“Under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple has been a vocal advocate for certain policies, including what the company calls ‘climate change,'” Jim Lynch writes for CIO. “While some have applauded Apple’s commitment to battle global warming, I’m forced to wonder if the company’s efforts aren’t simply misguided.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that Apple is paying attention to the environment and that it’s aware of its own impact on it. But I think that Apple’s climate change efforts might be based on misguided idealism,” Lynch writes. “Before I offer my thoughts about Apple and global warming, here’s a recent story at The Verge that sums up the company’s perspective on the issue: ‘Apple is continuing to take a strong stance against climate change, writing in its newly released 2015 Environmental Responsibility Report, ‘We don’t want to debate climate change. We want to stop it.””
“I think it’s worth considering if Apple’s take on climate change or global warming or whatever you want to call it is a worthwhile expenditure of the company’s resources,” Lynch writes. “I think the company means well, and I’m glad they care about the environment. But I also think they are contributing to the unnecessarily alarmist misinformation that gets pushed on the public by the media… As with the global cooling farce that happened in the 70s, I think we will eventually see that global warming is just as much of an overhyped bit of nonsense. When that finally happens, I think Apple will unfortunately end up with egg on its face if the company doesn’t promptly tone down its rhetoric on the issue.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Forget about “climate change” and just look at the dollars and cents: Apple is reportedly making money on these projects over the long term while also reaping positive feelings about their brand right now. See, everybody, “Apple cares.”
Regardless of whether “global warming/cooling/whatever” turns out to be a sham or a significant long-term event that humans can affect or over which humans have little or no control, or something else entirely, Apple won’t have egg on its face for generating electricity from the sun rather than from other, less environmentally-friendly, less healthy means.
That said, it wouldn’t hurt Apple in the least to tone done the absolutist rhetoric (i.e. “the time for talk is over” and “we don’t want to debate”) as that sort of imperiousness just irks unnecessarily while setting the company up for potential ridicule regardless of how you calculate the odds.
Related articles:
Apple invests in China solar project – April 16, 2015
How Apple is making money off of its landmark $850 million solar deal – March 27, 2015
Apple’s $850 million solar plant investment rockets it to first place among U.S. corporations – February 12, 2015
Apple to build new solar farm, and some greens hate it – February 11, 2015
Tim Cook: Apple to build $850 million solar farm; Apple Watch will surprise everyone – February 10, 2015
Miss guided in what way? Saving the planet, saving money by not having to pay out for high electric bills. How is that miss guided? Advancing alternative energy technology is miss guided. The only thing miss guided is the author who wrote this garbage!
MDN is misguided here. There is no debate any more except among those directly or indirectly on the Big Oil payroll. And the Fox-watching morons that suck up their every weaselly word like oil from the Koch Brothers’ fetid teats. And even among them, the only debate is finally no longer about whether there IS human-caused global climate change, but whether whether we should do something about it or leave it to our children.
I’ve noticed MDN is somewhat ignorant on climate change and/or politics in general. Very sad that those two things are in the same category for some people.
The MDN take generally shows some signs of intelligence, unless it’s something like this.
I’ve noticed that you can’t read.
I suppose I should thank you for continually reminding people that 2014 was the most likely warmest year on record and 2016 is probably next.
If you want Republicans to do better, convince them to be a party of responsible governors and tackle problems that even the Democrats avoid. Ratchet down the hate for our first black president and show him how it is done instead.
I get tired of Republicans = Complaining as apposed to Political Reform, Balanced Budget, etc. Where is that Balanced Budget amendment in the process right now? Oh yes, Republicans complain about balanced budgets but have no proposed solution other than pointing fingers and funding hold ups.
Republican partisans wouldn’t bother me if they actually stood for the values they tell everyone they stand for.
Actually, there has been zero warming in the global climate measurements over the past 18 years. I am guessing you voted for Obama because he promised to cut the deficit in half, bring world peace and end all racial animosity.
Finally a voice of reason among the lemmings. Hey lemmings; please intelligently explain the Medievil Warming Period and the Roman Warming Period. No industry, no cars, but definite global warming unrelated to man as the cause.
The Medieval Warming Period did see some unusually high temperatures in some regions (because of an increase in solar radiation and decrease in volcanic activity), but globally temperatures were much lower than today and when we talk about global warming we’re talking about global temperatures, not regional.
Oh, that’s on me—I didn’t close the fridge door all the way.
Ooh, race card. That took about five seconds for the Lackey Libs to play.
Obama is a Marxist Muslim. The color of his skin has nothing to do with the debacle of his foreign policies and the internal policies crushing American Liberty. He preaches hate just like Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, a Jew, an Asian, and a white guy.
Insanity has no color lines.
Global warming is real.mit is happening on Mars, Saturn and Jupiter.
Clearly, humankind has nothing to do with global warming.
Republicans have been enemies of science for decades since they were purchased by the religious right and big business. They have a recent history of opposing the teaching of evolution, they canceled the SSC and defunded NASA to the point were we have to bum rides to the ISS from the Russians. Now they are trying to prohibit the teaching of ecological sciences in states that dependent on fossil fuels for their economy. The republican party is owned and operated buy big religion and big business. Given their way we would return to the dark ages and feudalism. Is it any wonder why they deny global warming despite the overwhelming evidence that supports it? They have no regard for future generations.
Jim Lynch, Fwhatever, and kent are peas in a pod. Just listen to the tone of Lynch’s article – it carries the same biased media and misinformation claptrap.
Back in the 1970s, both political parties were fairly equally supportive of science. Over the last decade or two, however, science has become a dirty word to the GOP. Overblown emotion, flawed intuition, and “gut feel” have replaced science in guiding arguments over key legislation. The GOP mantra teaches citizens to distrust the government. Indeed, the GOP teaches citizens that the government is uniformly wasteful, inept, and corrupt. ironically, the GOP wants to take over full control of that job at all levels of government – local, state, and federal.
