities and recent concerns about little things like Global Climate Change, changing weather paterns (especially rainfall), heat island effects, resource availability, and logistics to caring and feeding for multiple millions of people in an area designed for a tenth that number.

Essentially, it comes down to this: The Bottom LineTM.

Corporations need to save money, and cutting energy bills would be one way to accomplish that. The fact that most "energy-saving" technologies have longer life cycles not withstanding. And fresh water is going to become a tremendous concern in fifty years, especially in the really big MetroPlexes. Sewage, rainwater handling, general sanitation, all of these things need to be addressed.

Now, I am not suggesting that the corps are going to try to build arcologies, but it would only make sense for them to try to do some of the following: recycle water internally to minimize demand on external sources (and capturing rain water to be processed), take steps to minimize garbage and sewer since the 'plex will tax them on efluence, maximize passive solar lighting where possible because electricity isn't free, go with the most efficient heating and cooling methods for the same reasons, and so on and so forth. Would they try to have a "hydroponics section" to a) act as a natural filter/scrubber b) provide fresh food at cost to the cafeteria and c) let them claim to be "environmentally concious"? Solar panels/paint on the south facing walls and roof? Helical wind turbines? Green roof for extended durability and reductions in cooling costs? Electrochromatic windows for security and energy conservation? Fly-Ash concrete or Aerated Autoclaved Concrete for mass and transportation savings? Diamond shaped structural elements to reduce materials? All these things have decided environmental benefits, but they also save large amounts of money in the long run, and isn't that what the greedy corps are all about?

They're evil and greedy and vicious, but does that mean they can't be green?

I would like to hear some other people's thoughts on the subject.
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Ancient History
post Jun 30 2009, 12:38 AM
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Aztechnology recycles 100% of its victims.
[ Spoiler ]
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Kerenshara
post Jun 30 2009, 12:53 AM
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QUOTE (Ancient History @ Jun 29 2009, 07:38 PM) *
Aztechnology recycles 100% of its victims.
[ Spoiler ]

*Almost snarfs their coffee*

"You are what you eat..." (If you missed the joke, Google: "Soylent Green")

"Eat recycled food. Recycled food: it's good for the environment, and okay for you."

You are a bad, bad person, Ancient History.
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nezumi
post Jun 30 2009, 01:42 AM
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1) Yes, the corporations DO make arcologies. A sealed environment is easier to recapture waste resources, and reduce contamination from outside sources.

2) The corporations care about their bottom line, but not that of the rest of the world. If they save $50,000 pumping enough nitrous oxide in the air to melt half the city in acid rain, but anticipate their own rebuilding costs will only be $40,000, theyll pump away. Remember that it's cheaper to build a forty mile pipe into international waters than it is to pay for sewage disposal. It's cheaper to dump radioactive material in small, poorly marked cases in the barrens than bury it properly in blocks of subterranean cement. It's cheaper to dump old cars to the bottom of the sound than to recycle them. It's cheaper to grease a few palms than install carbon-catchers on smoke stacks.

Corporations recycle their water and save their power not because it's significantly cheaper or more ethical or because their employees like it (whoo! Low-grade fluorescent lighting! Gives my skin that healthy, palid glow!) They do it because they've already messed up everything else to the point that there IS no more reliable source of water, solar power, clean soil or healthy vegetables. Economically, they have no choice but to use giant, underground nuclear plants to feed hydroponic farms and massive processors to magically turn that food into low-grade, high-volume, plastic-like edible products.
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Backgammon
post Jun 30 2009, 01:46 AM
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Being green is a moern thing. The trend never occured in the Shadowrun timeline. Further, the writers cleverly sidestepped all of the major potential crises, either by saying "It's Magic! ™" or by quick explanations.

The truly apocalyptical issues out of the way (running out of drinking water, energy, etc), what's left are the little quality-of-life-reducing issues - smog, toxins spilling into earth and water, cancer causing stuff, etc.

