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Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees

ecosia.org

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Re: Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees

#41

Post by zeropnc »

k1m wrote: post #37
zeropnc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very shortsighted and unrealistic way of thinking. Consumerism is core to how our society functions and isn't going away - why should social good and environmentalism fly in contrast to it? This is the same backwards line of thinking that insists non-profit compensation be lower, leading to our best and brightest wasting away spying on people at Facebook instead of optimizing drug delivery out of Dakar. Unt…

> Consumerism is core to how our society functions and isn't going away - why should social good and environmentalism fly in contrast to it? Because it's a major contributing factor to the situation we're in. It's a perfectly rational response for environmentalists to choose not to support projects like Ecosia that promote consumerism.

Ecosia isn't "promoting consumerism". It's simply accepting the reality of it and helping mitigate/counterbalance the damage. There's a key difference there.

You can ra-ra all you want about it, but consumerism isn't going anywhere - so either you work around it, or you accomplish nothing.

Re: Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees

#43

Post by derdot »

odiroot wrote: post #31

I was working at Ecosia in 2014, the position on my CV that makes me the most proud. Super happy that they showed up here (again). And 50M+ trees now, just amazing.

I only started at Ecosia in 2016, but I feel you.

Not sure if this is appreciated on HN (I only saw a guideline about posts, not comments), but if this piqued someone's interest, we have a bunch of open positions at the moment: https://ecosia.workable.com/

Re: Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees

#44

Post by k1m »

zeropnc wrote: post #41
k1m wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consumerism is core to how our society functions and isn't going away - why should social good and environmentalism fly in contrast to it? Because it's a major contributing factor to the situation we're in. It's a perfectly rational response for environmentalists to choose not to support projects like Ecosia that promote consumerism.

Ecosia isn't "promoting consumerism". It's simply accepting the reality of it and helping mitigate/counterbalance the damage. There's a key difference there. You can ra-ra all you want about it, but consumerism isn't going anywhere - so either you work around it, or you accomplish nothing.

It's a search engine that makes money from advertising. That's essentially its core business model. I browse with uBlock Origin enabled so I don't see ads. A search on Ecosia shows me a large banner saying:

"Ads plant trees! We’ve detected that you are using an ad blocker. We plant trees thanks to income earned from ads. Please disable your ad blocker for Ecosia so that we can keep on planting."

Beneath it is a large button: "DISABLE AD BLOCKER".

To me, a site that wants me to view ads I have no interest in, is promoting consumerism. I realise this applies to a lot of sites, but it's less excusable for a project that touts itself as focusing on the environment. If you don't see a link between advertising and consumerism and the state of our environment, then I guess we look at the world differently.

For my part, I try to encourage friends to install ad blockers, and will not encourage them to visit sites that tell them to disable their ad blockers. I even worked on a page to make detecting and installing an ad blocker as easy as possible: http://blockads.fivefilters.org

Re: Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees

#45

Post by fdsa_fdsaj_eee »

Appears to censor searches even with "Safe Search" set to "Off". I admittedly searched for some very offensive (though not illegal) things, but that was the whole point.

No thanks. I'll keep using DDG. Planting trees is laudable but free speech is as important to our future as anything.

Re: Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees

#47

Post by pvaldes »

The big question here is "what trees?"

If Ecosia are planting Acacia in Spain, as seen in their map, this is wrong. Wattle is invasive in southern Europe. Some are even in the catalogue of forbidden by law species. They displace native species and are a big problem in Portugal after fire forests for example. Some species are also poisonous to cattle and wild animals

Please, left conservation efforts to professionals. They study and train for decades for something. Volunteers can do a lot of harm with the best intentions.

Re: Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees

#48

Post by SiempreViernes »

pvaldes wrote: post #47

The big question here is "what trees?" If Ecosia are planting Acacia in Spain, as seen in their map, this is wrong. Wattle is invasive in southern Europe. Some are even in the catalogue of forbidden by law species. They displace native species and are a big problem in Portugal after fire forests for example. Some species are also poisonous to cattle and wild animals Please, left conservation efforts to professionals.…

If you scroll down a screen you will see a slideshow with information about the actual projects, not just a map with a logo indicating where the projects take place.

The project in Spain does not plant Acacia trees.

Re: Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees

#50

Post by derdot »

pvaldes wrote: post #47

The big question here is "what trees?" If Ecosia are planting Acacia in Spain, as seen in their map, this is wrong. Wattle is invasive in southern Europe. Some are even in the catalogue of forbidden by law species. They displace native species and are a big problem in Portugal after fire forests for example. Some species are also poisonous to cattle and wild animals Please, left conservation efforts to professionals.…

We work very closely with experts from experienced tree-planting organizations to make sure the best possible methods are applied. Our tree-planting officer (yep, that is his actual title) has years of experience and is our link to these partners on the ground. Here is a video of him sharing some more insights of how we pick trees and planting sites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ld0EDDQZg4&
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