Apple Donating to Wildfire Relief Efforts in California

[MacRumors]

Apple is planning to make a donation to help wildfire relief efforts in the state of California, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on Twitter this morning.

It is fire season in California right now, and Sonoma County in Northern California is currently facing the Kincade fire, which has burned more than 65,000 acres and has required hundreds of thousands of people in the area to evacuate.

Image via the San Francisco Chronicle​

Over the weekend, winds that reached close to 100 mph drove the fire further towards Santa Rosa, a major city in the area, and additional high winds are expected later this week. Combined with dry conditions, the higher winds California sees in October and November can be disastrous.

Our hearts are with those affected by the wildfires across California, including members of our Apple family. Thank you to the first responders who are working tirelessly to control the fires. Apple will be donating to relief efforts. To everyone in harm's way, please stay safe. - Tim Cook (@tim_cook) October 28, 2019

In Northern California, power company PG&E has been cutting power to millions of customers in an effort to avoid fires (PG&E was found responsible for last year's Camp Fire), but that didn't stop the Kincade fire.

There are fires raging in both Southern and Northern California at this time, and California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a statewide emergency.

Apple also provided aid during last year's California fires and the 2017 Tubbs Fire that impacted Northern California.

Article Link: Apple Donating to Wildfire Relief Efforts in California

 

[gplusplus]

Gotta keep the local talent pool happy. God forbid Apple opens an office in a sensible location.

 

[Justin Cymbal]

So sad to see what is happening with these wildfires in California, I listen to Leo Laporte who has a technology podcast network based out of Petaluma in Sonoma County, he’s currently on vacation in Europe but I hope everybody that works at his studio is ok! Nice to see Apple helping fellow Californians! I’ll be praying for you all

 

[BWhaler]

Thank you Apple.

 

[konqerror]

Gotta keep the local talent pool happy. God forbid Apple opens an office in a sensible location.

They have a major campus in Austin, which dates back to at least the PowerPC days, along with Sacramento, Seattle, New York, and rumored expansion plans either in Raleigh or Northern Virginia.

Cupertino was a perfectly reasonable place to have offices in 1976 and through the mid-2000s. You simply can't move an operation that's been there for 43 years.

 

[m0sher]

Thank you Apple for your donations / generosity when disasters strike in America.

God Bless those in Cali and keep them out of harms way.

 

[QCassidy352]

Gotta keep the local talent pool happy. God forbid Apple opens an office in a sensible location.

Wow, really? These wildfires are a serious issue that affects millions of people (when you count the power shut offs), Apple does something good, and that’s what you’ve got?

 

[konqerror]

Apple does something good, and that’s what you’ve got?

Apple, along with all of the other Silicon Valley tech players are part of the problem. They keep creating high-paying jobs in a place that has no more space or water. These wealthy people can throw money at the problem by paying multi-millions for an average home and blocking high-density developments. This forces sprawl, which ends up pushing homes into the hills which are now burning. (Look at SMART: live in Sonoma, work in SF)

 

[gplusplus]

Wow, really? These wildfires are a serious issue that affects millions of people (when you count the power shut offs), Apple does something good, and that’s what you’ve got?

If you think Apple is “doing good,” then they have you fooled. They are protecting their investment, plain and simple. If they actually cared about making the world a better place, rather than just the immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters, then we’d see drastically better working conditions at their manufacturing partners. They care about their investments and news blurbs, not much else. The same can be said for any of the other large Silicon Valley companies.

Apple, along with all of the other Silicon Valley tech players are part of the problem. They keep creating high-paying jobs in a place that has no more space or water. These wealthy people can throw money at the problem by paying multi-millions for an average home and blocking high-density developments. This forces sprawl, which ends up pushing homes into the hills which are now burning. (Look at SMART: live in Sonoma, work in SF)

^^ You’ve absolutely got the right idea.

