Climate Counts’ deceptive and meaningless attack on Apple

“Copying the self-serving campaigns run by SVTC and Greenpeace, the group Climate Counts has made Apple, Inc. the core of its latest press releases. The group says Apple “is not yet taking meaningful action on climate change,” and is a ‘choice to avoid for the climate-conscious consumer,’ but then points out that its ‘action’metrics are all based on ineffectual political posturing. And the reason for the tough critique: Apple elected not to join the Climate Counts consortium last year and throw money at the group’s ineffectual efforts to ‘facilitate engagement,'” Daniel Eran Dilger writes for RoughlyDrafted.

Dilger writes, “So while Climate Count’s numbers are really based entirely upon how much talk each company does, it publicly called out Apple for “not yet taking meaningful action.” Is crafting reams of policy statements ‘meaningful action?’ Are Apple’s really meaningful, industry leading actions irrelevant because they aren’t always publicly advertised? Further, do the companies Climate Counts recommends to consumers over Apple actually follow their policy statements? And do their actual actions count for anything?”

Dilger writes, “Both Greenpeace and Climate Counts know that they can say anything bad about Apple and get away with it. The details won’t really matter, because the lazy tech media will simply post their ‘bad Apple’ press releases without any critical review, as every media outlet is now doing. However, that doesn’t make their respective campaigns any less deceptive and meaningless. Climate Counts isn’t saving the planet, it’s really only acting to secure its own funding.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: More about Apple’s environmental efforts here.

67 Comments

  1. It IS Tom V it IS! And there are enough stupid people that I am betting my future on it by setting up companies to fund “carbon credits” (actually to help make me a zillion dollars and keep my fat face in the public eye). I am so sure people are that dumb that I have started an advertising campaign and will invest over 300 million up front duping the suckers bwwaahahahaha.

    climate Counts are amateurs, pikers, a bunch of Greenpeace and Owl Gore wannabes who don’t know how to *really* bilk the public.

  2. I am a “card carrying Independent”, have been since the Seventies, and I think this is just more “politics as usual”. You pick your side and play your game and things change regardless. One of the few things I ever agreed with Dubya about was the price of gas … the only way to get people to cut back is to make them bleed green until they do.
    Things were headed downhill in a hurry in the Fifties. Rivers and lakes were so bad you couldn’t swim in them, much less drink from them or eat the fish you caught in them. The air was getting worse by the season. Love Canal became the poster-boy for dumpers. We got a lot of that turned around, the worst of it at least. But, the harder the left pushed for “man caring for the land”, the more the right – even the religious right, in defiance of Christ’s teachings regarding stewardship – pushed back. Now we have clowns berating positive influences for not being positive enough and fools denying that things are still going downhill – if much more slowly. stooge, that means you. And Owl, and ron, too. While I agree that some of the noisier advocates of ‘green’ are out of line, those who push back merely for profit’s sake ought to be thrown into public stocks and stripped of those profits.
    There must be a balance between raping and pillaging on the one hand and starving ourselves as Good Stewards on the other, a balance where we leave a better earth for our kids than the one our parents left for us. Climate Count and Green Peace are not, if they ever were, useful advocates for this balance. While Green Peace has done some good in the past, I don’t see their current endeavors as positive … except in the light of the childish “I wanna destroy because it’s my RIGHT” reaction they set off.
    GE polluted the Hudson river with non-degradable carcinogenic toxins for the better part of a century. Last year they installed a power-generating windmill in the Berkshire Hills (just across the border) to reduce a ski resort’s carbon footprint. This is positive action. CC is more about making self-serving noise. Don’t confuse the two.

  3. Bond Co stooge… you are correct. There is no climate crisis, never has been never will be. Weather patterns change, they always have and always will. Most of the climatic factors are land-use issues. Putting 5 million people in a 300 square mile area will always cause problems, adding trace amounts of a trace gas into the atmosphere, does not. Money and power, the driving force of the AGW movement.

  4. This is all a scam. Junk science. A bunch of gullible people who want to feel good and believe in something.The worse part of it is how they’re brainwashing kids in schools with this garbage.

  5. DLMeyer,

    I agree with you entirely.

