Apple, Google, and Microsoft Among Companies Signing New White House Climate Pledge

[iBlazed]

I knew this would quickly devolve into a right wing bitch fest full of people who don't know enough about any given topic pretending like their uneducated opinion on climate change is equivalent to scientific fact. Good times.

 

[chucker23n1]

Am I the only one who has a problem with these climate change people going from "Global cooling" to "Global warming" to..... "Climate change"?? Like they couldn't figure it out, so they just say it just has to not stay the same every year and that's bad?

No, sadly, you're not the only one. Also, I'd say education is free, but it's really rather pricey in the US, so there you go…

Combating climate change...

While we're doing graphics…

Climate change has ****-all to do with whether it's cozy in your living room.

 

[iBlazed]

Apple should stick to fixing their crap cloud services. Time to focus on what users want, not Obama's agenda. Gay rights and climate B.S. can wait until they stop sucking at software.

Obama's agenda?? Seriously? Climate change and gay rights are far from being solely Obama's agenda. Sorry if responsibility and human decency are considered a liberal agenda for you people. Like it or not, this is how it's going to be.

 

[iBlazed]

Am I the only one who has a problem with these climate change people going from "Global cooling" to "Global warming" to..... "Climate change"??

No, there's plenty of poorly informed people in the world. You're in good company.

 

[avanpelt]

Why are we treating the Earth like it's got a giant thermostat that needs to be set when no one seems to be able to tell us what the ideal temperature is for the planet?

Global warming is going to be a never ending suck of taxpayer dollars because no one has ever stated a clear goal as to what the temperature should be. All we know is that we're chasing this desire to cool off the planet and tons of money is being spent toward that end. How much do we need to try to cool the planet off? No one seems to agree about that or seems to know for sure. Meanwhile, billions upon billions of dollars are shoveled around to supposedly help try to cool the planet.

Fundamental principle #1 before throwing money at anything: have a clearly defined goal and a strategy on how to get there. These folks have all kinds of strategies for how to cool off the planet (supposedly); but no clearly defined end goal to let us know when we've arrived. Thus, they will continue funneling more and more of our money toward this nebulous goal with no end in sight. Wait until we find out 25 years from now that the vast majority of the money that was earmarked for global warming was actually spent on tons of other unrelated things.

 

[Renzatic]

Global warming is going to be a never ending suck of taxpayer dollars because no one has ever stated a clear goal as to what the temperature should be.

Actually, they have. The current goal, last I heard, was to limit the warming trend to 1.5-2C above preindustrial averages for the rest of the century.

 

[iBlazed]

smart people stuff

But...but...the liberal agenda!!😡😡😡

 

[MikhailT]

Why are we treating the Earth like it's got a giant thermostat that needs to be set when no one seems to be able to tell us what the ideal temperature is for the planet?

Global warming is going to be a never ending suck of taxpayer dollars because no one has ever stated a clear goal as to what the temperature should be. All we know is that we're chasing this desire to cool off the planet and tons of money is being spent toward that end. How much do we need to try to cool the planet off? No one seems to agree about that or seems to know for sure. Meanwhile, billions upon billions of dollars are shoveled around to supposedly help try to cool the planet.

Fundamental principle #1 before throwing money at anything: have a clearly defined goal and a strategy on how to get there. These folks have all kinds of strategies for how to cool off the planet (supposedly); but no clearly defined end goal to let us know when we've arrived. Thus, they will continue funneling more and more of our money toward this nebulous goal with no end in sight. Wait until we find out 25 years from now that the vast majority of the money that was earmarked for global warming was actually spent on tons of other unrelated things.

The goal has already been defined for a decade or more, to slow the rate of heating to less than 2 degree C. We've failed several times and we're still failing to meet a global-wide agreement. The quote from the non-binding agreement, Copenhagen Accord: the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius", in a context of sustainable development, to combat climate change.

The simple problem is that it is much harder and far more expensive to reverse a never-ending process than it is to slow things down to give the natural process a chance to recover. Why spend 100 trillion dollars in 100 year that may have zero chance of reversing, when you can spend only 1 trillion and a natural recovery process can be kickstarted.

It has nothing to do with cooling the planet, it is all about slowing down the heating process caused by our pollution, so that the planet's natural feedback systems can heal and recover from our pollution.

There is no such thing as an ideal temperature for the planet, the planet does not give a crap about us. We're just tiny ants polluting stuff and the planet will react to it as if we're the infection and just like an infection in our body, a fever will incur.

What do you do when you have a high fever that doesn't seem to stop increasing? You take meds to slow down the temperature raising, do what you can to cool it down and then figure out how to fight it. You do not stop and wait until it hits 110 degree and then decide how to reverse it, you'd be dead by then.

 

[Renzatic]

There is no such thing as an ideal temperature for the planet, the planet does not give a crap about us.

Nailed it. This isn't about us slapping on our Birkenstocks, slathering ourselves in patchouli, and writing beat poetry about Mother Gaia. The Earth was a big ball of molten lava and sulfur just a few billion years ago, a 10C change in average global temperature won't do a thing to destroy it.