 

[citysnaps]

If you think Apple is “doing good,” then they have you fooled. They are protecting their investment, plain and simple. If they actually cared about making the world a better place, rather than just the immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters, then we’d see drastically better working conditions at their manufacturing partners. They care about their investments and news blurbs, not much else. The same can be said for any of the other large Silicon Valley companies.


^^ You’ve absolutely got the right idea.

What investments has Apple been protecting when they’ve donated millions to Katrina and dozens of other disaster reliefs over the years?

 

[QCassidy352]

What investments has Apple been protecting when they’ve donated millions to Katrina and dozens of other disaster reliefs over the years?

Indeed. They do this for most every major disaster.

the SF Bay Area is facing a very complex and serious set of problems right now. Big tech is not blameless, but they are also not solely to blame.

there’s a reason companies cluster like this, and it’s a good idea from a corporate standpoint to be in the cluster. (Also worth noting Apple has been here a lot longer than most.)

Apple also did not cause the perpetual drought conditions or 100 mph winds that are taking what should be controllable fires and making them nightmares. Nor did they cause PG&E to neglect their grid for decades, leading to both fire vulnerabilities and cascading power shut offs.

the bottom line here is that there is plenty of blame to go around here, but Apple giving money to those most hurt by the fires is a good thing. Period.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

Gotta keep the local talent pool happy. God forbid Apple opens an office in a sensible location.

There’s no part of the U.S. that’s free of natural disasters. Make that the world, in fact.

 

[konqerror]

There’s no part of the U.S. that’s free of natural disasters. Make that the world, in fact.

The wildfires are human-created disasters, not natural ones. Wildfires are a natural process and are necessary for healthy ecosystem. For example, the Sequoia tree requires a wildfire to open its cones and reproduce. No fire = no Sequoias. Nature has evolved over millions of years to benefit from wildfires.

The reason why you have a problem is that people are building houses in places that are supposed to burn.

The second reason is that air quality bureaucrats, like CARB and BAAQMD refuse to let controlled burns occur in the amount that is necessary to clear flammable vegetation. They fail when there's a PM and Ozone exceedance, regardless of what caused it.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

I’m aware that some ecosystems require lightning-caused wildfires and that most of these infamous large ones are the result of human activity, however I notice no one wants to talk about climate change and its role in longer and more frequent droughts as well as higher temperatures that facilitate these destructive fires. There’s no doubt that controlled burns would help prevent the most destructive fires in some areas, but it depends on the area. Controlled burns tend to be done in forests and much of the land burning is not part of a forest (I’m also not sure whether controlled burns are done in these areas that are so close to where people live).
I agree that there are some areas where people should not live (add to that list floodplains and areas along the Gulf Coast that are subject to hurricanes), but good luck telling Americans they can’t build a home where they want to. And the response to a home lost in such a disaster is usually a resilient “rebuild in the same place” which is not necessarily the best option, although it is the most common one. The Tubbs Fire, for example, burned an area that had burned in the 1960s back when far fewer people lived in the area.

 

[C DM]

They are protecting their investment, plain and simple. If they actually cared about making the world a better place, rather than just the immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters

Apple hasn't been donating to all kinds of relief and other types of efforts in places well beyond the Silicon Valley, California, or even US? An "interesting" attempt at a spin there, but it just doesn't hold up.

 

[PickUrPoison]

If you think Apple is “doing good,” then they have you fooled. They are protecting their investment, plain and simple. If they actually cared about making the world a better place, rather than just the immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters, then we’d see drastically better working conditions at their manufacturing partners. They care about their investments and news blurbs, not much else. The same can be said for any of the other large Silicon Valley companies.

Gotta keep the local talent pool happy. God forbid Apple opens an office in a sensible location.

Immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters? You’ve got to be kidding. Santa Rosa is nowhere near Cupertino. And there’s a huge talent pool in Silicon Valley of exactly the type of people Apple needs; it’s a pretty sensible place for Apple to be. They’ve got a lot of other locations in the US including Austin, Seattle, San Diego, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, New York, Boulder, Boston, Portland, Nashville and Miami.

Find another complaint to try to make Apple look bad... this one is lame.

 

[konqerror]

Immediate vicinity of their local talent pool and headquarters? You’ve got to be kidding. Santa Rosa is nowhere near Cupertino.

SMART Train. Picks you up in Santa Rosa, will end at the Larkspur ferry terminal. You then take the ferry to downtown SF. (It interconnects right now with Golden Gate Transit buses to downtown SF) Catch the company shuttle, if you're headed down to Google, Facebook and Apple.

They're spending about $600 Million to extend the reach of Bay Area commuting through Sonoma County.

Not terribly surprised people don't know, Silicon Valley's knowledge of the Bay Area seems to cut off right at the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

[C DM]

SMART Train. Picks you up in Santa Rosa, will end at the Larkspur ferry terminal. You then take the ferry to downtown SF. (It interconnects right now with Golden Gate Transit buses to downtown SF) Catch the company shuttle, if you're headed down to Google, Facebook and Apple.

They're spending about $600 Million to extend the reach of Bay Area commuting through Sonoma County.

Not terribly surprised people don't know, Silicon Valley's knowledge of the Bay Area seems to cut off right at the Golden Gate Bridge.

And although there might certainly be options to get to the from one place to another in a period of a few hours, that certainly doesn't make something near something else.

 

[konqerror]

And although there might certainly be options to get to the from one place to another in a period of a few hours, that certainly doesn't make something near something else.

Except it's not a "few hours". It's an hour from Santa Rosa to the ferry then 30 minutes on the ferry to SF. It's specifically designed for high frequency service in commute hours (small DMU trains for high frequency, Wifi and laptop desks).

The whole point is so somebody can live in Santa Rosa and work at Twitter realistically.

(And by the way, that's another trait of Bay Area techies: they seem to consistently overestimate distances in the North Bay)

 

[C DM]

Except it's not a "few hours". It's an hour from Santa Rosa to the ferry then 30 minutes on the ferry to SF. It's specifically designed for high frequency service in commute hours (small DMU trains for high frequency, Wifi and laptop desks).

The whole point is so somebody can live in Santa Rosa and work at Twitter realistically.

Connecting this to Apple's HQ (given that that seems to be the context of the original remarks) we are still talking about something in the range of a few hours. In a more typical/colloquial sense of saying that something is near something else, let alone in the immediate vicinity, Santa Rosa wouldn't be described as being near Cupertino (while in the sense of talking about California as a state overall or perhaps all of US if not the whole world, then Santa Rosa can be described as being close to Cupertino).

 

[konqerror]

Connecting this to Apple's HQ (given that that seems to be the context of the original remarks) we are still talking about something in the range of a few hours. In a more typical/colloquial sense of saying that something is near something else, let alone in the immediate vicinity, Santa Rosa wouldn't be described as being near Cupertino (while in the sense of talking about California as a state overall or perhaps all of US if not the whole world, then Santa Rosa can be described as being close to Cupertino).

The point is that Silicon Valley hiring is affecting housing in Santa Rosa.

Santa Rosa is relatively cheap and less dense at this point. People are moving there because it's very possible to commute from Sonoma County to tech jobs. They are building infrastructure, the train, to specifically allow this.

This is why people are being more affected by the fires now, versus decades ago.

"Near" is all relative. I don't know if you're from California or not, but "near" in a California sense is much longer than the rest of the country due to the 1-dimensional nature of usable land in CA.

 

[C DM]

The point is that Silicon Valley hiring is affecting housing in Santa Rosa.

That certainly may very well be the case, it’s just it’s somewhat different and separate in relation to the context that was brought up originally (as off as it may be):

If they actually cared about making the world a better place, rather than just the immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters