Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted on Friday that the company is making additional donations toward wildfire fighting and recovery efforts on the U.S. West Coast.
More than half a million people in Oregon alone are fleeing deadly wildfires that are raging on the West Coast, authorities say. More than 100 wildfires are currently burning in 12 western U.S. states. The worst affected are California, Oregon, and Washington, where entire towns have been destroyed.
Mike Peterson for AppleInsider:
In August, the Cupertino tech giant pledged to donate to wildfire relief efforts in California. While those original flames have largely been contained, more fires have started up and down the West Coast during what is one of the worst fire seasons in history.
Cook in a tweet said that Apple would be providing more money to firefighting and recovery, and that the fires are “an urgent reminder that we must act together to protect the plane we all share.”
Apple is making additional donations to firefighting and recovery across the West Coast. Our hearts are with those that have lost so much. The fires are an urgent reminder that we must act together to protect the planet we all share.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) September 11, 2020
MacDailyNews Take: It’s good to see Apple making additional donations for West Coast wildfire relief. The West Coast air quality is very poor and at least 15 people have been killed in the California, Oregon, and Washington wildfires.
Hey Cook,
It’s not fucking “global warming” causing these wildfires, you moron.
Cook, virtue signaler extraordinaire and flaming Lib, would never blame the actual cause: Overzealous environmental regulation and gross mismanagement (about which he knows much, see: Mac Pro).
The unintended consequences of a radical environmentalist agenda has been massive wildfires.
Dem/Lib/Prog bureaucratic obstruction is largely to blame for preventing local firefighters from being able to perform routine prescribed burns to reduce ground fuel.
Of course, Cook would never admit the truth.
California needs to rid their land management policies of destructive bureaucratic red-tape, despite the inevitable backlash from wild-eyed environmental ideologues.
57% of the California fires are in National Forests or on other federal lands where the state has no land management authority.
Once again, Trump lied, Americans died.
“Once again, Trump lied, Americans died.”
What a demented piece of logic that is! What is your source of that drivel? Some left-wing rag? How current? If it’s true, they’re probably referring back to when BO was in charge of the “National Forests or on other federal lands where the state has no land management authority.”
He chose to complain about California land controls, rather than directing the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to mitigate risks on the federally-controlled lands where most of the fires are located. He lied about who to hold responsible and as a consequence there have beeen fatalities. The connection doesn’t seem demented to me.
The Sierra Club and affiliated enviro-terrorists have fought tooth and nail to prevent sustainable forest management with the blessing of the psychopaths in Sacramento. California has done nothing to pressure the feds to “mitigate risks” on federal lands, they are arsonists who get off on watching animals burned alive.
So Trump screwed up but it’s California’s fault because they didn’t tell him not to screw up? Just like coronavirus is somebody else’s fault because the didn’t tell Trump not to screw up (even if they did tell him). And urban unrest is somebody else’s fault because all the people who told Trump about police misconduct didn’t tell him loudly enough. And the dead US soldiers killed by the Taliban to collect Russian bounties are somebody else’s fault because Putin didn’t warn him (although our own intellegence community did). Even if you believe that the President is merely uninformed, rather than incompetent, do,we really want someone so monumentally uninformed running our country?
“57% of the California fires are in National Forests or on other federal lands where the state has no land management authority. Once again, Trump lied, Americans died.”
Your previous post is a lie. That makes YOU the lier, not Trump!
Wow, I’ve never seen so much cognitive malfunction and disingenuous moronic denial on behalf of Trump. Congrats on maintaining the Trump lies and misinformation, just like he wants you to you foolish patsies. You may have fooled yourself but the rest of us see through this orange charlatan.
Brain dead inbred folks like you make me realize this country has no future as you trample on common sense and being a true patriot, regardless of party, though your true party now is evil Trumpism. Dictators in other countries would love to have you on board.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46183690
Hey Fester, that was a brilliant rebuttal!