The GOP plays the labeling game. Slap a simple, derogatory label on something they oppose, then conflate it with disaster and repeat until the association is well done. I call it label and disparage. That is why the term “global warming” can no longer be used. The GOP ignored the “global’ part and derided its opponents every time that a local area was colder than normal, conveniently ignoring the fact that the science of global warming also predicts temperature excursions in both directions combined with weather events of increasing severity and a gradual rise in average global temperature. Thus scientists were forced to switch to the term “climate change” to avoid the negative FUD connotations that the GOP had connected to “global warming.”
Sure, go back to the 1970s for your defense. Somehow you rationalize than old laws are worthless, but old scientific models are golden. The fact is that scientists have been refining their models and collecting lots of high-quality data since the 1970s, and those models are indicating a significant correlation between human activities and climate change.
That does not mean that there are not natural inputs to the equation – variations in solar output, for instance, or volcanic eruptions. But only deniers can ignore the changes in climate and the massive melting of ice in most mountain glaciers and in the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctica.
Try thinking in terms of likelihood-consequence. Even if you believe that the likelihood of human influence on global climate trends is small, the potential consequence is huge. Taking actions such as promoting renewable energy, energy efficiency, and recycling just makes sense, even if you do not believe in climate change.
When you are forced to assert that the beliefs of a significant majority are based on “misinformation” and “media bias,” then you might need to reassess your beliefs.
Just because *you* believe something does not make it true…no matter how many times you repeat it. Try studying some *real* science, not that pseudo-science stuff.
The Democrat Party plays the labeling game. Slap a simple, derogatory label on something they oppose, then conflate it with disaster and repeat until the association is well done. I call it label and disparage.
Truly original, Fwhatever. You actually took the effort to change QueenSmell to QueenGel when you used wording from my post.
As usual, you have nothing of value to contribute.
Wow, that’s some fancy rebuttals, using more hyperbole and character assailant ion.
You so smart.
Some of the US’s best landmark environmental legislation — including the EPA itself — were passed by Republican-led government. Believe it or not.
Of course, that was back in the days that Republicans were simply fiscal conservatives, before the party was taken over by social fascists and religious zealots. It is a shame what the Republican Party has morphed into, actually. Wish they would get their act together and help bring this country Back To The Future, for all our sakes.
That is true. The current Republican Party is nothing like the Republican Party of the 1970s or 1980s. I believe that Reagan would have a difficult time getting the Republican nomination today. He is just too moderate, and that has become a dirty word now that the game has become “conservative leapfrog.”
‘Moderate!?!’ He had no trouble using the ‘commie’ word. Even the most conservative out there, Ted Cruz, downer have the balls to utter that truth.
You’re right, though, about him being elected by current wimp-wristed Repubs. Of course, that’s not who got him the presidency. He sung the truth of American Liberty versus collective bullshit.
You kids, you have no idea the misery you ferment laying down for the Marxists.
@ King Mel, Are you kidding me? Your 7 paragraph argument is so full of holes.
The name of Global Warming was changed because of the GOP? HAHAHAHA, thats a good one! Progressive liberals change the name to try to keep the lies going.
Scientist’s models are anything but golden. They continue to lie and change numbers, been doing this for years. But you would’nt know this, because you only drink the liberal kook-aid.
King Mel, misinformation comes from all sides, even Al Gore.
Believing in global warming does not make it real.
Some sources of misinformation are far more prolific than others.
In the context of this discussion, I did not attempt to differentiate between the GOP and its supporters. The GOP platform is clearly against the idea of human-influenced climate change. Most of the most vocal critics of human-influenced climate change are affiliated with the GOP. You can name-call and deny as you see fit, but it does not change anything.
I sincerely hope that you own coastal land in Florida. Please hold onto it and pass it onto your children so that they can drop an anchor on it someday.
Obviously you don’t know the first rule of communism – tell a lie long enough it becomes the truth…..
Glad to see there’s at least *someone* with a brain on this comment thread, KingMel.
I’m regularly amazed at how my Fox-watching friends argue against human involvement in climate change. I recently debated it with a friend on FaceBook, and he basically just kept saying “Well, the jury’s still out…I think we need to have a debate on this…I think the climatologists are falsifying their numbers…”
As I said to him:
1) What you and I think about climate change is IRRELEVANT, because neither of us are experts. The difference is that you’re choosing to believe the oil-company-sponsored studies, Republican politicians, and Fox News, and I’m preferring to believe the ACTUAL experts on the topic. Who has more reason to lie about it? Climate scientists or people funded by oil companies (who stand to loose untold BILLIONS PER QUARTER if people move away from fossil fuels)?
2) The debate is over. The experts had the debate, and they overwhelmingly (97-98% of them) agree that humans are worsening climate change.
3) The “falsified numbers” thing was something concocted to try to deflate the issue. It was little more than reading something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT into emails that were essentially just talking about normalizing the data, which is a common scientific practice that does nothing to change the data…just puts it all in the same format. In other words, if you have 10 thermometers and 5 are Fahrenheit, 5 Celsius, you have to re-format the data so you can compare it.
What on Earth are you talking about? It’s plain as day you idiot. I have no idea why the idea of man made pollution effecting the climate has you idiots so wound up.
This isn’t the bible we’re interpreting here, where you get to make up your own ridiculous conclusions. When you get down to it – this is all based on mathematics, something you are obviously ignorant of.
This is rich! “There is no debate any more except”…
@Sum, there has never really been a debate. Liberals just buy into every discussion pro global warming, and blast groups that offend your values (blind obedient faith). Than when your logic doesn’t add up, you people change the name of your religion to Climate Change.
This all about political religion, and you are the one being used!
WMD
Yehhhhh, the fact that there is virtually no snowpack to supply California with water is just delusional religion. Thanks. I’m sure everyone in California will feel much better now.
Yehhhh, the fact that there was record snowfall in NY to the extent that massive flooding was caused is just delusional religion. Thanks. I’m sure everyone in NY will feel much better now.
No snowpack = Global Warming
Massive snow = Global Cooling?