In Shadowrun, nobody tried to stop or even reduce these issues. The corporations simply masked them. With mind-nubbing entertainment, severe segregation of the classes (the haves are sheltered from the effects of pollution, the have-nots suffer but can do nothing) and media control, nobody cares.
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DuctShuiTengu
post Jun 30 2009, 01:49 AM
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I'd imagine it depends on how cost-effective the various techniques are. In general, the corps are going to take whichever approach has the best effect on their bottom line. That said, business economics can be tricky; for instance, if it's believed/found that going with a more environmentally friendly approach despite it being more expensive causes enough of a boost in PR that it ends up being more profitable, then it's no longer less effective than the other approach. Which means that the eco-friendly alternatives that are most likely will be the highly-visible ones, and the ones that are revolutionary enough to make headlines.

That said, the above depends on a public that actually cares about the environment. Most of the information I've seen seems to indicate that for the most part, this is not the case; most pro-environmental groups have either been bought by economic powers, or pushed to the fringes, and the general populace is too busy making sure they're fed, clothed, and entertained - or trying to get through another 80 hour work week - to concern themselves with less immediate things.
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the_real_elwood
post Jun 30 2009, 03:11 AM
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Yeah, sure corps are going to be "green" in things like trying to curb their energy usage. But they're also going to use the cheapest source of energy possible, which is probably not the most environmentally friendly. And yeah, they're going to try to reclaim as much clean water as they can from their waste streams, but they're just going to dump the waste they separate out in the cheapest place they can find.

Basically, with the corps and any green policies, the way to describe it is "even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile". They do what's best for them, and occasionally (very occasionally) the best thing happens to be the environmentally friendly thing.
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kzt
post Jun 30 2009, 03:26 AM
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SR would be the object lesson for The Tragedy of the Commons.
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Cray74
post Jun 30 2009, 11:30 AM
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Backgammon hit the nail on the head.

Shadowrun corporations are corporations as envisaged in the 1980s, especially 1980s cyberpunk fiction: callous, short sighted bastards who are the only possible scapegoats for Shadowrun's canonical pollution problems, the "hard rain," blinding smog, and other pollution problems that make your average Shadowrun city look like a set for Bladerunner and its factories seem like a chapter from The Jungle.

QUOTE ("nezumi")
2) The corporations care about their bottom line, but not that of the rest of the world. If they save $50,000 pumping enough nitrous oxide in the air to melt half the city in acid rain, but anticipate their own rebuilding costs will only be $40,000, theyll pump away.


Shadowrun corporations would stop at the $50K/$40K cost analysis. Slightly more foresightful corporations would consider the increased overhead caused by acid rain on its facilities, vehicles, and factories, particularly those closest to the NOx emission site but, as Backgammon noted, Shadowrun corporations don't think that way. Shadowrun's a world that had food riots in the US in the 1990s and its pollution is running directly counter to real world trends.
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Chibu
post Jun 30 2009, 12:14 PM
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After reading the OP, I had a response in mind: Shadorwun, as fiction, started before anyone RL cared. But, it's already been covered nicely.

Now, there is another point to be made here though. While it is not talked about extensively there are a few examples.

First, Mexico City (I don't feel like butchering the spelling lol); There is a fashion industry based around smog masks because it is unsafe to walk around outside without one (similar, but worse than today RL).

Eco-Terrorist groups. There are quite a few mentioned here and there throughout the books. TerraFirst! is the only name that comes to mind, though I know there are at least 3 or 4 more. These are Terrorist organizations that bomb, sabotage, kill, and otherwise screw with (all of the AAA) corps who are polluting and destroying the world. If there are multiple groups of people who would kill over it, it must be more of a problem then the corp media tells us about.

Contaminated zones. There are plenty of contaminated places in the shadowrun world. There's... that one that was in LA (rest in peace lol) that I can't recall the name of. And others that I don't feel like looking for. (It's early, and I've only been awak since I started writing this post >_<)

Karenshara, I'm a bit confused by your post actually. The thread has the premise of being about shadowrun, but then you seem to speak mostly about the real world. For example, in shadowrun, all of the corps do specifically build arcologies.

And speaking of real life, he fact is that water is starting to be an issue. But, not for those of us who live in countries where we have time to argue on dumpshock and play shadowrun. America, Canada, the UK, most of the EU, etc... They're not going to run out of water. Worst case scenario? Build more plants to get it from the ocean. THe problem is with the developing (or not =\) countries, where they really do not have the means to do so. If something isn't done relatively soon, many of these places will not have enough fresh water. This, Id say, will be the cause of the next major conflicts.

However, this is not in cannon SR, nor is anything which has been realized over over the past 20 years. While Shadowrun does note that polution is bad, and that there are those who would fight against it, they did not at the time realizes just how much of an impact it would have on our world (read: killing us all).

However, yes. (Good sentence, no?) The corps of shadowrun, as do those today, will use he most efficient resources possible. If this means that by using solar energy, they will see a vast amount of savings... after 5-10 years... then this is what they will do. However, since coal and oil are not issues in the shadowrun world (and we'll pretty much run out by then, ftr) The only reason that I can see most of the corps going down self-sustaining energy routes is for the arcologies. As, well, they are made to be self-sustaining. I could be wrong, but I think I recall something about the renraku arc in Seattle using fiber-optic lighting. That is, Light from the sun hits one end of the fiber and comes out the other so that you can use it for internal rooms with no windows. THis was developed a long time ago in Japan, irl, but I haven't really heard or seen anything about it in the past few years.
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nezumi
post Jun 30 2009, 12:52 PM
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In reply to all of this 'shadowrun was written before environmental concerns were that big', keep in mind the single largest inspiration for Shadowrun was Cyberpunk, and within the first 20 pages of CP2020, it specifically mentions that acid rain and smog have killed the last song bird in the world and so on.

Everyone, Shadowrun and 80s corporations included, knew about environmental problems and what they were doing. However, Joe Manager also realized that shaving off $100,000 in expenses today helped him far more than saving $200,000 and some people he didn't know twenty or forty years down the line.
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Bob Lord of Evil
post Jun 30 2009, 03:24 PM
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There are some technologies being developed right now that offer a high front end cost but have a bigger long term payoff.

Coal fired electrical plants...there is a test plant in the south west US that is working with using algae to consume the CO2 emissions. The algae can then be turned into oil and food filler.

TDP (Thermal Depolymerization Process), there is a plant in Carthage, MO that is taking turkey guts and converting it into oil, gas, secondary use water, and a number of other items. This same process can be used to recycle plastics, raw sewage, tires, and so forth. The economics of dealing with landfills I believe is going to be more than economically feasible but profitable.

The Slingshot, distills virtually any type of water efficiently. Claims put it at 500 watts of power to purify 10 gallons of water per hour. Distilled water is very aggressive so plumbing piping is a concern but overall it is a pretty smart idea.

I have already mentioned Bussard's Polywell Fusion Generator in other threads.

The costs of pollution go beyond repairing the damage from acid rain. Tarrifs, fines, lawsuits from nations (even class action lawsuits) penalizing unrepentent polluters and the deep pockets of the Mega Corps are going to attract lawyers like flies to drek. Now, the bottom line is important but so is a corps image. However...you take a fly-by-night company that is contracting with a manufacturer and these are going to be the real polluters. Setting up shop quickly contracting with a business to handle their waste products and then shutting down even more quickly when it feels like attention is being directed at them.

There are examples of this happening all the time today. The funeral home that wasn't cremating the corpses and stacking them out back. The boat captain hauling 50 gallon drums of hospital radioactive materials and dumping them off the coast. These are the folks to watch for IMO.
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nezumi
post Jun 30 2009, 03:41 PM
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1) The corps don't care about long-payoff technologies. It's made up of individuals who get their paychecks and bonuses based on how they're doing THIS quarter, not twenty years down the line. They're unlikely to even be attached to the project twenty years in the future. There is zero motivation to invest in any of the projects you just listed (and in fact, this is oftentimes true of the corporate world today, where month-to-month stock prices are more of an issue than 2020's projected cost margins).

2) In the UCAS, corps are almost never tariffed/fined/sued/etc. for damage. When your nation is in the pooper, you worry more about climbing out of the pooper than about whether things smell spring-time fresh. Remember UCAS has something like a 30-60% poverty rate. Half of the city is either radioactive or buried under ash. There's is the groundwork for serious, violent revolution. You have hostile neighbors on three sides. There are monsters in your sewers that come out and literally steal babies to eat them. Are you REALLY going to raise a fuss that Renraku, the guys who guard and bring peace to about twenty square blocks of downtown Seattle, and pay billions or trillions in tax revenue, jobs and bribes, is putting a little smoke in the air? Buy a mask and stay inside like everyone else.