But I don’t understand what this from your source means:
“For centuries, Native American peoples would burn parts of the forest so they could hunt or gather plants that grow in the cleared areas and that would thin out the more flammable vegetation and make forests less dense.”
Could you explain that since you’re so smart and brilliant?
If you want to believe that, you’ll believe anything.
High temperatures and drought are caused by the hot air expelled by the anti-science trolls on MDN. Now we all know that only the blow hards have to change their polluting ways.
Everybody knows global warming is caused by forest fires.
Hey rocket scientist, that is a false dilemma fallacy.
Are they testing the dead people for COVID? Maybe that is was actually killed them?!?!
Cook lets his leftist politics make him look like an idiot (as he banks a cool billion from conservative capitalism).
Due to much of the western United States being naturally arid, high mountain scrub desert, grassland, and dry forest, wildfires are an unfortunate fact of life. They always have been and likely always will be.
And despite what you may have heard, there is no evidence climate change is making the problem worse.
California, where much of the attention on wildfires has been focused in recent years, because it has a large population and major media outlets are located there, was one of the least populated (and lowest population density) regions of the country before European colonizers spread across the continent.
Research shows droughts in the region have on occasion lasted on the order of a hundred years. And there is evidence massive wildfires regularly swept through the region historically.
Indeed, a 2007 paper in the journal Forest Ecology and Management found prior to European colonization in the 1800s, more than 4.4 million acres of California forest and shrub-land burned annually, far more than the area of California that has burned since 2000, which ranges from 90,000 acres to 1,590,000 acres per year.
Although one wouldn’t know it from the news coverage and alarming, but false, claims that climate change is making wildfires more frequent and severe, the opposite is true.
A 2012 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found wildfires in the western United States attained “the lowest levels … during the 20th century and during the Little Ice Age.
When it comes to wildfires, to co-opt the immortal words of naval officer Oliver Hazard Perry, “we have met the enemy, and it is, not climate change, but us.” — H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D
Burnett’s Masters and Doctorate degrees are in Philosophy. He is not a climate expert or even competent in the field. He is the public face of the Heartland Institute, which is funded mostly by sources with links to the fossil fuel industry. The biggest single contributor is the Mercer Family Foundation, which funds a wide range of right-wing causes.
Therefore what? What’s your point? Is there some inaccuracy there you are refuting?
You don’t seem to be a climate expert either.
I don’t pretend to be a climate expert, but I am capable of telling the difference between the opinion of hundreds of scientists who hold a tenured position in climate science because they have spent thirty years working in the field, and the opinion of somebody who is running a climate-denial outfit because his degree in philosophy made him otherwise unemployable. When in doubt, go with the experts, not an amateur.
As soon as you hear the “experts” are coming to help, load your gun.
“I don’t pretend to be a climate expert,”
But you play one on MDN.
“but I am capable of telling the difference between…”
No, I don’t think you are capable of knowing the difference. Apparently, you don’t know enough about our climate to know how much you don’t know.
“…the opinion of hundreds of scientists who hold a tenured position in climate science because they have spent thirty years working in the field,”
You mean the college professors whose career consists of publishing “research” papers designed to get more government grants and their own tenure?
“…and the opinion of somebody who is running a climate-denial outfit because his degree in philosophy made him otherwise unemployable.”
Well that is a fine example of an ad hominem logical fallacy, not a very good way to bolster your argument. Next time, you might try discrediting something Burnett actually said instead of spewing some nonsense.
Are you really under the impression that the major sources of research finding—the Trump Administration, big corporations, and foundations funded by big corporations—are preferentially funding research that confirms climate change, which they otherwise deny?
It is not an ad hominem argument to question the professional competence of somebody holding himself out as an expert witness. Dr. Burnett would not be signing his name to a article on climate science with “Ph.D.” appended if he wasn’t trying to give the impression that he has qualifications in the field covered by the article. He does not; his doctorate is in a completely unrelated field. There is a lot of that going around. The key Trump adviser on epidemiology only has medical experience in radiology (and he retired from that ten years ago to work for the Hoover Institution on policy issues).