    There are still far too many nutters on this site who don’t believe that we human beings have played a role in global warming.
    The (climatic) scientists are now almost unanimous on this point.

  6. Three active volcanoes, all erupting at once, would produce so much carbon dioxide that they would make man’s total worldwide output look downright insignificant.

    The world has recovered from several astroid strikes. A little excess plant food in the atmosphere is no problem at all.

  7. Right ye’ are Gavron.

    But some simple-minded people will always believe what they want to believe, and, of course, a lot of people don’t want to believe that we’re heading for a catastrophe.

    It’s plain wishful thinking.

  8. @Al

    Right on. The next time a Mt. St. Helena erupts, the tree huggers will all congregate for a mother-of-all circle jerk, then kill themselves, thus saving the environment’s ozone layer from their gas bag bullshit.

  9. If enviro-activists actually cared about the environment they would all be organizing in support of nuclear power plants. The latest versions don’t even create waste (not that it ever harmed anyone). The fact that they’re not supporting nuclear energy proves they’re full of cr*p.
    Just my 2 cents…

    MW: earth (really!)

  10. Actually, I think of environmentalists as being pro-capitalism. The entire world is looking for solutions to global warming (real or not), so this is as time for America
    to lead. Spend the billions upon billions in R&D;so that American companies own and control the patents on environmentally-friendly technology and can charge the
    rest of the world. Just as we grew from the space race and military, we can grow from this. Besides, improving energy efficiency will save business in America billions a year in costs while saving consumers’ money so they have more to spend to grow the economy. Meanwhile, we dump less money into American and Canadian oil companies’ pockets (who only spend money to get more oil and keep most parts of their spending to society flat) and to the rabid anti-western regimes and terrorists overseas.

  11. Actually it would be an honor to provide stewardship for this planet. It is a cosmic embarrassment to destroy ourselves by soiling this incredible gift we have been given. When we poison the planet, we poison ourselves. There is no difference.

    Can we prosper and serve as stewards? Of course, it is simply a matter of priorities, and vision. Right action would follow.

    Of course, since we human beings act as if we were completely disconnected from our very roots, we behave like raving maniacs.

    Self Destruction appears to be part of the human condition… perhaps its time to rise above the selfishness.

  12. Whilst I have posted why ClimateCounts(and their ilk) are wrong and why in an earlier thread, some of the ‘head in the sand’ Limbaugh-inspired crap on this article illustrates why America needs to take the teaching of science more seriously and the teaching of religious fairy-tales less seriously.

    BTW, ron, you’re an idiot who needs to go and learn about the concepts of global warming and climate change: you also need to go and learn about scientific peer-reviews.

    If any of the troglodyte climate-change deniers actually believe that the world’s climatologists have more of a vested interest in talking up climate change than the world’s energy companies have in talking it down, they really need to seek professional medical care: every quarter, the world’s oil companies make more in profit than the combined annual climatology budgets of the G20 economies. As an example, the functions of NOAA concerned with climatology have a budget for 2008 of around $1.4 billion, the profits of ExxonMobil for the first quarter of 2008 were over $10 billion.

    Who has more to lose?

  13. Nuclear waste never harmed anyone? An interesting suggestion! Are you offering to build your home on top of a pile of spent reactor fuel? And live there, with your spouse and off-spring? The government will be so grateful for that offer!
    Climate Scientist, you were right in saying “Weather patterns change, they always have and always will. Most of the climatic factors are land-use issues. Putting 5 million people in a 300 square mile area will always cause problems,”, and wrong about most of the rest of it. Adding “trace gas into the atmosphere” would also be correct, were that what we have been doing. We can all name a dozen huge cities that are dumping huge amounts of gas and heat into the atmosphere – hardly trace amounts – so I disagree with your light dismissal of the human impact.
    London. Roman era. Beige moths. Industrial age. Dark grey moths. This decade. Beige moths. Same species of moth, by the way. Just that London is no longer coated in coal soot!
    We have had an unusually long period of stable climate. From the Little Ice Age till today, hundreds of years. We have prospered in those years. If the climate is to change, we ought not be the cause of it. There are enough dangers in this world for us to face without adding more. Of course, owning beach-front property in Alaska or New Brunswick could make you wealthy!

  14. Matt, almost forgot you! So easy to do. Go back and read what I wrote about GE. Do you think for a moment that windmill was not profitable for them? That they will not be able to generate billions in profit from what they learned while designing it? They are a big company. An old company. A company responsible for considerable environmental damage. Yet they are making a profit by cleaning up their act. THIS is “progress”. And “good business”. This is proof that the only choices are not “do as we have always done” and “go out of business”.
    So … why is it the power companies are still building coal-fired plants and complaining about the cost of cleaning them up? Why not build wind or wave farms? No imagination! No innovation. They LIKE their Windows PCs!

  15. Geez people , yes volcanoes spew out a lot of green house gases and would overshadow man-kinds annual output of green house gases, but her is the deal. The last time volcanoes caused record climate change that caused extinctions was during the Permian period. Back then extreme volcanic output blocked the sun causing plant life to fail and so herbivores suffered followed by carnivores alike. In the sea H2S a stinky pink liquid that is poisonous to oxygen breathing life forms accelerated the process as algae blooms died in the ocean and decay persisted consuming all of the oxygen for the fish in the sea.

    While we don’t have the massive volcanic output of the Permian period we have de-forrested much of the land removing CO2 sinks from the landscape. Over fishing has not combined with fertilizer and sewage run-off has created similar conditions in the water (aka development of Ocean front and draining swamps for farm land). Anyone who thinks the current climate change conditions are not being accelerated by human actions on this planet are seriously naive or just plain stupid.

  16. Gavron, “The (climatic) scientists are now almost unanimous on this point.”

    Almost is good in horseshoes, not in science. I almost found $50 once.

    Science is not a consensus, It either is a fact or it’s not a fact.

    The scientists who are promoting the Man-Made Global Warming
    Myth, are the ones who are getting the big gummint grants. Just follow the money. Along the way you’ll bump into Algore and his ilk.

  17. “One of the few things I ever agreed with Dubya about was the price of gas … the only way to get people to cut back is to make them bleed green until they do.”

    I agree in theory, but despite gasoline approaching $4.00 a gallon, I do not see any widespread change in driving behavior. It’s still bitch and groan at the pump and pedal to the metal on the highway. Want to cut your gas price $0.80 per gallon? Drive 55 instead of 75. I just drove a 400 mile round trip at 55 the whole way and it was the most relaxing drive I’ve had in a long while and so I plan to continue the practice.

  18. DL Meyer:

    Don’t confuse Love Canal with “Global Warming”, there is no comparison. Evidence exists that the same temperature increases on planet Earth are also occurring on Mars.

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

    http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977

    http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=edae9952-3c3e-47ba-913f-7359a5c7f723

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1660-mars-could-be-undergoing-major-global-warming.html

    Frikkin’ Martians, they are among us making us hotter!

  19. “environmentalist = anit-capitalist = anti-progress”
    Aside from your spelling problems, there is enough wrong with that statement to fill a book. Capitalism is not about progress. It’s about greed working out for the common good in because of market forces. It works fairly well, but it is far from perfect.

    Greed causes corporations to find ways to externalize their costs at the expense of employees, customers, and even the governments and citizens of the countries they operate in. Corporations routinely do NOT pay for the pollution they create. They shift costs and liabilities to subcontractors who should be employees, market “disposable” products to increase turnover and therefore profit while, not paying for the disposal of those products. Greed is what’s keeping internal combustion engines in our vehicles: hybrid is preferred by automakers over all-electric because the hybrid retains the mufflers, spark plugs, transmissions, radiators, etc. that all generate billions in after market profit for dealers, third party service providers, and the automakers themselves.

    This can’t continue indefinitely, but it will until either we summon the political will to change the system, or the system collapses on us.

    This cannot continue indefinitely

  20. @DLMeyer & marko

    You’re exactly right, but you’re “shouting into the wind.” The “ron’s,” etc., on this board don’t have a clue and will never let logic or reason interfere with their cherished fantasies. They are the most cogent indictment of science (and logic) education in the US.