But for us, it's an extreme change that could mean a truncated food supply, flooded coasts, and unpredictable extreme weather patterns. Things that could ruin our economy, and throw the world into a moderate panic. Global warming concerns aren't about the Earth, it's about keeping the status quo.

By its very definition, it's the ultimate conservative platform.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Prepare yourself Republicans will tell you Global Warming is fiction and science is not facts but Religion is.

 

[dysamoria]

Too little, too late, and plenty of corporate and government cronyism. We need change, not corporatist deals to reward capitalists for not changing over the next decade and a half.

 

[itguy06]

Uhh... Tesla? The company that is single-handedly doing more to fix passenger car pollution than any other company out there? Were they not invited or something??!?

Just forget the elephant in the room that that energy to charge your car comes from coal, natural gas, nuclear, all of which are bad. A small amount comes from hydro, wind, and solar.

And also don't forget that the grid would need to be massively upgraded to support large scale electric car charging.

 

[itguy06]

Nailed it. This isn't about us slapping on our Birkenstocks, slathering ourselves in patchouli, and writing beat poetry about Mother Gaia. The Earth was a big ball of molten lava and sulfur just a few billion years ago, a 10C change in average global temperature won't do a thing to destroy it.

But for us, it's an extreme change that could mean a truncated food supply, flooded coasts, and unpredictable extreme weather patterns. Things that could ruin our economy, and throw the world into a moderate panic. Global warming concerns aren't about the Earth, it's about keeping the status quo.

By its very definition, it's the ultimate conservative platform.

And what everyone seems to forget is that North America was once covered by glaciers long before Man ever set foot on it. The Earth has been warming since before us and probably will warm well after us. Using less than 200 years out of billions to come up with some theory about what the "proper" temperature is smacks me as a bit crazy!

And then there's another thing that nobody talks about. Perhaps the Earth cannot support the billions of additional people we've packed on it in the past, oh, say 200 years.

Notice when the population started to spike? Notice any coincidences?

So why are we not talking about ways to reduce our population? Perhaps the Earth just can't support nearly 8 billion people we've crammed into it?

Or maybe we're in the midst of a cycle like they said in the 70's well before there was any money to be made in the global warming/carbon credit hysteria?

Or maybe the Sun's activity plays a large role in our climate?

It sure is easier to crank up taxes on something that we all need, use, and depend on. That's a great way to control people.

 

[chucker23n1]

And what everyone seems to forget is that North America was once covered by glaciers long before Man ever set foot on it. The Earth has been warming since before us and probably will warm well after us. Using less than 200 years out of billions to come up with some theory about what the "proper" temperature is smacks me as a bit crazy!

Good thing that's a strawman then, since climate change isn't about "a theory about the proper temperature".

 

[nt5672]

Good thing that's a strawman then, since climate change isn't about "a theory about the proper temperature".

Nope climate change is about money, pure and simple. 50 years ago people walked out of their 90 degree apartment with open windows and no air conditioning into a 95 degree summer day and it did not seem so bad, now they walk out of their 72 degree apartment fully air conditioned into a 96 degree summer day and the world is coming to an end. Somehow the world average temperature is up a couple of degrees and it represents the end, the temperature in your home can be off a couple of degrees and you never notice it. It seems to me that some common sense is sorely missing.

 

[oneMadRssn]

This was explained well to me at one point. Regardless of all these cause and effect arguments about proper temperature and scientific consensus, there is a simple way to look at it.

We can either (1) try to do something about the climate change that jeopardizes human life, or (2) not do anything about it at all. There are pros and cons to doing something about it, that will or will not materialize whether we act or not.

Pros -
- Expend resources to invent new technology. Even if earth's climate change cannot be undone, surely science and technology would benefit from the research.
- Possibly save human life.

Cons -
- High cost of combating climate change might lead to economic depression.
- Resources / investment that could have been spent on something else are spent on climate instead.

So we get the following 4-options:

(1)(a) try to do something about climate change, and it turns out to be the right thing to do.
- save human life, invent new technology through research, however it will come at a high cost and might temporarily set back the economy.

(1)(b) try to do something about climate change, and it turns out to be the wrong thing to do.
- invent new technology through research, however it will come at a high cost and might temporarily set back the economy, and would divert resources / investment from other projects.

(2)(a) not do anything at all, and it turns out global climate change was real and solvable
- humans die; drought and famine cause mass starvation, displacement, and refugees; economy ruined amid mass poverty.

(2)(b) not do anything at all, and it turns out global climate change wasn't real
- human life continues, we invest in other projects and research, economy keeps going as it's going now.

I think it's pretty obvious that option (2)(a) is the worst possible outcome. Option (2)(b) is good. Although option (1)(b) is kind of bad, it's not as bad as option (2)(a). Option (1)(a) is pretty good. I think this shows that going something about climate change (option (1) above), on balance, is the better option. Which is worse? Which is the greater risk? Option (2)(a), or option (1)(b)?

Regardless of whether you "believe" the science of not, the question you should be asking is this:
Am I willing to take the risk that it's real and we do nothing, when doing something about it and being wrong isn't that bad?