Please expound on this?
Correct. Obviously both effects in isolation are just weather, and its the global temperature (and total energy in the system) that matters.
Warmer temperatures in winter can cause greater precipitation, including snow and stronger winds due to higher water content in the air. Extreme cold air cannot hold much water.
And warmer weather in other places can dry things out.
As you point out, people shouldn’t be drawing conclusions from snow or not-snow in isolation.
There used to be a joke that said “climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.”
Sadly it’s not a joke anymore. Stupid people get snowed in and decide global warming is a farce, not grokking that weather is a local phenomenon. To understand climate change you need to look at the entire planet as a whole. Too many people are either too unintelligent to look into the matter for their own self education or listen to pundits who are financially or politically motivated.
The research and methodology is all available online from reputable sources (meaning apolitical). All you have to do is read it. It really isn’t hard to understand, 7 billion people plus the industries to support them add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases make things warmer that’s why they use the word greenhouse. The overall concept is not hard to understand. Those who pretend to misunderstand are being deliberately stupid for other political or economic reasons.
There is no global warming. You missed the tip – it is now “climate change” because there is no evidence of warming. But the Democrat Party, which has overseen the California and Detroit and Libya and Yemen success stories can now control the temperature, the winds, the level of the ocean, and do it for the very reasonable cost of just all the money you have. And ever expect to have.
You’re missing the point, it’s not scientific evidence versus political opinion, political opinion it is irrelevant. You could be as far left or as far right as you can go in the political spectrum and the climate still getting hotter. Nature doesn’t care how you vote, it simply responds to natural laws. It doesn’t care if carbon dioxide is released buy a liberal, conservative, Communist, sultan, prime minister, Emperor or pope, those greenhouse gases will reflect more infrared to the surface of the earth make it hotter. Political persuasion doesn’t matter. 7 billion people and their industries are causing a climatological change that is detrimental to the current generation of life on this planet.
The planet will recover, it’s suffered serious climatological problems in the past, but the big question is, will we or our civilization survive? Anyone denying Global warming is just whistling past the graveyard. Just be careful you don’t fall off the edge of the Earth.
Well stated! As some people I know are fond of saying, physics/nature always wins in the end.
The universe does not care what we think, and our beliefs do not impact the universe. We can, however, trash and destroy our little piece of it.
How dare you use logic and facts in a discussion about climate change!!!! 🙂
Yeah. The fact that California has eliminated about 40 dams and reservoirs in the past 50 years, added zero, and send trillions of gallons of fresh water into the Pacific to feed bait fish has nothing to do with California’s problems. Of course California also has added about 20 million residents, mostly illegal, in the last 40 years and they actually drink water. But water is given to bait fish over humans.
@kent, you took to words out of my mouth!
The problem with the religion of Global Warming. They don’t like facts, just the emotion. Thats why the debate is over.
My favorite part…. “The primary opposition to expansion has been the green left, which rejects water storage projects as irrelevant.”
Who else but the left thinks that water is irrelevant????
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/19/big-idea-california-is-so-over.html
You’re too hateful and angry to take seriously.
The linked article is clearly on the denialist side of things… And no, there is no longer room for debate. How many years/decades in a row does a trend need to be established before it’s time to ignore the concern trolls desperate to procrastinate and get to work on actually SOLVING the underlying causes?
Actually, yes there is debate when there has been no warming for 18+ years, and not a single climate model has predicted that in advance. And the book-cooking of the temperature data would negate any 8th grade science experiment.
For you libs, this has become religious dogma, not science. And Apple has taken this too far with shareholder money.
So sell your AAPL stock.
I just don’t see how the richest company in the world could be called misguided because it is investing heavily in renewable energy. Apple is leading by example. This is the 21st-century and we as a species are now smart enough to realize that 7 billion of us, plus our industries, have an enormous impact on our environment. Contrary to popular belief the Great Wall of China cannot be seen from space, however the smoke produced by Chinese industry can.
The meta-study that gave us the 97% figure for scientists agreeing that global warming is anthropogenic is an older figure. A study done on more recent data puts that figure at well over 99.99 percent.
Apple is thinking about the future. Whether their motivations are economic or altruistic is irrelevant because either way our descendents will benefit. The only people who don’t care are either religious groups that believe the end is near, industrial groups that don’t want to spend the money to protect the environment or politicians with either or both groups whose support keeps them in power.
Global warming is neither left nor right, it’s simply a fact and facts are apolitical. As soon as the politically inclined get that through their thick skulls the better our descendents future will be.
Wrong. The Earth cools down and heats up ALL BY ITSELF and has always done so. When I was a kid they said an Ice Age was coming and we must “do something”, and now they say the opposite.
The claim that humans are responsible is propounded by liberals. Since liberals and other ideologues have succeeded in hijacking in the scientific process we’re stuck with only one side of the story.
Then leftists like you come to forums like this declaring (like Algore) that the science is settled.
**It is not.**
You are correct. There were some studies that suggested the Earth was cooling, but more studies were already suggesting the Earth was warming.
The reason (besides any paper being suspect until verified by others) were real drivers in both directions, so there were genuine reasons for disagreement. But even then, any census of papers shows that the number of papers suggesting warming were multiples of those suggesting cooling.
However, many of the cooling papers were not bunk. They described cooling drivers which are still in effect, they are just being overwhelmed by the warming drivers. This is why you can’t just take a vote and say a paper is good or bad, often seemingly opposing factors interplay.
As for news articles that you read, who knows what they said, I don’t think anyone thinks mainstream news ever did a good job of representing scientists views on anything that requires subtlety. Some news outlets to this day feed on intentionally whitewashing science or hyping non-existent scientific “controversies”.
And politicians, … well you can’t even trust them when they are right or wrong, they play either way to their advantage and for votes.
That’s why the scientific method including peer review, post-publishing reproduction, and eventually scientific consensus after many facts are in. On this issue there is near complete scientific consensus, despite predictable human resistance to science they don’t want to be true.
Guess what, moron….your own body heats up and cools down by itself, too.
But throw on a fur parka, a wool hat and boots to trap the heat and JUST LIKE THE PLANET, you too will warm up. We’re wrapping the planet in a blanket of heat-trapping CO2.
It amazes me that people in the U.S. are stupid enough to believe oil-backed politicians over scientists when it comes to scientific issues.
Of course, I guess some of these same idiots believe their religious leader over doctors when it comes to health issues (ie “faith healing”), so maybe it shouldn’t surprise me…
Hey moron – 98% of the greenhouse gases are water vapor from the ocean. Are you going to put a lid on the ocean you idiot. Second, there is no warming. It only shows up in federal studies paid for by entities that require warming to be proven in order to pay the “scientist” doing the study. The idea that morons like you, all working together, can control the climate temperature and make it “perfect” is so stunningly stupid it could only be believed by Democrats and Marxist, who all donated their brains to marijuana research.
Your stupidity really doesn’t know any bounds, does it?
The science is settled. You and the Flat Earthers have to stop listening to other deniers and read the papers or at least few and a meta-study complete with the methodology and you’ll understand. Just because you want something to be true or false has nothing to do with facts.
Why were animals and insects so big millions of years ago? what geological events caused the change?
Read and learn.
Yes, it is all “settled”. The temperature of the world must be controlled by the Democrat Party, with the brilliant minds of people like Al Gore, who invented the Internet, and John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, and Barack Obama who won the Nobel Peace Prize even before assuming office. These brilliant men will set optimal temperature, humidity and barometric pressure settings, along with allotments of sunshine and rain and daylight. Everyone will get what they need. Of course before this can be done taxes will need to be substantially increased – but just on the super wealthy who make more than $30,000 a year. Illegal aliens, graduate students still living in their parents homes, writers for the Daily Show, Al Sharpton, and all Whole Food shoppers will be exempted.
So maybe climate change is a left-wing farce. Let’s talk about pollution. Do you remember that shit? How about cancer, birth defects and just plain stinky air. If all we do by increasing the efficiency with which we use fossil fuels is reduce stink, that would be worth it.
It is only in the US where one can find a surprising and inordinate amount of ignorance and denial regarding the simple physical fact of climate change. For anyone who has studied natural science and physics at college level know the basics of spectral characteristics differences for all gases (O2, N2, CO2, CH4 etc).
To make the reasoning simpler, look at the moon, which has no atmosphere, i.e. pure vacuum. During daytime, burning hot (>+100°C), at night freezing cold as the heat just radiates out, unfiltered, into space (<-100°C). Add an atmosphere and that heat (infrared spectrum) is radiated back, as the gases constituting the atmosphere reflect a certain portion of the infrared light back. That's a pre-requisite for life, in addition to oxygen to breathe. Different gases has very different reflection and refraction characteristics, CO2 much higher than O2 and N2 (air). CH4 (methane) is a lot more potent than CO2 etc in terms of reflecting infrared.
As the content of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the amount of infrared that is reflected back to earth goes up. As simple as that. Just one of the laws of nature. Centuries ago, it was highly controversial that earth was not flat, but that debate eventually died. One day, common knowledge will also encompass a wider understanding of the above phenomenon.
Disclosure: MSc in Engineering Physics, so not talking out of my behind.
Lastly – it's sad that so many people always jump to the conclusion that a sustainability perspective is equal to bad business. If you care to study more carefully what has been written about Apple's initiatives, you will understand that it's actually good business. These two things can go hand in hand.
As a Ph.D. Physicist, with a speciality in Atomic & Molecular Physics, I must say that your reasoning regarding the absorption due to CO2 (what you refer to as “infrared reflect back to earth”) is faulty.
The absorption due to CO2 in certain infrared bands is logarithmic. At the present level of ~400 ppm, the “warming” contribution due to CO2 in the atmosphere is essentially done. That is, even a doubling or tripling of CO2 concentration will contribute a negligible amount of warming to the atmosphere.
Even the climate modelers agree with this fact.
The climate models rely on an unproven positive feedback mechanism, whereas small warming contributions of CO2 lead to higher H2O concentrations, which then lead to significant warming. All climate models include this feedback, and all climate models are now proving to be incorrect.
An IPCC study proclaimed that a 15 year pause in warming would prove with a 95% certainty that the models were incorrect in this regard. There has now been an 18 year pause in warming.
Without a positive feedback mechanism to “juice the models” and produce significant warming, there is no significant warming.
The real deniers are those who cling to their models, and the garbage in, garbage out results they produce.
“But I also think they are contributing to the unnecessarily alarmist misinformation..”
Funny how they right loves to take their own position, twist it around and project it onto their opposition.
THEY are the ones with the alarmist misinformation regarding an unreal LACK of consensus in the scientific community. No one gets more worked up than an anti-climate-change reactionary spewing his palaver of badly reasoned propaganda.
Seeking alternative energy resources goes beyond global warming. Only a fool would think that we have enough fossil fuels to last two or three more generations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
Second line of the article: “The two principal abiogenic petroleum theories, the deep gas theory of Thomas Gold and the deep abiotic petroleum theory, have been scientifically discredited and are obsolete.”
If the two *primary* theories are already discredited, the rest are obviously even lower on the scale of plausibility.
I’m wondering who is down-voting a post that simply pointed out facts?
Whoever did, please do me a favor and have yourself sterilized immediately. It’ll be good for the gene pool.
Except that people have been saying the same thing you just said for over a century now, and they’ve always been proven wrong. Maybe you’re right, but it’s foolish to say that only fools would disagree with you when they have experience, history, and science on their side. My professor for my engines/combustion class in undergrad wrote extensively on this topic and he believed we would have fossil fuels for centuries to come. Was he a fool?
For me, how much fossil fuel remains is not the issue. Rather it is the pollution (air, land, water) that extracting and burning it creates. Look at China: their air is toxic. Not only have they been using coal for energy, but as more Chinese reach the middle-class, they want air-conditioning, refrigeration and automobiles that increase the energy demand.