In the university I attended, it was considered a social gaffe to even mention your doctorate unless the fact you had one was relevant to the matter at hand. I have never held myself out here as an expert with independent competence outside my educational and professional experience. So I don’t go around adding the postnominal letters for my degrees after my name.
However, I consider myself well-read, so when somebody posts an opinion here that contradicts facts that are generally recognized within the published literature, I figure that somebody needs to point out the contradiction.
“Are you really under the impression that the major sources of research finding—the Trump Administration, big corporations, and foundations funded by big corporations—are preferentially funding research that confirms climate change, which they otherwise deny?”
Are you really trying to run away from the fact that you started this thread by telling a gigantic effing whooper? But Ok, I’ll bite.
What I wrote: “college professors whose career consists of publishing “research” papers designed to get more government grants and their own tenure?” I can’t imagine how you came to your assertion from what I wrote.
It seem you think that:
1. government-funded research started with the Trump Administration
2. big corporations are conservative leaning
3. big corporations are otherwise denying climate change
“…and the opinion of somebody who is running a climate-denial outfit because his degree in philosophy made him otherwise unemployable.” and “It is not an ad hominem argument to question the professional competence of somebody holding himself out as an expert witness.”
That goes way beyond questioning his professional competence. You don’t seem to know what an ad hominem fallacy is.
I don’t believe you read the piece. I did. It was an editorial in RedState. He wasn’t “holding himself out as an expert witness.” It wasn’t a court case and he wasn’t under oath.
“Dr. Burnett would not be signing his name to a article on climate science with “Ph.D.” appended if he wasn’t trying to give the impression that he has qualifications in the field covered by the article. He does not; his doctorate is in a completely unrelated field.”
I looked over his bio and he is more than qualified to write that piece.
“However, I consider myself well-read,” and “57% of the California fires are in National Forests or on other federal lands where the state has no land management authority. Once again, Trump lied, Americans died.”
You don’t seem well-read. If you are so well-read, how did you come up with your giant effing whooper?
If you are so well-read, why don’t you try disputing the content instead of spewing whoopers and drivel?
“so when somebody posts an opinion here that contradicts facts that are generally recognized within the published literature, I figure that somebody needs to point out the contradiction.”
I think your “published literature” that you’ve been reading is “the opinion of hundreds of scientists who hold a tenured position in climate science.”
THOSE WHO CAN, DO; THOSE WHO CAN’T, TEACH
Try using a search engine on “percent of California land under federal ownership.” I got 67,100,000 replies, agreeing that the answer is 47.7%. The private land within National Forests or otherwise under federal management is an additional 10%, for a total of about 57%.
The State of California, including its cities and other political subdivisions, owns about 3%. That leaves about 40% of the area of California in private hands, but subject to state or local regulations. It seems pretty obvious that most of that land is devoted to homes, businesses, and (particularly) farms where wildfire initiation is not a major problem.
If, as President Trump insists, the issue in California is poor land management, the blame must fall on the government that is responsible for the poor management. That is the government that he heads. To say otherwise is a lie, and this particular lie has cost lives
“The private land within National Forests or otherwise under federal management is an additional 10%, for a total of about 57%.”
I’m not disputing that. Your gigantic effing whopper was:
“57% of the California fires are in National Forests or on other federal lands where the state has no land management authority.“
They are not even close to being the same thing. Would you like to try again?
“If, as President Trump insists, the issue in California is poor land management, the blame must fall on the government that is responsible for the poor management.”
57% of California is roughly 60 million acres., almost as big as the entire state of Colorado. Colorado is a big state. It wouldn’t even be possible to just figure out what needs to be done in 3 1/2 years, let alone remediate it. For him to manage that much forest while beating back a coup d’état all at the same time would be the feat of the century. But I bet he’ll get it done in FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!
