Apple Reiterates Commitment to Obama Era Climate Pledge

[melendezest]

We can throw any data to climate change deniers to convince them, but that won't change their minds, because their opinion is grounded in believe, not in facts and science.

Is the Earth round? Yes
Do humans have their roots in evolution? Yes
Does climate change? Yes
Do humans have a cause in current climate change? Yes

If you don't accept any of the above, you are refuting science, you are denying facts for whatever reasons: politics, religion, greed, money, plain stupidity, etc (note that these reasons are NOT mutually exclusive ). And you're all in the same club: people who say no to science. While science is what makes us evolve as humans, it's what makes us understand the universe and lays the foundations for technology, medicine, and so much more in our modern world.

Don't want to accept that? Fine. But please don't hold the rest of us back while we try to move forward. Don't try to influence other people with your "smarts". Don't teach your kids these backward things. Or better: don't reproduce. And don't go and elect somebody that also refuses these same scientific facts.

So do your thing, create your own bubble, do whatever makes you happy, but don't stop the rest of us from moving forward as a society.

I agree with everything with the caveat that no one has actually observed evolution, thus it remains a theory. We can observe everything else on your list.

Also, I feel that Belief is an indispensable tool in the human experience and should not be dismissed outright. The "what" and more importantly "why" you believe "x" or "y" guides our every single interaction, from simple things like flicking a light switch (we believe it WILL turn the light on because you were told it would) to someone yelling out "you need to duck" and your life hanging in the balance from the decision to believe that individual or "go your own way".

Thus I believe that science as the foundation for personal philosophy is a mistake. A component, sure.

But science can only address the "how" of things. We humans, and our infinitely variable experiences and perceptions, are the ones that give that context and use it to answer "why".

That's how I see it, at least.

 

[_Refurbished_]

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.

I didn't realize fake news made it to the MacRumors forums.

Also you're assuming we'll need to mine for renewable energy in the future, which we won't.

 

[iReality85]

In general: Reconstructing climate of the Devonian, a period in Earth's history when it was much warmer than now. So this gives us great insights in how climate change may impact us.
Specific: Modelling stratigraphic uncertainty on spectral analyses of sediment.

It was always my understanding that climate scientists brought in and utilized data from a wide range of Earth-studies (geology, climatology, oceanography, etc), and who usually expertise in one or two fields themselves. So to know your perspective is interesting, thank you.

 

[hagar]

I agree with everything with the caveat that no one has actually observed evolution, thus it remains a theory. We can observe everything else on your list.

Also, I feel that Belief is an indispensable tool in the human experience and should not be dismissed outright. The "what" and more importantly "why" you believe "x" or "y" guides our every single interaction, from simple things like flicking a light switch (we believe it WILL turn the light on because you were told it would) to someone yelling out "you need to duck" and your life hanging in the balance from the decision to believe that individual or "go your own way".

Thus I believe that science as the foundation for personal philosophy is a mistake. A component, sure.

But science can only address the "how" of things. We humans, and our infinitely variable experiences and perceptions, are the ones that give that context and use it to answer "why".

That's how I see it, at least.

I agree, except that you state evolution remains a theory. Indeed, it cannot be observed in the obvious sense as a prehominid giving birth to a human. But it can be observed in fossils, genetics, behaviour studies, etc. There are for instance very compelling genetics studies that make a irrefutable case for evolution.

For instance, we can now observe the Earth is round from the international space station. The earliest photographic proof only came in the 1940's. But before that, we had to trust mathematicians and physicists. Scientific evidence can be very complex, and perhaps that's the real challenge of today. Explaining complex things to people.

 

[AxoNeuron]

The climate has been changing since the dawn of time and it's ludicrous to think humans have any impact on it.

Wow. That is astonishing.

CO2 is a well proven greenhouse gas. If you fill up a greenhouse with CO2 instead of normal atmosphere, the greenhouse will get hotter. This is not up for debate, it is a fact.

It amazes me that the self-esteem movement in this country has produced so many...special people....who think they know more about atmospheric science and climate than nearly all of the atmospheric scientists. You obviously don't know the first thing about how atmospheric physics/chemistry actually works. Do NOT pretend like you do.

It's interesting, to say the least, how closely global average temperature is correlated so precisely with atmospheric CO2 concentration.

I have personally worked on teams to create large, supercomputer models of the climate. Every single one of them has pretty accurately predicted what's been happening over the last 20 years. Increased powerful storms and hurricanes that occur less often, shifting ecosystems, an enormous concentration of warming at the north pole, and so on.

Oil companies have spent enormous sums of money on marketing teams and buying up so-called "scientists" to produce clever little videos to get Americans to doubt global climate change, and it has worked brilliantly. It's interesting, to say the least, that whenever you look at a professional "climate skeptic" like Richard Lindzen, Christopher Monckton, ad so on, you find that they always receive money from the oil/coal industry. Every single time. Today, even Exxon Mobil readily emits that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, yet their past behavior has convinced millions of people that the science is somehow wrong.

There IS big money on one side of this issue, hint hint, it's not on the side of the scientists.

 

[Sedulous]

The problem with stating "that is what atmospheric CO2 does" is that it totally discounts the variety of unique ways that the Earth regulates atmospheric CO2 that its neighboring planets don't. Including but not limited its proximity to the Sun, rotation, distinct seasons, large oceans and land masses which affect oceanic and atmospheric currents, and a biosphere.

Sure, the other planets don't have billions of humans and their industrial endeavors emitting CO2, but extreme geological processes and human CO2 emissions- even on our scale- are not even remotely equivalent.

Venus is the way it is because it has had runaway volcanism for billions of years, the result of its closer proximity to the Sun. As such, most of the CO2 in the Venusian atmosphere came from its mantle. While it's true the greenhouse effect will happen on Earth, it won't for many hundreds of millions, if not billions of years until the sun becomes hotter and expands. Not because of humans.

The atmosphere of Venus is 95% CO2.
The atmosphere of Earth is 0.04% CO2.

The "unique ways that the Earth regulates atmospheric CO2" sounds specious because it is. Atmospheric CO2 is atmospheric CO2 and clearly more is going into the atmosphere than nature can remove. It isn't the extremes that are of immediate concern, it is the fact that CO2 DOES trap heat. Every planet is going to have different quirks but the point is that there can be no question than atmospheric CO2 traps heat. The greenhouse effect is happening NOW and it is quantitatively measurable. The extreme outcome of runaway greenhouse effect is what you have on Venus.

 

[the8thark]

Tim Cook can be a democrat lobbyist on his own time. As CEO he should be putting Apple first and not his own political agenda. This is very disappointing from Tim Cook. Apple as a company deserve better.

If I was a major shareholder I would totally ask for a vote of no confidence in Tim Cook at the shareholder AGM unless Tim Cook wakes up and stops using Apple to further his own democrat political agena.
[doublepost=1490994027][/doublepost]

Cook doing his magic again for the greater good...

Greater good of who?
The greater good of Tim Cook, that's who.

Tim Cook should be the CEO of Apple on Apple's time. On his own time he be a democrat lobbyist as much as he wants. Tim Cook is abusing his position as Apple CEO to push forward his personal democrat agendas.

I am ok with Tim Cook doing this, I don't agree with it but Tim Cook is free to do this. I am however disappointed that Tim Cook is abusing his position as Apple CEO to lobby on behald of Apple.

 

[EightyTwenty]

Nobody cares about your stupid "official statements" regarding every damn thing the President does, Tim. If you want to be "green", then knock yourself out and be as "green" as you want. Nobody is stopping you.

P.S. Nice to see you are still using slave labor in China, extracting conflict minerals in Africa and co-operating with dictators to suppress and censor speech and expression worldwide. But keep lecturing us, Tim. We appreciate your morals and values.

 

[the8thark]

Nobody cares about your stupid "official statements" regarding every damn thing the President does, Tim. If you want to be "green", then knock yourself out and be as "green" as you want. Nobody is stopping you.

The left cares. They like bashing Trump without letting anything as important as facts get in the way fo their own propaganda.

 

[tshrimp]

I can't wait for the oil companies to be useless. Elon Musk is coming for you...

I hope so, but until we can easily go across the country with our vehicles, it is going to be hard to rid ourselves of fossil fuels. Not to mention the need for an affordable car, and the battery waste may be another issue.

Not sure you will get rid of oil companies. Oil is used for tires, plastics, etc. So no matter how much you may not like oil companies, they are needed.
[doublepost=1490996132][/doublepost]

Humans have MUCH less of an impact than you people are giving us *credit* for. Not even close. So you expect us to live in cardboard boxes by candle-light just so hundreds of years from now maybe it will make a difference? Nope. Not interested.

Climate change is simply a ploy to grab cash and power from people to give it to others. Its an agenda. Period. Get off my back.

When I taught school one of the kids did a presentation on the amount of pollution by one volcano eruption vs all the cars on the road. At that time (and I am older), it was something like 50 years from one eruption. I doubt we have all that much impact on climate change, but I am all for cleaner fuel for clean air. But not at the expense of a less then well thought out plan from Obama. Thanks for the repeal President Trump.

Edit: Now that we have the web there is even more/better updated info.
"Volcanically sourced pollution also has the potential to release as much carbon dioxide(CO₂) and sulphur dioxide(SO₂) during a single eruption than 250 years of anthropogenically produced pollution."

 

[star-affinity]

I'm neither for nor against (human caused) climate change, I think it's fine if people want to be green, but the temperature thing is interesting. According to the data, in the last 100 or more years the global temperature has risen 1C. Really that's it? That's what we are concerned about? That's what we are throwing billions of dollars towards?

https://www.skepticalscience.com/few-degrees-global-warming.htm
[doublepost=1490996418][/doublepost]

When I taught school one of the kids did a presentation on the amount of pollution by one volcano eruption vs all the cars on the road. At that time (and I am older), it was something like 50 years from one eruption. I doubt we have all that much impact on climate change, but I am all for cleaner fuel for clean air.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm
[doublepost=1490996802][/doublepost]

I agree with everything with the caveat that no one has actually observed evolution, thus it remains a theory. We can observe everything else on your list.

It's a ”scientific theory”, so not ”just a theory” in the sense some seem to think.

And evolution has been observed:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/evolution-watching-speciation-occur-observations/

 

[tgara]

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.

Sorry, but if you're a climate scientist, then I don't believe anything you say. Nothing against you personally, but the whole discipline of climate science has been poisoned by Michael Mann, the clowns at East Anglia, and the IPCC. You should be deathly worried about that because nobody believes anything they say anymore. A group of crackpots have ruined the entire field. The fraudulent research, the collusion on peer reviewed papers and grants, the dishonest Nobel Prizes, and the sham data they use have really discredited the entire field of climate science. Top it all off with idiots like Michael Mann suing people who disagree and challenge his views, and it's easy to see why the public is very skeptical of anything coming from climate scientists.

Again, nothing against you personally, but climate scientists are about as believable as used car salesmen.

 

[star-affinity]

The cool thing about science is that it's pretty much never settled. Isn't that what makes it interesting?

Yes, it's one of the great things about science, but that doesn't mean scientific findings are fluctuating back and forth as if all the conclusions made at a certain point are invalid every decade or so. Or what do you mean?
[doublepost=1490998890][/doublepost]

Sorry, but if you're a climate scientist, then I don't believe anything you say. Nothing against you personally, but the whole discipline of climate science has been poisoned by Michael Mann, the clowns at East Anglia, and the IPCC. You should be deathly worried about that because nobody believes anything they say anymore. A group of crackpots have ruined the entire field. The fraudulent research, the collusion on peer reviewed papers and grants, the dishonest Nobel Prizes, and the sham data they use have really discredited the entire field of climate science. Top it all off with idiots like Michael Mann suing people who disagree and challenge his views, and it's easy to see why the public is very skeptical of anything coming from climate scientists.

Again, nothing against you personally, but climate scientists are about as believable as used car salesmen.

Even if what you claim would be true (which I don't think it is) don't you think you're taking it a bit too far when you discredit the whole field? And maybe read these on the topic of your claims:

https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked-intermediate.htm
https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic-scientists-ipcc.htm
https://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline.htm

 

[tshrimp]

https://www.skepticalscience.com/few-degrees-global-warming.htm
[doublepost=1490996418][/doublepost]

https://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm
[doublepost=1490996802][/doublepost]

It's a ”scientific theory”, so not ”just a theory” in the sense some seem to think.

And evolution has been observed:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/evolution-watching-speciation-occur-observations/

Interesting they say "No science states this", however, the student collected all of his information from known scientific sources. This was all pre-internet, when the students had to go to the library, so opinion or politics were much more rare within the research like you run into these days.