If we want to pass on a livable Earth to the next generations, we have to look at clean alternatives.
I’m old enough to cover three generations and for three generations the hype is we are running out. Since no one knows where fossil fuels come from, who is the expert that can predict we are going to run out? According to “theories” I have heard, that fossil fuels come from organic material (must be the prevalent belief, hence the term “fossil”), then the logical conclusion is it’s a renewable resource and we are never going to run out. Then again, this logic is avoided by the ignoramuses that want to keep yelling that “the sky is falling” and make fortunes on the FUD.
MDN take is rather spot on and pragmatic. We are and should be responsible stewards of the planet and so kudos to Apples PR campaign and misguided idealism. It’s just a matter of time when eggs will be bad for us again. Scientists just can’t make up their mind, such a fickled species. Watch out for those flying pigs, I think they are falling.
I would agree but I think the real issue is whether they are renewable on a human timescale. It may all come back but maybe millions of years after we have left the planet.
“…no one knows where fossil fuels come from…”
Are you kidding?
hoffbegone channeling O’Reilly: “Fossil Fuels! Tides! You can’t explain that!”
Do you realize how ignorant this sounds?
“Ignoramuses will make a profit on the FUD.”
Really???
Sooo…you’re saying that this whole “climate change” was manufactured so some people could make money on it, right?
And I’ll grant that there’s no doubt that some people may be getting rich from ecological businesses. There are definitely opportunities there. I don’t doubt that at all. Greed is a powerful thing, after all…
And yet, waitaminnit…..any money they’re making is obviously a tiny drop in a very large bucket compared to the oil, coal, and natural gas industries, which are definitely making TENS OF BILLIONS from an established industry that is accused of being primarily responsible for climate change.
You know, the very companies funding these “studies” that say climate change isn’t real. The ones that stand to lose BIG TIME if people believe the actual scientific studies and facts.
Just like the “studies” funded by Philip-Morris (tobacco company) decades ago that conclusively proved that cigarettes aren’t bad for you??
I do agree that you should follow the money to find the corruption and liars, but you apparently can’t see the forest for the trees.
Oil is the big money here, not people selling wind turbines and solar panels.
This is all really obvious if you ignore those who are lying to you and just try thinking about what I’ve said for a minute or three.
You do also realize that while fossil fuels are indeed (technically) renewable, it’s over a timeframe of millions of years, right?
That doesn’t exactly do is much good, given that we’ve burned through a big chunk of earth’s oil in just over 100 years.
This is also obvious, right??
OK you ignoramuses. I’ll demonstrate how stupid all of you are. It takes millions of years to produce oil from organic material. Starting tomorrow is a new millions of years. Hence, we ain’t gonna run out. Just ask anyone who runs a farm or a factory. To keep it going you start a new batch. A new batch of organic material was planted each day millions of years ago.
Same goes for evolution. if it takes 500 million years to evolve a humanoid, tomorrow there should be a new humanoid somewhere. Hey, wait, there is a sucker born every minute. OK, I take that back. Evolution is true.
With regards to following the money, albeit oil and other unrelated industries are making lots of money. They are old and established business. Jerks that want to make their own riches are the ignoramuses that make up things like climate change and vitamin pills and “eggs are bad for you” stories that are based on faux science. You guys ought to learn to think for yourselves rather than let your teachers think for you.
Actually the petroleum (oil,from rock) can be effectively made from municipal waste in a matter of hours, It is a proven technology. You will find references to it at peswiki.com
There is more than one sort of alternative energy. I would be very surprised if Apple doesn’t get more involved with hydrogen fuel cells, either in a miniature form for devices, as a compact and powerful energy source for an electric car, or on a massive scale as a back-up for it’s solar power generation activities.
Hydrogen fuel cells could be a very significant power source in the near future and there are indications that Apple is working on that sort of technology.
Known oil and gas reserves are now far greater than they were 50 years ago. They go up every year. Add to that the power available from nuclear technology and we have plenty. Democrats however don’t like any power required to support human life. Democrats don’t like humans when you get right down to it.
“We don’t want to debate climate change. We want to stop it.”
I hope they are talking about the debate on climate change, trying to stop climate change, well that’s a bit like wanting to change day and night.
MDN, you are very sane. I could hardly have said it better. Nevertheless, I fear Cook and Co. are going to continue to swing left and more left as time goes on, and will reach a point of total noxiousness.
The good news is TC will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs. We all do. And the pendulum continues to swing back and forth.
Regarding the “sham” slur, MDN is a F-bomb disgrace. We all analyze the AAPL numbers over and over, but MDN cannot bring themselves to get out of brainwashing. Climate change is real. How do I know. Where was the snow this year in California, many parts of the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains and the Midwest ? This is not random occurence.
Let me rephrase: Climate change deniers are some of the very dumbest people on the planet.
I totally agree with you. Even if it is over blown, do you really want to risk the lives of your children’s children. Better to to err on the side of the earth.
Head in the sand much?
We are told by the leading Climate Change proponents that what you are referring to is Weather not Climate.
And for your information the midwest and northeast have been INUNDATED by extreme cold temperatures and SNOW not seen in years(but which have occurred in the historical record).
Not denying Climate Change, Just denying the so called ‘settled science’ joke of ‘Man-Made Climate Change’. No such thing in the Scientific Method of ‘settled science’
What we witness are extremes, brought on by climate change. Hotter summers and colder winters, by the fact that the polar vortex is being aimed right at the mid west, do to a weaker jet stream. The jet stream is typically supposed to run across the planet at a certain latitude, but climate change is changing it into more of a lazy river, meandering around. This is why it’s colder in winter. The average global temperature is rising and it hasn’t gone down, only up.
We are charged with preventing a 2 – 4 degree rise in average global temperatures, over the next 50 to 100 years. The point being, it’s not going to get better, just worse. We are at a point that nature won’t fix this now, it will take tens of thousands or millions of years to fix what we have done, with natures own tools. We don’t have that kind of time. So we have to do it ourselves, remove carbon and other heat trapping gases from the atmosphere. That takes energy and money. Apple is seeing they are on the profit end of providing energy that does not contribute to heat trapping gases and possibly human tools to help take them out of the air.