 

[ElectronGuru]

Am I the only one who has a problem with these climate change people going from "Global cooling" to "Global warming" to..... "Climate change"?? Like they couldn't figure it out, so they just say it just has to not stay the same every year and that's bad?

I'm furious too about warming -> change. It's running from a bully in the hopes he'll stop, which never works. Far better what gays did, pushing fag and queer back in their face, owning the words. But you'll need to explain global cooling(?)

And nice job attacking the messenger instead of the message!

And 16% is about 1/6 of the total. Not bad I'd say, and of course a good first step to prepare for bigger ones; even more so when it shows that technical companies care about the problem enough to put the money where their mouths are. So it nullifies one (more) excuse from the "doubters" – "bah, this can't be a big problem since no one is really doing anything".

Yeah, doesn't make sense to me either: 1) the problem is so big, 2) that relatively large changes made by our largest companies mean relatively little, 3) so it doesn't actually count, 4) so we should go on ignoring the problem. Genius!

Why are we treating the Earth like it's got a giant thermostat that needs to be set when no one seems to be able to tell us what the ideal temperature is for the planet?

Do you say that about the stock market too? Sorry, you can't tell what the ideal share price is so I'm not going to buy shares cause up is just a vague concept? Hint: its called a trend.

 

[AngerDanger]

Am I willing to take the risk that it's real and we do nothing, when doing something about it and being wrong isn't that bad?

It's essentially the climate change equivalent of Pascal's wager except feigned belief leads to potential innovation. I'm vaguely tempted to make cartesian chart now.

 

[Gasu E.]

Apple should stick to fixing their crap cloud services. Time to focus on what users want, not Obama's agenda. Gay rights and climate B.S. can wait until they stop sucking at software.

Sorry if you are so myopic that you see saving the Earth only as "Obama's agenda". But Apple's software quality and Apple's support for a sane climate policy are unrelated. Your attempt to tie them is just laziness on your part-- if you don't like the climate policy, make an argument against the climate policy. Clearly you couldn't bring yourself to make this effort.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Why are we treating the Earth like it's got a giant thermostat that needs to be set when no one seems to be able to tell us what the ideal temperature is for the planet?

Global warming is going to be a never ending suck of taxpayer dollars because no one has ever stated a clear goal as to what the temperature should be. All we know is that we're chasing this desire to cool off the planet and tons of money is being spent toward that end. How much do we need to try to cool the planet off? No one seems to agree about that or seems to know for sure. Meanwhile, billions upon billions of dollars are shoveled around to supposedly help try to cool the planet.

Fundamental principle #1 before throwing money at anything: have a clearly defined goal and a strategy on how to get there. These folks have all kinds of strategies for how to cool off the planet (supposedly); but no clearly defined end goal to let us know when we've arrived. Thus, they will continue funneling more and more of our money toward this nebulous goal with no end in sight. Wait until we find out 25 years from now that the vast majority of the money that was earmarked for global warming was actually spent on tons of other unrelated things.

Ok, how about we figure out how to stop warming before we figure out how "cool" it should be? That's the problem, we cannot stop what we've already started. If you and I were riding down a hill in a wagon and I said, "Oh crap, we are gaining speed and losing control - we need to slow down!"...your response would be, "Before we worry about slowing down, how about we figure out how slow we should be going?". Am I getting that right?

 

[Gasu E.]

All we know is that we're chasing this desire to cool off the planet and tons of money is being spent toward that end. How much do we need to try to cool the planet off?

Wrong: no one is spending a dime "to cool of the planet". The goal is to limit the amount that the planet gets hotter than it currently is. Do you not a problem if the Earth gets several degrees hotter on average than it currently is?

 

[Iconoclysm]

Nope climate change is about money, pure and simple. 50 years ago people walked out of their 90 degree apartment with open windows and no air conditioning into a 95 degree summer day and it did not seem so bad, now they walk out of their 72 degree apartment fully air conditioned into a 96 degree summer day and the world is coming to an end. Somehow the world average temperature is up a couple of degrees and it represents the end, the temperature in your home can be off a couple of degrees and you never notice it. It seems to me that some common sense is sorely missing.

Thanks for this, I had little idea that people like you assumed so much about how the rest of us think. Common sense is exactly your problem, you need to actually see the forest through the trees but your focus is your own back yard...just 100 years ago, common sense would have said something the size of an atom couldn't blow up an entire city. So much for that approach.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Wrong: no one is spending a dime "to cool of the planet". The goal is to limit the amount that the planet gets hotter than it currently is. Do you not a problem if the Earth gets several degrees hotter on average than it currently is?

It amazes me that these same people think we're spending too much money "cooling off the planet" when far more money is simply going into the pockets of the wealthiest people in America while barely being taxed. If you care about where money is going, why is THAT ok? It seems to me that spending money on renewable energy is employing people who spend that money rather than hoard it...which should stimulate the economy.

 

[FieldingMellish]

What caused the ice age to grow and recede when mankind wasn't around?

 

[FieldingMellish]

This was the same thing you said on the article about apple supporting the lgbt non-discrimination bill. Be more original.

Next will be, "we here go well."