As I watched one of the Sunday morning political shows, a pattern emerged. No, it wasn't the series of rhetorical bickerings by Democrats and Republicans (nothing new about THAT pattern). It was the commercial breaks, which were chock full of 'green' advertisements. A single commercial break went as follows: IBM, Vestas, Cialis (not green), T. Boone Pickens. The IBM ad was for its new BladeCenters that are supposed to be so green as to trigger a spawning of adorable Disney-esque woodland creatures.

According to the IBM website, the new servers can save 10-30% on energy costs. While this certainly represents a cost reduction, I doubt that news would be enough to get Thumper all wound up. Greening IT requires addressing a whole set of issues, from efficiency to e-waste to using less toxic materials and manufacturing processes.

IBM hasn't ignored these problems completely. Last year, the company made much ado about diverting 100 million pounds of e-waste from landfills. And its website provides decent information on greening data centers.

With huge server farms popping up like Wal-Marts and 20-50 million tons of e-waste being created globally each year, voluntary corporate greening measures won't cut it. In 2007, the U.S. generated 2.25 million tons of e-waste, most of which went to landfills

Thankfully, some action is being taken. At least 18 states have considered electronic waste legislation this year and four states have passed extensive laws to address it, with seven other states making some kind of progress on the issue. Additionally, a bill introduced in the House of Representatives aims to ban the export of e-waste to developing countries.

In the IBM spot, upon seeing the cornucopia of animated fauna, an executive asks IT Guy something like: "this will make us green?." IT Guy responds: "very green." If I were IT Guy, I would have said, "Not really, but it might make a good commercial," after which I would be promptly fired, escorted out by a mob of angry woodland creatures.