“That is the government that he heads. To say otherwise is a lie, and this particular lie has cost lives”
It seems you are deranged. Look up Trump Derangement Syndrome. Maybe you can get some help.
And I thought you were well-read.
The 2020 fires are still ongoing, but I located the 2019 figures reported by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan agency within the Library of Congress serving both Houses, including the Republican Senate.
Click to access IF10244.pdf
While the number of fires has declined over the last thirty years, the size of the fires has increased. Acreage burned each year since 2000 is roughly double the area in the 1990s. 2019 was a wet, and therefore relatively fire-free year. Still, 4.7 million acres went up in smoke. (2020 is a bad year—from January to early September, 3.1 million acres have burned in California alone.)
Over 85% of the acreage burned in 2019 were in the West, the states along or west of the Rocky Mountains. 72% of the acreage burned in those states was on federally-managed lands. That does not include private property burned by wildfires that started on federal land. Because there is much less federal land in the rest of the country, the national average is only 65%.
I am not suggesting that President Trump should have solved the problem since January 2017, only that his energy might be more effectively spent focusing on the landowner who controls 57% of California, rather than an entity that owns 3%.
I see you’re still trying to run away from your gigantic effing whopper.
“57% of the California fires are in National Forests or on other federal lands where the state has no land management authority.“
After that bold-faced lie, you said this:
“If, as President Trump insists, the issue in California is poor land management, the blame must fall on the government that is responsible for the poor management. That is the government that he heads. To say otherwise is a lie, and this particular lie has cost lives”
Now, you’re saying this:
“Over 85% of the acreage burned in 2019 were in the West, the states along or west of the Rocky Mountains.”
and
“I am not suggesting that President Trump should have solved the problem since January 2017, only that his energy might be more effectively spent focusing on the landowner who controls 57% of California, rather than an entity that owns 3%.”
Now, it seems you think that President Trump should have solved the wildfire problem for the whole freaking west! You must not have any mental concept of how much area that is. Actually, he has been working on solving the wildfire problem for the whole freaking west and a whole host of other problems out there. You just don’t know about them because you don’t know jack!
https://theconversation.com/moving-bureau-of-land-management-headquarters-to-colorado-wont-be-good-for-public-lands-126990
“But we believe it is ultimately counterproductive. It will damage careers, impede democratic deliberation and undermine experienced oversight of public lands that belong to all Americans.’
He’s draining the swamp!
MAGA!
By coincidence, 57% is also the proportion of Republicans in the Trump Era who believe that actual scientists should not have an active role in determining scientific policy matters. I have not heard if they plan to bar engineers from planning public works projects or doctors from working on health policy.
TxUser – rum as a dox of bocks. Like really, really duuuuumb.
Who you ally with as an “expert” is always interesting. Recent example:
It was reported, by salon owner (1st hand), Nancy presumptuously disregarded laws applicable for the people. Your conclusion, which was consistent with Nancy and the other “tenured” sources…”she was sent up.”
Trump was reported to slander soldiers. You used “suckers” on this site to ally with your sources. Other sources, apparently not “tenured,” included people on the particular trip where words were supposedly spoken, other soldiers & his close staff that denied the words used in the report. One such staffer that denied the words is well known to have significant friction towards Trump. He even wrote a book that included much about his displeasure/friction.
Here again, as you almost always do, you act like an insider. On the surface one would think of you, “the dude must have been there,” or ” “he’s an expert”. In the 1st case, why anyone rally in Nancy’s support? Whether she was set up/not…she saw herself in a light NOT of a regular citizen. To “know” she was set up and to speak it with surety, is just biased sophistry and tribal partisanship.
Per your empty alliance with “tenured” as if confirming veracity. Steve Jobs was a college drop out. H Ford never completed HS. The list is long in support. “Tenured” means little these days.