If part of your goal, as a company, to be insanely great, and change the world, then alternative energies, is not a bad place to be.
The 2-4 degree increase predicted by the models in the IPCC report has been discredited. Every computer model has been proven to be outside the range of variability acceptable by science. None of the models tied to CO2 have predicted the 18 year hiatus nor can they account for warming periods in the past. And if you look at the historical temperature data fed into these models, many of the past readings that showed cooling were corrected to show warming.
While we may have had a few colder winters in the USA, we also have a greener planet, no major hurricanes in years and you can’t buy ocean front property in Nevada.
Jet stream changes, a couple of crazy winters and changes in precipitation are all within their natural variability.
I am for a greener planet. I like trees, not to hug. I would like to see modeling of the time when the “Antarctic” was 76 degrees. What was it like across the whole planet? My fear is dead dry desert. I don’t want to live on a Venus like Earth.
“I don’t want to live on a Venus like Earth.”
You won’t. That’s never going to happen. Earth has a moon, Venus doesn’t.
What does the moon have to do with climate change? Venus is the way it is, because of greenhouse gases. Let’s put it this way, what’s better, hot sticky/dry heat or cool crisp air? I kinda like variety, but I’d take a cool 65 to 75 degree day – for ever.
And Mars is the way it is because of greenhouse gases, or lack thereof. Distance from the sun has something to do with it, too.
Ahh so instead of green house gasses, maybe we are spiraling into the sun…
I will stick with gas. Something has to be removed from the air and the easiest element is CO2. A way to do it, is dump iron dust into the South Pacific. Just saying – testing has been under way.
If you want to balance things out, combine the iron dust with nitrogen fertilizer. The ocean should turn bright green. And when that settles at the bottom of the ocean, carbon and hydrogen will go with it, leaving a lot of O2. But I think the O2 spike will be something like 2%.
The snow was in Buffalo. Can’t wait for more global warming so I can grow some food.
NO ONE denies that climate change exist.. but only an IDIOT believes that this is only happening now…. I’ve got news for you, climate change has been happening for millions of years! And NO… today’s climate events are NOT anything out of the ordinary regardless what you have been brainwashed to believe. It baffles me to see the stupidity of people who seem not to read history and only vomit the flawed information what the leftist sensationalists mainstream media presents with apocalyptic doomsday scenarios. I’m all for keeping this planet clean but to follow a “science” based on flawed, manipulated computer models its simply stupid. We can’t even freaking predict 10 days forecast much less decades into the future, we simply don’t have that technology. Climate is far more complex.
“Tell a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth.” ~ Joseph Goebbels
Next time, try to read beyond whatever word that causes your knee to jerk violently. You may find out that what’s written simply isn’t what you thought when you stopped reading prematurely.
Not every viewpoint is valid. The sky is not green, and water is not dry. Those views aren’t differences of opinion, they’re categorically wrong. There’s no debate necessary.
We are seeing that the climate is changing, and nearly every expert in the field thinks it’s due to human activity.
But let’s say it’s not, let’s say that this is just part of a larger cycle over tens of thousands of years. We need energy to make food, and to make products. We need energy to live. As has been pointed out above, fossil fuels are not going to last forever, so we need to find renewable alternatives.
The time to act is now. If we wait until we have a global emergency, we could endanger human life on this planet. How stupid is that? China is investing far more in renewable research than we are. I wish the U.S. government were as serious about climate change as Apple.
Here’s some “alarmist misinformation” for you, Mr. Lynch: if you’re right, and Apple moves to renewables, the company just saves money and becomes more profitable. But if Apple is right, and you’re wrong, we could experience such drought and famine that millions could die who otherwise would not. I don’t know about you, but that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
Actually both of those are open for debate it’s just not very interesting. The sky isn’t always blue (sunsets or rain). In fact, blue isn’t always blue when we look at it depending on conditions. We call dry water steam or water vapor. At least among scientists.
While I agree action is necessary there is no reason to be so dogmatic in your thinking.
MDN commentary is why I choose to get my Apple news here. Well said MDN I agree 100%.
Apple is many things but at the heart is an applied science company .
In the world of science the debate about climate change is over.
I’m betting that we all will be thanking Apple for what they are doing
I would bet that whatever Apple does and how right Apple proves to be, there is a large number of people who will never give Apple any thanks or credit for what they did.
Fortunately Apple isn’t doing theses things so that everybody thanks them. Apple is doing these things because they know that it’s the right thing to do and that it makes complete sense from so many perspectives.
We’re all frak’d. Enjoy the ride while we can.
The Earth’s weather and climate have been changing since our planet was formed and they will continue to change until the Earth is no more.
Yes, but this has been over a very long period of 4,500,000,000 years. That is: 4.5 BILLION years, the age of the planet.
Climate (and ocean) change folks are talking about recent human history of about 200 years. Ie: 2 HUNDRED years. The difference is huge: 7 orders of magnitude.
Climate change folks are talking about the human contribution (“signal”) over-and-above any background “noise” due to other factors.
I suppose people have always been dying so if NASA bombed an asteroid to test its strength and accidentally sent it into a collision path with Earth where it wiped everyone out, according to your logic, that wouldn’t even be a bad day.
How can people function in every day life treating such obviously flawed logic as a sensible rebuttal to a world of scientists and data.
Answer my own question: We had to actually invent a formal process called the scientific method because most people all the time, and everyone some of the time, are programmed to rewrite their worldview with little gems like the one above. Convincing oneself of conclusions one wants is human nature.
Despite having seen the benefits of real science for a few hundred years, scientific thinking is still hard even for individual scientists (which is why there are so many levels of peer review and reproduction), and impossible for scientifically illiterate people.
The VAST majority of scientists who know anything about the topic say climate change is happening and the huge and rapid spike is human caused.
But lucky for us a pluck band of billionaires and oil company executives are setting the record straight.
(The same sort of fighting has happened with every deadly product — DDT, tobacco, red dye #whatever, a gazillion toxic chemicals sprayed onto our food. “Oh no, don’t worry. The jury is out on tobacco. Two percent of scientists say it’s totally fine. The rest are all part of an anti-billionaire plot.” Yehhhh, that’s plausible.)
And then, once is a while, a genius like Newton or Einstein comes along and makes idiots of the VAST majority of scientists.
There is no “huge and rapid spike” in anything but wild claims of the sky is falling.
In his book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, Thomas Kuhn basically asserts that true scientific revolutions — on the order of Kepler’s view of the solar system, Newton’s gravity, and Einstein’s relativity — can only gain full traction after all those who learned the previous “world view” died.
But it is worth noting that the science analyzing climate & ocean warming is not revolutionary. This science employs standard methodology: hypothesis generation, hypothesis testing against various data sets utilizing statistical methods, describing & testing possible cause-and-effect scenarios (eg, the greenhouse effect caused by CO2), ruling out other possible factors, rinse & repeat with additional data sets. This science is akin to how science figured out cigarettes caused cancer, stroke, & heart disease (plus a lot of other bad stuff, like COPD, etc.).
Regarding climate & ocean change, we are basically at the point science has figured out cigarettes are bad for people, though it will take time for most people to accept it. (Judging from how many people still smoke, many still do not understand the “big bag of hurt” caused by smoking. Some people still do not get it.)
…Still people denying human’s responsibility in climate change?
Hey! Stop with your aging believes and get it straight with the reality: Pollution IS a game changer and consumerists should face it and move from their blind habits.
There is no such thing as “settled science” and to continue to say that “experts” all agree that humans are causing the media buzzword of the day, whether it be “global warming” or “Climate Change”.
Climate has been “changing” since the dawn of time.. To think that humans can have a significant or lasting impact is the height of hubris.. A Volcano could go off tomorrow somewhere in the world and in a matter of hours or days could do more to impact climate than mankind has done in a century or more… And somehow we’ve survived Krakatoa, and other large volcanic events.
But just like any other energy tech, solar has its environmental impact, its been killing birds (just like wind power) and requires vast acres of land be re-purposed to implement it and it “only” works when the sun shines, then they need to have other generated power just like everyone else.
Apple can do all it wants to to be green, fine with me, they can spend as many millions or billions on it as they see fit, but the overall impact is insignificant.
Macinfo – Thanks for correcting the approximate 98% of scientists who say the overall impact is significant.
and giving the 2% of scientists who are *NOT PEER REVIEWED* the time of day !-)
Nice post Macinfo (and others too). I think if humans released all their nuclear arsenal at once it would make an impact on the climate. Certainly the ozone hole has demonstrated that the chemicals produced by humans can impact the climate. It’s something to consider especially since humans are the only creatures that produce chemicals that are toxic to themselves and to all human life.
That being said, you are right about the hubris. Humans could release all of their nuclear arsenal, open the valves on all their pollutants and it would impact the climate, and no doubt lead to the extinction of some species, humans a high probability on that list.
It would not however wipe out all life, and to think so it to me is one of the peaks of arrogance.
Thanks for the sentiments.
In all respect, sir…. You may have some “Macinfo” that has some merit somewhere in your head, but you are obviously not informative on this subject.
Case:
PV=NrT is “settled science”, for hundreds of years,
E=Mc^2 is “settled science”, just this century
I could go on for many tomes about “settled science” but won’t bore you with facts
and there are “experts” in the area of climate, with proper scientific method and accurate measurement devices, that ALL EXCEPT A FEW *NON PEER REVIEWED* PAPERS AGREE that climate change is being affected by the slow consumption of the buffering carbonate-bicarbonate reaction in the oceans by fossil fuel byproducts and other man made conditions
We lived through Krakatoa because this balance was not impared as it is now, i shudder to think about the next one to blow and how that will look on the pH scale when the oceans die due to acidification (do some homework if you want to comment on science, please, you just show your ignorance and insignificance and piss off those of us who do know what science is)
E=Mc^2 *was* settled science until relativity came along, then this equation was replaced with the relativistic mass equation.
The quantum mechanics came along and God decided to place dice with the universe. Even Einstein was wrong on (rare) occasion.
An now, the “settled science” has been proven wrong once again…
Still, not polluting the world, or consuming every natural resource should be everyone’s goal. The world isn’t just for this generation, we should be counting on the human race existing on Earth for millions of more years.
One article in Newsweek (literally) and that is the evidence that scientists predicting Global Cooling in the seventies. Climate science was in its infancy back then, so much has been learned since then about our planet and the climate and now there is a 98% consensus among climate scientists that climate change is man made. So Tim Cook and Apple are right. The time for debate is over. It’s time for action.
Even the 98% number is a fraud.
Prove it.
You can’t.
Forgetting anything related to the climate for a minute, in the long term as these technologies mature and improve the cost will come down. Ultimately, free energy from the sun has to be cheaper than digging it up blindly. On top of that, fossil fuels are unpleasant, they do pollute, they’re dirty, people wear masks in big cities, getting rid of that would surely be one of the greatest things we could do even if it’s just to improve our quality of life. If it does prevent catastrophic climate change then even better.
Apple has always been ahead of the curve and this issue is one more proof.
Yes, we need energy. But why does anyone really care where it comes from? If people were to think of solar & wind power as just 2 more resources to be EXPLOITED — just like oil & coal — would they feel better about it? Jeesh. You would think renewable energy proponents are seeking to overturn the whole established world order or something. I’d be happy to see renewables get the same preferential treatment (and huge tax write-offs) that the fossil-fuel exploiters have gotten over the years.
Anyway, there is no serious doubt: most who study the issue seriously agree humans have contributed to climate change. It took millions of years to produce the world’s fossil fuels, but mankind is on track to deplete it in the course of 200 or 300 years. Any background planetary climate change may introduce “noise” to the “signal”, but it does not mean the “signal” of human-caused climate change does not exist.