There are nations which sue/tariff/fine those corps. Parts of the NAN and the new Elven lands do that. On the flip side, the majority of that land has no economy to speak of, and oftentimes have access to tools like actual genocide to enforce peace and order, not to mention huge, world-altering magic.
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Method
post Jun 30 2009, 04:05 PM
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Green technologies are only cost effective when the EPA follows you around and fines you for ecological infractions. I would argue that in the absence of an effective EPA and with corporate extraterritoriality it is almost universally cheeper for a corp to pollute their ass off and let the national governments worry about the ecological impact.
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Cray74
post Jun 30 2009, 05:19 PM
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QUOTE (nezumi @ Jun 30 2009, 11:41 AM) *
1) The corps don't care about long-payoff technologies. It's made up of individuals who get their paychecks and bonuses based on how they're doing THIS quarter, not twenty years down the line. They're unlikely to even be attached to the project twenty years in the future. There is zero motivation to invest in any of the projects you just listed (and in fact, this is oftentimes true of the corporate world today, where month-to-month stock prices are more of an issue than 2020's projected cost margins).


As a matter of fact, I'm suffering price increases now from a project that my local electricity corporation isn't planning to finish for a decade if everything runs as scheduled (and a few years delay is entirely possible). That company has to make cost projections out to the 2020s to determine payoff on its shiny new nuclear power plant (which hasn't broken ground yet). If there's something eco-friendly they can do that will cut costs on those operations, they'll take it. Or if it gives them good PR and they can pass the cost on to the consumer, they'll do it.

Further, as battling corrosion has kept me gainfully employed for the past 7 years, I know firsthand that companies do evaluate long-term benefits (at least, looking out 5 to 10 years) from investments that are more expensive up front. I've seen companies and government agencies switch to more expensive paints and materials, and install expensive dehumidification systems on storage buildings, because over several years they save money on maintenance and upkeep. Pollution reduction plays right into this sort of cost saving - since the US Clean Air Act was implemented in 1990, acid rain and sulfur emissions have dropped across the US Northeast and, as a result, corrosion and related wear-and-tear on vehicles, infrastructure, etc. is down.

One of the usual problems with getting companies or governments to think like this is that the folks who have to buy a new installation or piece of equipment are not the folks who have to maintain it. The manager responsible for procurement usually doesn't give a wet fart about the maintenance budget because it's not his budget. The maintenance managers would love to have cost savings from reduced pollution or more corrosion-resistant buildings/machines, but they don't buy the buildings/machines. You usually have to step up to their mutual boss and sell the solution there, or get the maintenance guys to kick loose some funds for a demonstration project that will convince procurement to pony up extra money. Or rewire the organization so maintenance and procurement budgets are more closely intertwined.
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tarbrush
post Jun 30 2009, 05:51 PM
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The whole projecting costs issue here is very interesting, becuase of the change of lifespans involved for a lot of the relevant parties. Lofwyr is presumably aiming to keep owning SK as long as corporations exist. Possibly similar for Buttercup and Evo.

Even amongst the non-dragon based corps, anyone who gets anywhere is suddenly going to start measuring their lifespan in centuries rather than decades dues to Leonisation. It's 500K to reset your age to 21 and the fluff suggests that you can do it more than once. There are a lot of people in SR that could afford 500K every 30 years or so. And that's not taking into consideration elves. So I think that actually a lot of surprising people would care more than you'd think about making their grandkids pick up the tab for a bunch of false economies, cause they'll end up living contemporaneously.

Man, that'd be wierd. Imagine being 21 at the same time as your children or parents.
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Adarael
post Jun 30 2009, 05:53 PM
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I find it really amusing that people are suggesting "Shadowrun was written before people cared about green stuff." No. That's false. Not only is it false, it's REALLY false. Many of the Big Features in Shadowrun from the get go have been TerraFirst, the idea that the NAN is greener than the UCAS & CAS, Ecoterrorism, et cetera.

