Apple Reiterates Commitment to Obama Era Climate Pledge

[djlythium]

Remember the threat of acid rain in the 80's? What happened to that "scientific" prediction?

It. Came. True.

https://www.epa.gov/acidrain
[doublepost=1490964050][/doublepost]Part of the reason I like Apple.

 

[hagar]

I understand the science and how much scientists don't know. Thinking otherwise would mean there are no more scientific discoveries. A good question would be how accurate are the models in predicting the future? I haven't seen any that hold up very long.

The climate is indeed very complex and we don't understand all of it yet. That's why we have developed, and are refining, multiple models all the time. There are best-case, worst-case and in-between cases. The climate does follow these models but the further we look in to the future the more unpredictable they get. There is evidence that we are heading to the worst-case scenario of the IPCC.

If the US were to stop all CO2 emissions, how much would the temperature decline?

You're asking the wrong question. It should be: would the Earth's global mean temperature rise less if we lower CO2 emissions. The answer is yes. In 2016 we passed the 400ppm CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, essentially the highest level in the last 800.000 years. Thanks to the industrial revolution (before it was around 280ppm). It's the expectation the CO2 concentration will continue to rise due to fossil burning.

In the mean time, other countries that have a higher CO2 impact continue to improve their economy while ours declines with the higher costs.

The US is the second biggest emitter of CO2 in the world, so there are not a lot of countries you should look at. Only China is even higher, but they are rapidly switching to a greener economy and could leave the US in the dust in terms of knowledge, innovation, sustainability and clean power. While the US is trying to bring coal back. See how ridiculous this sounds?

 

[CrashX]

And the forecast for tomorrow is...

Usually wrong. Meanwhile, my dog is never wrong when a thunderstorm is headed our way. Does he get an honorary doctorate?

I'm a climate scientist. If you don't believe what me and my colleagues have been warning about for 20+ years, that's fine. But if policy makers or the president don't want to believe it because it doesn't fit their agenda, we do have a problem. Science is not political. It's just science. Facts.

The biggest argument for climate change deniers is that climate has been changing since the dawn of time. Guess how they know that? Yes, us climate scientists. But if those same scientists notice there's something wrong, suddenly they don't believe it. Hypocritical no?

How ignorant can you be to think we don't have an impact on our planet. We destroy complete ecosystems, wipe animal and plant species of the face of the earth, cut down forests at an alarming rate, pollute rivers and the air, ... we know that land use changes such as urbanisation and agriculture have a big impact on weather and rain patterns, even thousands kilometres away, ... But the climate? That's where you draw the line? That's the one magical thing on our fragile Earth we can't impact?

Well, the impact is there, and it's huge. The last decades we had a dampening effect of climate change because there are all these buffers, like trapping heath in the oceans, but these buffers are getting full. That combined with many powerful feedback loops, i.e. melting of ice, thawing of permafrost, to name a few, will re-enforce what we have been seeing this last years. And that is a rise in global temperature and more unstable, extreme weather.

Now, even if you still don't "believe" that (and I hate to use that word in the context of science), I assume you do realise that climate change (natural or man made) will have huge impacts on the planet and our lives? So even if the current White House administration doesn't want to address the causes, why is it also ignoring the consequences? Ignoring scientific facts and thus jeopardizing the future of our planet, is criminal. There's no other word for it.

 

[elvislives]

only 3 year and 9 months left for this Idiot. Lets hope the is a world left

 

[NT1440]

And the forecast for tomorrow is...

Usually wrong. Meanwhile, my dog is never wrong when a thunderstorm is headed our way. Does he get an honorary doctorate?

Your dog may be able to grasp the difference between local weather and global climate, which apparently can't be said for you....

 

[2010mini]

Oil isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The hypocrisy of these companies is amazing. Without oil and petrochemicals, their business lines would cease to exist in no time. Oil is used in everything from the mining of raw materials, to manufacturing and processing of their products to shipping. And this whole thing about using renewables is just virtue signalling. Their efforts will have zero impact on global warming, or climate change, or whatever they call it these days. The climate has been changing since the dawn of time and it's ludicrous to think humans have any impact on it. CO2 is plant food, not pollution. I'm all for clean air, water and land, but this green religion called climate change is nothing but a sham.

So you disagree with scientists on both sides of the political spectrum then? The consensus is humans have added a great deal to the natural climate change cycle.

CO2 is plant food yes..... but have you taken into account the rate at which humans have deforest the planet while adding to the planet's natural CO2 production?