Edit: Never mind. I just did a lookup on the validity of skeptical science website, and it appears it is not a legit source for science itself. Thanks though.

http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/03/truth-about-skeptical-science.html

"Skeptical Science is a climate alarmist website created by a self-employed cartoonist, John Cook (who apparently pretends to be a Nazi). It is moderated by zealots who ruthlessly censor any and all form of dissent from their alarmist position."

 

[citizenzen]

Sorry, but if you're a climate scientist, then I don't believe anything you say. Nothing against you personally, but the whole discipline of climate science has been poisoned by Michael Mann, the clowns at East Anglia, and the IPCC. You should be deathly worried about that because nobody believes anything they say anymore. A group of crackpots have ruined the entire field. The fraudulent research, the collusion on peer reviewed papers and grants, the dishonest Nobel Prizes, and the sham data they use have really discredited the entire field of climate science. Top it all off with idiots like Michael Mann suing people who disagree and challenge his views, and it's easy to see why the public is very skeptical of anything coming from climate scientists.

Again, nothing against you personally, but climate scientists are about as believable as used car salesmen.

Wow. So that's the level that you work on, where the crackpots determine your perception of an entire field?

If I'm not mistaken, you're a lawyer. So since there are crackpots in that field, you're now "about as believable as used car salesmen."

And you're a conservative, so since there are crackpots in the conservative movement, conservatives are "about as believable as used car salesmen."

Do you see the problem with your logic? Nothing against you personally, but it's the most ignorant thing I've read in a long time.

 

[Jvanleuvan]

Of course, scientists can lie just like anybody else. And independent science is crucial to be credible. But we still have something called the scientific process that forces scientists to back their claims (something politicians don't do) and they are called out when their claims are incorrect. Scientists work independently of each other and verify or refute each others research all the time. And guess what: it's all pointing in the same direction. The current changes cannot be explained by natural causes alone. There is human factor. Period.

The problem is that we, scientists are passed that point. We don't discuss this even more. It's a given. But somehow, society hasn't followed us. And that's a huge issue. And I'm not sure how we can address this, but we are loosing valuable time while figuring this out.

I am actually very interested in asking you (a client scientist) some questions: I am not a client scientist, but I have read up on this subject quite a bit, and one aspect that seems missing is a real quantification of the possible negative effects and an estimate of our ability to mitigate these effects as compared to the costs involved with our mitigation efforts...

What I mean is:
1) I believe you that some of climate change is man-made, but I believe you will agree that some is natural, as the arctic ice cores show we have been in a temperature up-swing for a few thousand years.

2) We shouldn't necessarily care about climate change by itself but instead care about any negative effects of climate change.

3) We still don't seem to have a good prediction of the expected negative effects that climate change will bring about, and even more so, we are gravely missing a reasonable prediction of which of these negative effects can reasonably be mitigated and at what cost.

what I am getting at is; as far as I have heard (in my non-expert experience) we don't have any good guesses about how much we could reasonably mitigate climate change even if dumped significant resources into it.
Lets say, that we have a government fully behind fighting climate change, how much resources could we reasonably divert to this cause, and would that make much of a difference? The best answer from the scientific community seems to be "we don't know". It is hard to spend money on "we don't know"

Perhaps those resources are better spent, not on a vein attempt to stop what might be unstoppable, and instead spent in preparing for the inevitable outcome to minimize damage. (i.e. like any other disaster; we don't vainly try and stop an earthquake or hurricane, but instead prepare and protect people and property the best we can.)

I would love to hear your answer to this.

Thanks

 

[citizenzen]

What I mean is:
1) I believe you that some of climate change is man-made, but I believe you will agree that some is natural, as the arctic ice cores show we have been in a temperature up-swing for a few thousand years.

This requires a source. Thank you.

2) We shouldn't necessarily care about climate change by itself but instead care about any negative effects of climate change.

The concerns over climate change are based on negative effects. If the only effect was that it would make the planet more comfortable, everyone would actually be celebrating.

3) We still don't seem to have a good prediction of the expected negative effects that climate change will bring about, and even more so, we are gravely missing a reasonable prediction of which of these negative effects can reasonably be mitigated and at what cost.