The idea of being 'Green' definitely existed, but as Nezumi says, LOOKING green is more important to a corp than being green, most of the time. The trope of "life is cheap" trumps greenness, in Shadowrun. You can afford to flush life away because hell, there's always more meat for the grinder. And the people who are rich can afford to protect themselves from quality-of-life dilution.
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Bob Lord of Evil
post Jun 30 2009, 06:01 PM
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QUOTE (nezumi @ Jun 30 2009, 03:41 PM) *
1) The corps don't care about long-payoff technologies. It's made up of individuals who get their paychecks and bonuses based on how they're doing THIS quarter, not twenty years down the line. They're unlikely to even be attached to the project twenty years in the future. There is zero motivation to invest in any of the projects you just listed (and in fact, this is oftentimes true of the corporate world today, where month-to-month stock prices are more of an issue than 2020's projected cost margins).

2) In the UCAS, corps are almost never tariffed/fined/sued/etc. for damage. When your nation is in the pooper, you worry more about climbing out of the pooper than about whether things smell spring-time fresh. Remember UCAS has something like a 30-60% poverty rate. Half of the city is either radioactive or buried under ash. There's is the groundwork for serious, violent revolution. You have hostile neighbors on three sides. There are monsters in your sewers that come out and literally steal babies to eat them. Are you REALLY going to raise a fuss that Renraku, the guys who guard and bring peace to about twenty square blocks of downtown Seattle, and pay billions or trillions in tax revenue, jobs and bribes, is putting a little smoke in the air? Buy a mask and stay inside like everyone else.

There are nations which sue/tariff/fine those corps. Parts of the NAN and the new Elven lands do that. On the flip side, the majority of that land has no economy to speak of, and oftentimes have access to tools like actual genocide to enforce peace and order, not to mention huge, world-altering magic.


Japanese corps...today...have 100 year plans, in addition to increments below that. Those plans are revisable of course and are not written into stone but they have thought about it. If you think that the corps see clean water as something that is going to be in demand in 20 years that they aren't going to invest in developing tech to produce it? Look at the market today!?! I have a massive purification system for my well water, including reverse osmosis and UV light.

Number one reason? Lets see, because if the news media starts reporting about cancer clusters and the politicians do nothing they will at some point be voted out of office.

QUOTE (Method @ Jun 30 2009, 04:05 PM) *
Green technologies are only cost effective when the EPA follows you around and fines you for ecological infractions. I would argue that in the absence of an effective EPA and with corporate extraterritoriality it is almost universally cheeper for a corp to pollute their ass off and let the national governments worry about the ecological impact.


In both of the quotes above I see a disconnect from prose that appeared in previous editions of SR (not going to speak to 4th). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
Regardless, you have my 1 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) on the matter.
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Tiger Eyes
post Jun 30 2009, 09:35 PM
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I think that like today, you have corps that span the gamut. From NAN owned corps that are entirely green (geothermal energy producing Gaeatronics) to elven corps that redefine ways to produce eco-balanced products (Tellestrian) to the socially and environmentally concious mega (Horizon), to the corps that balance both environmental stewardism with magical stewardism (Wuxing). There are a lot of corps that are taking the long view.

Then again, there are a lot of corps that are rabid destroyers of the environment, and those probably outnumber the more careful ones 10-1, at least in nations that let them get away with it (*cough UCAS cough*). In the NAN it'll be the opposite. Now think about the tensions between the Salish-Shidhe and Seattle; after all, pollution doesn't stay inside Seattle city limits... (there's a few good nights worth of runs right there for a GM).
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Ravor
post Jun 30 2009, 09:52 PM
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Something to always remember is that there is one thing that the corps love even more than the bottom line, and that thing is control, It is simply easier to control people who have been beaten down from the honest struggle of day-to-day life than people who can become inspired to make the world a better place. And raping good 'ol Mother Nature is good for both even in the long term because even if you are planing on living forever you still want to be the person dictating to the faceless braindead masses.
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nezumi
post Jul 1 2009, 01:05 AM
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Two people have apparently taken the position that there are a few corps, presently, which have a long-term goal. Just to clarify, I did not say ALL corps do not have good long-term goals, just that many don't. I've worked at several of them. It's rather depressing. In SR, where the entire world changes at lightning fast speed, and even huge megacorps can be the top of the pile one year, and swallowed up five years later in a massive, destructive corporate take-over, or as the result of the matrix blowing up, or invasions of weird monsters in one of your hub cities, means that planning for long-term is more difficult. There will be corps that will look more short-term, and in the short-term, they will probably be more successful. When the threat is being bought out or destroyed tomorrow, that's really all that matters, no?
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Backgammon
post Jul 1 2009, 01:36 AM
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QUOTE (Tiger Eyes @ Jun 30 2009, 04:35 PM) *
I think that like today, you have corps that span the gamut. From NAN owned corps that are entirely green (geothermal energy producing Gaeatronics) to elven corps that redefine ways to produce eco-balanced products (Tellestrian) to the socially and environmentally concious mega (Horizon), to the corps that balance both environmental stewardism with magical stewardism (Wuxing). There are a lot of corps that are taking the long view.