You are correct in your opinion on renewable energy being turned into a crusade. It should never have been about 'saving the planet' (we are about 30 years too late for that) but it should be about the next evolution in energy technology. We have been stagnant in that regards especially when it comes to automobiles. The internal combustion engine has been around for what....100 years???? But cars today get the same MPG or worst in some cases as their predecessors? Compare that to other areas of technology.

It's time to start moving towards the next energy technology. Why are we holding back???

 

[smallcoffee]

And the forecast for tomorrow is...

Usually wrong. Meanwhile, my dog is never wrong when a thunderstorm is headed our way. Does he get an honorary doctorate?

Lol. Local weather is ridiculously complex, and, well, in case you didn't know stuff like blows around in the atmosphere? You know, like the wind?

Denying climate change is almost as nonsensical as saying the earth is flat or something like that. It's a fact.

And no, your dog can sense a storm and that's normal. Just like you can smell the rain before a storm, and carrier pigeons can be trained to follow patterns in the earth's magnetic field.

 

[arggg14]

No. I don't need a climate scientist to tell me that winters and summers have gradually changed, I can see that myself. Also whilst I’m not calling you a liar, climate scientists are capable of lying just like the rest of us. Just because a group of you say it is so, doesn't mean it is. Research is a funny thing and often times those funding it often push for particular results so the result is not objective and all encompassing.

They publish their findings in scientific journals for goodness sake. Math and data doesn't lie.

 

[mytdave]

Oh, you mean the most destructive environmental policy in the history of the world, that one? Fools. How about making some actual computers for a change?

Their "commitment" isn't altruistic folks, they have a vested financial interest in ensuring the proliferation of "green" technologies - they make billions of dollars on it.

Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with solar panels and other tech (tech that is actually effective) to generate energy. The problem is the devastating Obama policies that contributed to the longest recession in the history of the country, and the demise of millions of jobs.

Oh, and by the way, "fossil" fuels are a natural product (duh), and we (U.S.) both have and use tech to consume them cleanly. And man-made "global warming" is the biggest fraud ever perpetuated against the world. It's not about environment at all, it's about political power and redistribution of wealth.

 

[H2SO4]

They publish their findings in scientific journals for goodness sake. Math and data doesn't lie.

If you think that things can't be presented in the right way and hiding the right things when business and politicians need them to you’re crazy.
We all justify things to ourselves in a way that suits each of us and our lifestyles. Guess what, that 2 litre car you’re driving, why not make it a 1 litre? That petrol engine, how about going electric, (that’s right - endure a little hardship and big loan and some inconvenience to get it)?
Turn the heating down and put a jumper on in the winter. Get a little sweaty and turn off the air con in the summer.

 

[justperry]

Remember the threat of acid rain in the 80's? What happened to that "scientific" prediction?

Excuse me but that happened in places.
We, in the south of the Netherlands had acid rain here, trees were losing their leaves, air quality was bad, main cause was burning coal. And most was from "Ruhrgebied" in Germany.

 

[Starflyer]

The science is SETTLED you guys!

"It was the narrative from the beginning. In 1998, [NASA’s James] Hansen made some vague remarks. Newsweek ran a cover that says all scientists agree. Now they never really tell you what they agree on. It is propaganda.”

“So all scientists agree it’s probably warmer now than it was at the end of the Little Ice Age. Almost all Scientists agree that if you add CO2 you will have some warming. Maybe very little warming. But it is propaganda to translate that into it is dangerous and we must reduce CO2 etc.

If you can make an ambiguous remark and you have people who will amplify it ‘they said it not me’ and he response of the political system is to increase your funding, what’s not to like?

If I look through my department, at least half of them keep mum. Just keep on doing your work, trying to figure out how it works.

MIT ‘has just announced that they see this bringing in $300 million bucks. It will support all sorts of things.’"

– Dr. Richard Lindzen, atmospheric physicist, MIT professor emeritus, and lead author of the “Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks” chapter of the 2001 IPCC report

"To be part of the “consensus” one need only agree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human activities have warmed the planet “to some unspecified extent” — both of which are uncontroversial points.

“Almost everybody involved in the climate debate, including the majority of sceptics, accepts these propositions, so little can be learned from the Cook et al. paper,” writes Montford. “The extent to which the warming in the last two decades of the twentieth century was man-made and the likely extent of any future warming remain highly contentious scientific issues.”

http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/09/Montford-Consensus.pdf

"Professor Judith Curry, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and president of the Climate Forecast Applications Network, said yesterday: ‘I disagree with Gavin. The record warm years of 2015 and 2016 were primarily caused by the super El Nino.’