The real problem is not whether there is enough fossil fuel to last. The real issue is: will we cook the planet before supplies are depleted? Burning fossil fuels produces 3-times the weight of carbon as carbon dioxide, since each carbon molecule combines with 2 oxygen molecules (from the atmosphere) when burned. If you have a 20 gallon gas tank in your car, you produce about 400 pounds of CO2 each fill-up. (A gallon of gas weights about 6 pounds, and produces nearly 20 pounds of CO2 when burned.) CO2 is well known to trap heat. Add up the prodigious amounts of CO2 man has spewed in the atmosphere in the past 100 years and you will be flabbergasted. Also, they say about half the atmospheric CO2 ends up in our oceans. This is causing ocean temperatures to rise (we know this from US Navy sonar bounced through the Atlantic & Pacific oceans; as temperature affects speed of sound transmission, this is how we know for sure that the oceans temps have risen overall) and also to become more acidic, like soda pop (which also has CO2).
So kudos to Apple. And shame on the rest of you. The future is now, even if many cannot see it unfolding.
Got to love the way the guy who wrote this used a picture from a Jonny Evans blog — and didn’t attribute it.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2899127/why-critics-should-apologize-to-apple-s-tim-cook.html
It defies common sense to think that we can pump trillions of tons of noxious chemicals a year into the atmosphere for decades on end and not expect it to have some sort of effect on climate and the planet’s ecosystems. It’s also undeniable that earth’s climate changes as a result of natural cycles. But to deny that human activity hasn’t increased the pace flies in the face of almost universally accepted scientific fact.
MDN. Really?? Science-SCIENCE has proven that climate change is real. It’s not a debate dummies. If you haven’t shown your hand already as being run by right wing nut jobs this one is it.
You should read and re-read MacDailyNews’ Take in an attempt to understand what they wrote. If you ever do, you should apologize to them for your stupidity.
Fossil fuels are finite, renewables are infinite, how hard is that to comprehend?
Additionally, fossil fuels produce huge amounts of CO2 (not to mention other greenhouse gases) whereas renewables produce none. How hard is this to comprehend?
You intend the cover the Earth with solar cells and wind farms? An infinite Earth? With infinite resources to produce solar cells, turbines and batteries?
Good luck with your definition of infinite…
US surface area is about 3,834,289 square miles. Solar arrays covering just 100 square miles (in the American southwest) are estimated to satisfy total US electricity demand. For reference, this is about as much land area as has been strip-mined for coal in the US. It is feasible.
Solar arrays & battery technology (not to mention energy-sparing lightbulbs and devices) are getting better all the time, too.
What do you do at night or on a cloudy day?
And, transmission across continent is completely impracticable due to resistive loss.
The problem with solar and wind is you need a complete coal or nuclear power generation capability to go online when renewable energy isn’t available. Not feasible. You can’t turn on a nuclear plant by flipping a switch…
Good question about what power storage or generation method could be employed for those times when the sun is not shining sufficiently to power solar arrays, or there are unexpected extra power needs (i.e., hot day, everyone runs their AC full blast).
I suspect that the answer lies with the use of multiple types of power generation/storage backup tech — initially, it is likely to be small, sub-regional natural-gas fired on-demand power generators (being used in the USA NE now), which can be powered up and down as needed — as a larger bet, probably some number of existing nuclear and/or very cleaned-up high-tech less polluting coal plants will remain online and generating power on a more continuous basis, helping to level out the dips and rises of available electricity — there are also wind generators to help fill in some of the gaps, depending upon the ideal locations necessary for wind generation.
Second, Elon Musk is a big proponent of battery storage at the local homeowner level — one of his ideas is to equip homes with a large, self-maintaining (per se) battery banks of high-tech non-lead acid batteries — similar to what is used to power the Tesla automobile, but configured into a different, non-mobile format complete with high-tech computer monitoring and home-owner notification systems, as well as automatic switch-over between the batteries powering a home, or recharging from solar panels or grid.
Third, thorium fueled electric power generating plants are a possibility, are able to be designed to operate at a large scale, or small scale (think a refrigerator-sized thorium fueled power generator that could power a whole neighborhood) and has the ability to come on and off line on short notice, as it were, unlike their more traditionally fueled nuclear cousins.
In the end, I suspect that many ways of generating power will end up being involved, woven together to bring about a complete and reliable energy grid/generating capability, and all should be investigated and tested objectively by multiple groups, free of the past influences perpetrated by ruthless energy/banking cartels that have purposely strangled our rise into better and cleaner/planet friendly power generation, and continue to insist upon the involvement of western nations in constant and costly — life, reputation and economic on both sides — ME and other fossil fuel related imbroglios.
It is time to move to a higher path.
Niffy
Solar. Wind. Batteries. (Understand TESLA is coming out with a battery that will power a typical home for 2 to 3 days. The Nissan Leaf car offers an option for its EV battery to serve as a home backup battery). Reduce energy demand (eg, use energy-efficient heat pumps instead of oil/gas furnaces or electric baseboard heat). And supplemental power from fossil fuels, as needed.
Also: “net” metering of consumption v production. Anyone with solar panels or wind generators can pump electricity into the grid (at fair market prices), and offset any electricity they might draw from the grid at other times. A lot of states and utilities do this now. it works. Renewables are fed into the grid, and the grid serves as a huge backup, as needed.
Ah, yes. Another Koch brothers (or their ilk) “scientific” shill.
It seems simple to me, if we follow the path of the alarmists, we maybe waste some money if they end up wrong. On the other hand, if we do nothing and the alarmists are correct, we all die. Personally, I’d rather my “wrong choice” ended up wasting a little money rather than destroying the planet.
On what should the intelligent rely, corporate faith based on hope or research science based on facts?
Should the inherently innovative Apple not be innovative in power consumption?
smoke another dust bowl at your own peril, climate deniers.