    I have a print of Picasso’s Don Quixote above my desk – I recommend it for you, too.

  21. How can a company that makes its products in China and then sends them half way round the world to its customers ever be considered to be environmentally friendly?

    If Apple wants to save the planet then stop profiting from using cheap labour and polluting our planet with the carbon emissions produced from shipping its products.

  22. John:

    “If Apple wants to save the planet then stop profiting from using cheap labour and polluting our planet with the carbon emissions produced from shipping its products.”

    Or you can buy a Dell and save the planet yourself.

  23. If major global warming / climate change is happening due to man made carbon dioxide emissions, then how does this year’s coldest winter in several years fit into their climate change / global warming models? Carbon dioxide production did not go down last winter, it went up.

    They continually ignore observations that do not fit their theories. That is not science. Climatologists who ignore data that does not fit their theories are not scientists.

    There is something else besides science behind this global warming / climate change bullshit.

    My money is on the need that certain people have to take from the haves and give to the have-nots. Carbon tax the rich, energy consuming individuals and support the poor ghetto dwellers. Carbon tax the energy consuming, rich nations and give to the poor, third world dictatorships.

    Global warming / climate change is the biggest con in the history of mankind.

    Well, that and Windows Vista.

  24. I’m sure every person in China would be delighted at the prospect of higher unemployment!

    The same China that built the Three Gorges cesspool?

    The same China that is shutting down entire industries, so the air cleans up enough to hold the Olympics?

    If *I* were over there, being exploited as low-cost labor in an industrial wasteland, I’d certainly be wondering if the old agrarian way was better….

  25. anaknipedro…

    Go and study the way Coca-Cola’s subsidiarie in Colombia and India behave in regards to being “good corporate neighbours” before you make ridiculous statements.

    The simple fact is that most corporations do the minimum on the environment and many other issues that they are obliged to by law: they also use subsidiaries to mitigate the risk from lawsuits and future prosecution.

    If the EPA didn’t put stringent minimum standards for waste water disposal on companies like Coca-Cola, they would behave in exactly the same way in the USA as they do in Colombia and people in the vicinity of their bottling plants would be unable to swim in local rivers.

  26. “Science is not a consensus, It either is a fact or it’s not a fact.”

    Not even remotely true. Science IS a consensus and occasionally someone like Gallieo, Darwin or Newton will challenge that consensus.

    And science has no facts. Really. Ideal science (which doesn’t actually happen that often) only has theories which have not been proven wrong. Science is about rigorously challenging these theories and either A) finding more evidence that supports them, B) Finding new information that refines them or C) Finding new information that disproves them.

    Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of facts around. It’s just that, officially, science does not treat them as such. It is part of how science refines itself.

  27. I am now an EX customer of the companies mentioned as members.

    Today I deliberately did NOT buy my usual supply of Stonyfield Farm products..

    And I never will, again – unless the CEO – who personally stand to profit from this campaign thru the book he’s written – apologizes to Apple and Steve…

    What seriously pissed me off is that you cannot voice your mind to Stonyfield Farms unless you write a snail mail letter – they have NO email address listed..

    I guess they don’t want to deal with the storm of pissed off ex customers, eh?

    CR

  28. @matt is an idiot

    Most environmentalists are anti capitalists. I wasn’t speaking about the good or bad virtues of companies. If you look at who supports and organizes environmental rallies, activism, programs, etc, you will find anti capitalist, socialist, and communist organizations. Since the educators and media are in tow, they pimp and or follow.

    Speaking as a former hippie, friend of a bajillion (spelling) enviromental activists, and graduate from a very liberal…umm…progressive… university. I know because I was one.

    Blah blah blah.

  29. The main point here is Apple! There are a gazillion other things out there less “green” than Apple. This is such a crock. I’m sure the people that wrote the article are less “green” than Apple if they were “itemized.” Let’s just all get off our high horses here.

    Exactly which computer manufacturer is constructing equipment out of recycled tires? You tell me? Some people really need to get a hobby or two.