The slowdown in warming was, she added, real, and all the evidence suggested that since 1998, the rate of global warming has been much slower than predicted by computer models – about 1C per century."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...atures-suggesting-rise-not-man-emissions.html

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-sheds-new-insights-into-global-warming-trends

"Eight years after the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of mass starvation from global warming caused by high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), emissions of the greenhouse gas are at record levels. But so is worldwide crop production.

However, according to a report also released in November by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, “world cereal production in 2014 is forecast at a new record of 2,532 million tonnes… 7 million tonnes (0.3 percent) above last year’s peak.” That includes a record level of wheat production worldwide, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture."

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...es-record-breaking-crop-yields-greening-globe

 

[Spectrum]

Oil isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The hypocrisy of these companies is amazing. Without oil and petrochemicals, their business lines would cease to exist in no time. Oil is used in everything from the mining of raw materials, to manufacturing and processing of their products to shipping. And this whole thing about using renewables is just virtue signalling. Their efforts will have zero impact on global warming, or climate change, or whatever they call it these days. The climate has been changing since the dawn of time and it's ludicrous to think humans have any impact on it. CO2 is plant food, not pollution. I'm all for clean air, water and land, but this green religion called climate change is nothing but a sham.

The environment is certainly changing, but the correlation of increases in atmospheric CO2 levels and the recent industrialisation of the globe is hard to ignore as not being direct evidence and causal.
Look here:
https://climate.nasa.gov/system/charts/15_co2_left_061316.gif

 

[hagar]

And the forecast for tomorrow is... Usually wrong. Meanwhile, my dog is never wrong when a thunderstorm is headed our way. Does he get an honorary doctorate?

You and your dog are talking about the weather. Not the climate. Two completely different things. If your dog can forecast the weather, he should be a meteorologist. Again, something completely different than a climate scientist.

Educate yourself before forming an opinion. And listen to your dog when he's barking: he's saying "Don't **** where you live. We only have one planet."

 

[sers]

The climate has been changing at a far, far higher rate than it ever has before. The fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas is a fact of fundamental physics. And the huge increases in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases are forcing global temperatures to rise (in most places), and increases in extreme weather (very hot / cold / wet / dry). These are things that we have literally and unambiguously observed. Extensive research has proved beyond all reasonable doubt that: (a) humans are responsible for the huge increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases in the past 200 years, and (b) that these gases are driving climate change.

I'm sorry if you have been lied to, or if you find it convenient to wilfully disbelieve the scientific consensus. But that doesn't make the threat of climate change any less real.

I'm not denying that the climate isn't changing, but I don't believe human activity is the ultimate cause of it all. My concerns around the whole global warming thing is 2 fold. First, the dire predictions by people like Gore and Suzuki that claim hurricanes will become more frequent and intense (they're not), that the polar ice caps would be melted by now (they haven't), that the sea is rising and coastal communities would be under water (they aren't), that global temperatures are rising (they haven't according to the UN's climate report) all make it sound suspect and exactly like the mini ice age, ozone layer and acid rains scares of the past. Also, people like Gore and Suzuki are the ultimate hypocrites when it comes to this stuff - live (or at least make some attempt at living) like you believe climate change is happening or don't talk about it at all and stop making your millions off it. There are other factors that can cause climate fluctuations like solar and volcanic activity that seem to get ignored.

Secondly, this green religion is having actual and serious impacts on people's lives where I live. I live in Ontario, Canada, and the provincial government has, for the last decade, been hell bent on closing all our coal fired plants which produced cheap electricity, to signing lucrative 20 (now 30) year contracts with wind and solar companies to produce so called "green" energy. Since building wind and solar farms in uneconomical, wind and solar producers get above market rates for electricity that are heavily, and I mean heavily, subsidized by the electricity customers of this province. Instead of the market rate of 8 cents per kwh, they are guaranteed rates as high as 20 cents per kwh, just to make their investments viable. Furthermore, because the province closed all coal plants, and since wind and solar is unreliable, they had to build natural gas plants to supplement the wind and solar when they aren't working (because surprise the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine!). To add insult to injury, the contracts state that we have to buy power from wind and solar producers first, even if we don't need it. We then end up selling excess power to the US, sometimes paying them to take our power because our system can't store it. The results have been catastrophic for our economy, people's lives and the environment. Job losses have been staggering, manufacturing has all but left (over 300,000 jobs gone), our provincial debt is over $300 billion, Ontario is the most indebted sub-sovereign government in the world (on a per capita basis, Ontarians owe more per person than California, with 1/3 the population), windmills are installed on farm land whether farmers like it or not and they dot the landscape and kill thousands of birds and bats a year. Also, people's electricity bills have become so expensive, they are having to choose between heating their homes or feeding their families. This is the real impact of the climate change agenda and is a dire warning for every other government going down this path. To add even more insult to injury, wind and solar only make up about 5% of the entire power supply - the other comes from hydro, nuclear and gas. Regarding the 30 year contracts I mentioned above, the government realized that bills were getting too high, so they renegotiated the contracts from 20 to 30 years to spread the pain over a longer period of time. They gave us a 25% discount on our bills, at a cost of $2billion. So the taxpayer is subsidizing their own discount. It's just insane here.