This is the second phase of the global warming debate, and the one that I think will be the most interesting. Unfortunately, we're still mired in trying to convince people (most importantly, our leaders) that the phenomenon is actually occurring and largely due to humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

 

[CrashX]

Yes, it's one of the great things about science, but that doesn't mean scientific findings are fluctuating back and forth as if all the conclusions made at a certain point are invalid every decade or so. Or what do you mean?

Deleting my longer response Gotta run - carbon dating tonight with a hottie named Lucy. Oh yeah - she's primal. Grrrrrowl.

 

[tomwvr]

How did the coral survive when the earths temperature was 3 or 4 degrees higher than it was right now for longer periods?



Source? Not that I don't believe you, I have seen that antarctic ice is growing.



"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



– Dr. Richard Lindzen, atmospheric physicist, MIT professor emeritus, and lead author of the “Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks” chapter of the 2001 IPCC report
[doublepost=1490984929][/doublepost]

Yet people will ignore biological science for their beliefs when asked when human life begins or when they pretend that a man is really a woman.

What about when they ignore economic science when they try push Socialism as a good idea?

The Climate change movement is where all the communist went when the Soviet Union Collapsed. Use what ever means they can to destroy capitalism. But they don't get that they need capitalism to provide all these awesome devices we have today....

 

[Septembersrain]

Yet they keep their factories in a country with one of, if not the most, pollution to save a dollar.

Great.

 

[doelcm82]

Nobody cares about your stupid "official statements" regarding every damn thing the President does, Tim. If you want to be "green", then knock yourself out and be as "green" as you want. Nobody is stopping you.

The left cares. They like bashing Trump without letting anything as important as facts get in the way fo their own propaganda.

Yes the left cares. And you. You and the left.

 

[Jvanleuvan]

This requires a source. Thank you.

British Antarctic survey :
https://www.bas.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/003.jpg

The concerns over climate change are based on negative effects. If the only effect was that it would make the planet more comfortable, everyone would actually be celebrating.

Yes, but we need specifics, i.e. how much sea level rise, and, more importantly, how much can we reduce that rise if we, say, mandated 30% of all automobiles be electric by 2021, etc... That is what is missing from most of the "green" proposals.

 

[ptb42]

Sorry, but if you're a climate scientist, then I don't believe anything you say. Nothing against you personally, but the whole discipline of climate science has been poisoned by Michael Mann, the clowns at East Anglia, and the IPCC. You should be deathly worried about that because nobody believes anything they say anymore. A group of crackpots have ruined the entire field. The fraudulent research, the collusion on peer reviewed papers and grants, the dishonest Nobel Prizes, and the sham data they use have really discredited the entire field of climate science. Top it all off with idiots like Michael Mann suing people who disagree and challenge his views, and it's easy to see why the public is very skeptical of anything coming from climate scientists.

Again, nothing against you personally, but climate scientists are about as believable as used car salesmen.

https://www.amazon.com/22A-Disgrace-Profession-22-Steyn-editor/dp/0986398330/

A Disgrace to the Profession

The "hockey stick" graph of global temperatures is the single most influential icon in the global-warming debate, promoted by the UN's transnational climate bureaucracy, featured in Al Gore's Oscar-winning movie, used by governments around the world to sell the Kyoto Accord to their citizens, and shown to impressionable schoolchildren from kindergarten to graduation.

And yet what it purports to "prove" is disputed and denied by many of the world's most eminent scientists. In this riveting book, Mark Steyn has compiled the thoughts of the world's scientists, in their own words, on hockey-stick creator Michael E Mann, his stick and their damage to science. From Canada to Finland, Scotland to China, Belgium to New Zealand, from venerable Nobel Laureates to energetic young researchers on all sides of the debate analyze the hockey stock and the wider climate wars it helped launch.

Steyn is hardly apolitical. But, his compilation of statements were made by other scientists, including ones that believe in man-made climate change.

However, you should be careful what you post. Michael Mann has sued Steyn and a number of others for defamation. In December, the DC Court of Appeals allowed the suit to proceed, against a subset of the defendants.

[Edit: I see that you already mentioned it, and I missed it during my first read. However, I added some recent news regarding the lawsuit]

 

[tomwvr]

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

So why is Tim Cook working with Kushner then? Apparently he had an iMac that booted into Windows as a desktop system.

Sounds far too douchy for someone I'd want to pee on if they were on fire. Just saying...