Maybe this guy suits you? He’s tenured and he dislikes the same people you do. Erik Loomis_ U of RI. He’s not even an Asst Prof…he’s been tenured much longer.
https://jonathanturley.org/2020/09/09/i-see-nothing-wrong-with-it-rhode-island-professor-defends-murder-of-right-wing-protester-in-portland/
Per your logic, Fox News has no credibility, so I didn’t include their link. Maybe J Turley bugs you because he often speaks out in justification of “right issues,” even though he’s not an R?
If the line delineating the source’s veracity is so clear cut, is it not at all strange to you that sources you deem credible, are quite unmoved by this story? It looks like the Wa Post likes to site Loomis when he talks about enviro issues, but not when he justifies whacking a dude. Very credible “left-wing” source…of your kind?
One tenured professor can easily be wrong. 97% of the qualified experts in a given field who agree on something are rarely wrong. When 97% of plumbers say I should turn a valve counter-clockwise to open it, why should I listen to the one very stable genius who has a hunch it should be clockwise?
TxUser, what the hell are you blathering about now? What qualified experts are you talking about?
Plumbers? Did you clog your toilet?
Are you attempting to use an analogy as a logical argument?
Anatoly/Hal/First from Moscow resorts to personal attacks because he can’t win the debate on merit. There is no moral reason than countrymen shouldn’t help each other in times of need, nor any reason that a world power and tech leader should not invest in cleaner less damaging ways to operate for the sake of future generations. You cannot ethically argue otherwise, especially if you call yourself a Christian. Profiteers are the ones spreading FUD. Anyone who actually lives in rural areas can see the climate changing to be hotter and drier and less predictable than in recent history.
But here on MDN, Cook is attacked for being a good citizen. One would have to be a very self centered greedy piece of work to even start arguing that is bad. Or that drought is the fault of the victims. Or that MAGA means letting millions of acres of drought stricken America burn, or that such a tragedy should in any way be political. The casual hate speech hosted on MDN has turned another occasional reader off. Bye.
If all you can do is misquote a historic military figure to rebut the dramatically changing climate that is happening before your eyes, you obviously have lost the debate. You’re on to self-embarrassing now and you don’t know it.
If the climate today wasn’t changing faster than all pre-industrial records indicate, then please explain why we today are observing:
– the hottest average global temperatures (energy) ever recorded
– significant changes to weather patterns
– higher frequency occurrences of large energy events like hurricanes
– a marked increase in desertification in many regions
– global loss of glaciers and polar ice at unprecedented rates
– toxic algae blooms in freshwater lakes that historically were cool, unpolluted, and swimmable
– the fastest rate of wildlife species extinctions in human history
– unsafe air quality in more areas affecting more humans than ever before
Your answer is political conspiracy.
The right answer is human greed driving unsustainable stewardship of the one planet we have. Is it too much to ask for you to help keep the planet livable for future generations ????????
– the hottest average global temperatures (energy) ever recorded
Earth has been warming for at least the last 12,000 years. The geologic record indicates that our earth has been far warmer than it is now for most of its existence. It isn’t possible to get an accurate “average global temperatures.”
– significant changes to weather patterns
There are always significant changes to the weather pattern. I would guess that you probably haven’t been alive very long.
– higher frequency occurrences of large energy events like hurricanes
There are not. It just seems like it due to 24 hour news cycle.
– a marked increase in desertification in many regions
Desertification is decreasing in more regions than there is a decreasing probably due to increased levels of CO2.
– global loss of glaciers and polar ice at unprecedented rates
That is debatable. Show me something other than Al Gore’s movie.
– toxic algae blooms in freshwater lakes that historically were cool, unpolluted, and swimmable
Probably from run-off pollution from us dirty humans
– the fastest rate of wildlife species extinctions in human history
Habitat destruction
– unsafe air quality in more areas affecting more humans than ever before
1. China becoming industrialized
2. The western world keeps ratcheting up the air quality standards which causes the air of more areas to be declared unsafe.
– a marked increase in desertification in many regions
Desertification is decreasing in more regions than there is an increasing probably due to increased levels of CO2.