One could argue that this is the result of government mismanagement, and it is, but it clearly shows that this green technology is not yet viable or economical on a large scale. And this isn't only happening in Ontario - look to Europe for other examples.

I draw the line when people start to suffer. This is the 21st century for God's sake, not the middle ages.

 

[citysnaps]

"We" know climate change is happening. But the US government knows it's a Chinese hoax, and that's the truth.

Not the United States Navy. From their research they believe it's a significant threat and will directly affect their long-term operations and the ability to conduct their mission. They are dealing with real consequences and outcomes.

As opposed to certain politicians/political parties who have no tangible consequences to deal with other than satisfying views and agendas of their base.

 

[TonyC28]

So a company doing the right thing without a government regulation telling them they have to? I'm good with that.

 

[Starflyer]

Nobody wants you to live in a cardboard box. Don't be a drama queen. It's the president that wants us to move back in time, back to the coal era. But instead, we need to move forward. And urgently switch to clean power.

So you support Fracking and Nuclear?

Carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. are at their lowest level in 20 years. It’s not because of wind or solar power.

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...ns_are_at_the_lowest_levels_in_20_years_.html

 

[macpro2000]

Amazing Apple can make the amazing products they do but not smart enough to understand that global warming is a complete hoax. Amazing.

 

[mkeeley]

only 3 year and 9 months left for this Idiot. Lets hope the is a world left

How do you know when Cook's leaving?

 

[Born Again]

I'm shocked that attitude towards climate change is even considered "political". We know climate change is happening. We know oil is finite and will run out in the next 200 years or so. America could be generations ahead of the curve if it seriously invested in renewable energy.

Surly even Trump would like this - America would look clean and modern. There's the potential for job creation. There's the potential to make a ton of money by selling the oil America would no longer need, and later on the technology so the rest of the world can transition to renewable energy.

I don't understand the current decision, unless Trump really is thinking super short term.

Trump is simply a danger to the world.

 

[Supermacguy]

People, calm down and get off the hyperbole train! Even if Musk "succeeds" and turns the car industry to electric etc, sure oil will still be an industry; it just won't power a majority of consumer vehicles. It will still be used for creating plastics and composites. So don't go off the deep end with the slippery slope arguments. Just look at wood for a good example- previously used to heat almost every home in the 1600-1800s, now it's just for 'fancy fireplaces' for the most part. People heat and cool the home with mostly electricity.

To the people that think climate change is fake or overblown. Fact: sure "the climate has changed over millions of years" - the issue is HOW FAST that change happens. Naturally, a 5 degree swing occurs over 10s of thousands of years or more, and all life adapts gradually. But nature cannot change 5 degrees in 100 years and adapt. And the problem isn't "the environment" per se, it's that if the climate changes *and can't sustain human life* because food plants die, pollinators die, favorable food plant growing seasons change, then we die. The earth will exist long after we're gone - BUT - do you want humans to live? Do you want humanity to prosper; or be like an apocalyptic novel where people have to scrounge for every morsel of food and fend of other violent gangs?

 

[nwcs]

Sadly, it shouldn't require a law/pact/regulation for both companies and people to do better to protect the environment and practice responsible stewardship over the planet's resources. It shouldn't even be a political point but a common sense point.

 

[hagar]

So you support Fracking and Nuclear?

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...ns_are_at_the_lowest_levels_in_20_years_.html

No. and No.
Any source that claims fracking is the best green-energy source, is a joke.

 

[SactoGuy18]

They better justify it given the massive amount of solar panels being installed at just about every building at Apple Park--and they're still not finished with the solar power installation at the main building (I believe the panel installation is just about complete at every other building).