Then again, there are a lot of corps that are rabid destroyers of the environment, and those probably outnumber the more careful ones 10-1, at least in nations that let them get away with it (*cough UCAS cough*). In the NAN it'll be the opposite. Now think about the tensions between the Salish-Shidhe and Seattle; after all, pollution doesn't stay inside Seattle city limits... (there's a few good nights worth of runs right there for a GM).


Reading replies, I was also going to post something to this effect, but then neurons in my head connected in a flash of light and I had a great idea.

You know how now corporations that are not green face stygma? What if in Shadowrun it's the opposite? Sentiment between NANers and UCAS/CAS citizens are cold to say the least. Everyone knows the NANs took away the American dream, all the good land, forced everyone to cram into these cities and generally caused a decline in life. Of course it's more complicated than that, but by now it's probably pretty engraved in the social conscience that NAN = not very friendly.

What if Green companies are seen to be on that side of the fence? What if the stygma is on the green companies. "Ares - Proudly belching American acid rain for fifty years!" Well, maybe not that explicit, but maybe the UCAS citizens take a malign pleasure, take it as a badge of honor, to live in pollution? Real men take it on the chin. None of this green shit.

In this case, the harsh cyberpunk pollution would make a lot of sense. Green technology exists, but is not deployed in certain countries specifically because of PR. The opposite of now.
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Bob Lord of Evil
post Jul 1 2009, 04:48 AM
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Having lived in Salt Lake City for around 17 years I can tell you that during the winter, with the inversion (cold air over the valley holding all the smog in)...it sucked. As an ex-smoker with allergies it sucked a big ole...well you get the idea. Moving to Central New York where I can breath year round...well it is pure joy. Sure...I no longer can go to Cafe Rio and I don't live 2 minutes away from one of the greatest mall's (Barnes & Noble, Lowes, monster theater complex, Famous Dave's, IHOP, Best Buy, and many more) ever to be built (well...in Utah) and all of my gaming buddies are a 4 day drive to the west. But being able to breathe is one of those basic pleasures that you really can't comprehend its fundamental importance until it is gone. Seriously...imagine having a head cold with gobs of snot and breathing out of your mouth four months out of the year.

Pollution is for real men?

Not is my version of SR! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
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DWC
post Jul 1 2009, 02:31 PM
Post #24


Shooting Target
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From: Fairfax, VA
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QUOTE (Bob Lord of Evil @ Jun 30 2009, 11:48 PM) *
Having lived in Salt Lake City for around 17 years I can tell you that during the winter, with the inversion (cold air over the valley holding all the smog in)...it sucked. As an ex-smoker with allergies it sucked a big ole...well you get the idea. Moving to Central New York where I can breath year round...well it is pure joy. Sure...I no longer can go to Cafe Rio and I don't live 2 minutes away from one of the greatest mall's (Barnes & Noble, Lowes, monster theater complex, Famous Dave's, IHOP, Best Buy, and many more) ever to be built (well...in Utah) and all of my gaming buddies are a 4 day drive to the west. But being able to breathe is one of those basic pleasures that you really can't comprehend its fundamental importance until it is gone. Seriously...imagine having a head cold with gobs of snot and breathing out of your mouth four months out of the year.

Pollution is for real men?

Not is my version of SR! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)


Suddenly I'm picturing a huge market for snippet simsense recordings of "nice places". Take a 5 minute coffee break and zone out to the sensation of breathing pure, crisp, ocean air with the warm sun on your face and a nice clean breeze on your skin, recorded on the deck of a yacht somewhere in the Carib League.
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