  30. Global Warming, another scam to tax you to death.
    Global Warming, caused by the sun!
    Global Warming, it’s happened a 100 times before.
    Global Warming, man causes .02 of CO2
    Global Warming, the new communism.
    Global Warming, as real as the ‘Population Bomb’
    Global Warming, ‘follow the money’
    Global Warming, the new anti American group

  31. ya’ll missing the point: the Green groups target Apple because EVERYONE FOLLOWS WHAT APPLE DOES. So for that reason what the groups are doing is honourable, just that they are pissing people off in the wrong way about it

  32. Dear Apple fans (and I am one too) get a grip! Apple got a kick in the pants because it is dragging its heels on showing leadership in tackling climate change. That’s all. It’s not like they’ve been accused of making shitty computers. The anti-Green ranting and raving of some of the posters here is truly worrying, especially the nutter called Jocko with his/her Idiots Guide to Armageddon above. We in the Western world (and folks in the US most specifically) are throttling the life out of the planet. Climate change, species extinctions, marine ecosystems collapse, peak oil, water shortages, desertification, coral reef bleaching, glacial melt, Arctic collapse…. the list goes on and on and on. This is not some Commie makie-up agenda, this is all based on the hard scientific evidence that’s been piling up over the last 30+ years. Put simply, if we don’t do something about climate change, climate change will do something about us. QED. Mother Nature is pissed, very pissed. And she doesn’t negotiate. Even with Americans. We’re all in this leaky boat together. Don’t be fooled by your shiny laptop (Apple or Dell) that somehow we’re ‘above’ nature, and that technology makes us invincible. Quite the contrary. We’ve never been more vulnerable. Human civilisation and human numbers have taken us to the brink. Business-as-usual will certainly carry us over the precipice. Extinction isn’t just for other species. We have grossly exceeded our natural limits, and payback time is rapidly approaching. Get used to it. For more, try http://www.climatechange.ie

  33. What seriously pissed me off is that you cannot voice your mind to Stonyfield Farms unless you write a snail mail letter – they have NO email address listed..

    Well, if that’s true, what you have is a disconnect between things that really help the environment – like not forcing people to use paper when e-mail doesn’t require inflict the carbon footprint of paper production and not forcing people to ship atoms around the planet by snail-mail (trucks, planes and whatever else USPS uses) as opposed to shifting bits around high-speed networks – and the world of superficial lip-service.

  34. BOYCOTT STONYFIELD FARM

    ClimateChange.org is a PR campaign by Stonyfiled Farm Yogurt to advance its “green” image and increase its sales.

    Let it backfire on them. They are going after Apple, dishonestly, to get publicity for themselves. Do not buy Stonyfield Farm products. Spread the word.

    BOYCOTT STONYFIELD FARM

  35. “And science has no facts. Really. Ideal science (which doesn’t actually happen that often) only has theories which have not been proven wrong. Science is about rigorously challenging these theories and either A) finding more evidence that supports them, B) Finding new information that refines them or C) Finding new information that disproves them.”

    OK

    Then all those people that thought the world was flat, were then proved wrong big time.

    Hmmmm.

    Maybe Global Warming is headed that way too

  36. An assortment of recent and historical data, including those from ice-cores, corals, and the instrumental weather record, do reveal climatic variations with periods of about eleven years. The same cycle that SUNSPOTS have.

    This is now the best explaination for climate variations.

    But they don’t want to admit this because they can’t make MONEY off the sun changing the climate.

  37. Think…

    It would be nice if you did.

    Next time your kid gets an F on their science test, tell the teacher their answers are their theory and should get an A.

    Well, so long as your kid has his/her ‘theories’ peer-reviewed and has some evidence to back up their ‘theories’, they should be OK.

  38. MCCFR:

    Where is the “evidence” that “global warming” is exclusively an earthly phenomenon and no other planets in the solar system are not experiencing a similar rise in temperature?

    What percent of “global warming” is due to solar activity and other natural factors and what percent of “global warming” is due to human influence?

    Ask your peers if you don’t know.

  39. “OK

    Then all those people that thought the world was flat, were then proved wrong big time.

    Hmmmm.

    Maybe Global Warming is headed that way too”
    Yup, they were proved wrong, their theory was disproved.
    Global warmign may be later proved or disproved

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