BS. CO2 alone doesn’t produce lovely green paradise blooms you see inside your walled enclaves in suburbia.
Plants need water. When they have inadequate H2O, plants shrivel to the size of Firsty/Hal’s/SteveJackass’ peanut brains.
“BS. CO2 alone doesn’t produce lovely green paradise blooms you see inside your walled enclaves in suburbia.”
I never claimed that “CO2 alone…”
I was referring to “desertification,” not suburbia.
I never lived in suburbia.
“Plants need water. When they have inadequate H2O, plants shrivel…”
“Plants need water.” Oh wow! I didn’t know that! You must be a botanist!
With a higher concentration of CO2, plants actually need less water. You could actually look that up! You might try learning about what photosynthesis is, that’s what plants do.
Mr Nonsense is grabbing any convenient defense to prevent him or his favorite polluting companies from cleaning up their act.
CO2 isn’t the only molecule that plants need to be healthy. Moreover, increased CO2 appears to have mor bad effect to animals than good effect for plants. To understand, one would have to conduct more controlled studies. But the anti-science assholes here don’t want climate scientists to do that. It might tell them something they don’t want to hear.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-does-rising-co2-benefit-plants1/
Hey Mr Nonsensical
That article is so amateurish, it isn’t worth the effort to take apart. If you can’t see that, you’re probably one of those who think we should vote on science facts we should embrace.
This thread is hilarious
I’ll make sure to never build a house in the middle of a forest as it seems rather risky in the event of a forest fire. I’m surprised homeowners can even get fire insurance, but I suppose if you pay enough the insurance companies will be happy to insure a homeowner.
It’s very sad to see entire communities of houses burnt to the ground (that’s what the news media showed in Oregon). There must have been hundreds of houses destroyed. They said the people only had a few minutes warning before having to evacuate. Most of those people left with very few items. It’s hard to imagine a lifetime of possessions going up in smoke. Those people who lost their homes definitely need help of some sort. Coronavirus problems and major wildfires is making 2020 one of the worst years ever for many people.
When forest fires occurred in the past, national officials usually acted immediately to help protect life and property. Not with this administration.
This administration hasn’t done anything significant or proactive to deploy resources to the most impacted areas. This is likely because of politics. Trump has made it clear he only cares about the people who can serve him in the immediate future. That means he only looks at swing states, not states in need of help. If Ohio went up in flames, Trump would have a photo op with Pence handing out free cases of bottled water from the back of Air Force One in the middle of Buckeye country. But no, it’s Idaho and California and Oregon etc that are turning to ashes. These are states he takes for granted or ones Orange Idiot has written off, so he lets millions of acres of federal land burn without so much as a tweet. This ought to prove how little he actually cares about the common conservative working class Americans. Consider that much of the fires are wiping out ranch land that some members of his political base uses to feed their all-American beef, and forest that timber companies manage to grow timber to build houses. This land isn’t liberal at all. But Orange Iniot doesn’t care. They got conned, pure and simple.
It would be great if Woodward could have gotten those admissions of Orange Idiot lies on tape too.
YEAH! ORANGE MAN BAD! ORANGE MAN BAD! ORANGE MAN BAD!
Orange man corrupt and incompetent.
Obvious to everyone but the trumpet trolls from Moscow that inhabit Mac blogs.
Come on, dd, give them some credit for having the taste to prefer Apple products. They can’t be uncultured Moscovites. I figure they’re from St. Petersburg.
The trumpistas don’t deserve any credit. They aren’t Mac users, they are trolls.
It’s scary to think that there are some of you who still think that we’re from Moscow. We’re from Kyiv, not Moscow.
The Board knows that Apple’s politically astute and humane donation will blunt some of the misguided anti-Apple sentiment and win some good will in the CA legislature and on Capitol Hill; And it might have a halo effect on the EU leadership. Of course, nothing grows good will among them but direct donations money — a direct blood infusion — (which should stop) that they always need and expect to run their election campaigns.