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Why is everybody so worried about carbon? If your company is emitting soot, graphite and diamonds, I can't see what the problem is. No... carbon and carbon dioxide are not the same thing.
 
Meanwhile
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The phrase "carbon neutral" is such a handy bit of greenwashing. Basically, you manufacture millions devices at a massive carbon cost, plant a bunch of trees or invest in wind farms, and act like nothing happened.

Obviously, it's good from a human survival standpoint to offset carbon emissions, but I think in a marketing context like this, "carbon neutral" is being used cynically as a way to ease environmentally-conscious consumers' concerns about buying products that have (as this report confirms) substantial impact on the environment.
 
If Apple truly wanted to be environment friendly they should pause their annual release of their products..not removing chargers so that they can force you to buy magsafe or usb-a power bricks...
I don't think it's all or nothing. They could make products more easily repairable and upgradable and that would extend their usable lifecycles. But once you start gluing things together, soldering in RAM and quite purposefully neglecting to put a microSD slot into your iPhones, you're just creating planned obsolescence.

And then there are products like AirPods, which basically have a countdown timer (in the form of a lithium battery) ticking down to when they're quite literally landfill.

Can you imagine if your car had a sealed hood and had to be upgraded to a new model as soon as things started going wrong? We wouldn't accept that, but we accept that every electronic device Apple sells is basically a sealed unit that only Apple can repair.
 
Your headline seems deliberately misleading. All the report is saying is that you can use ppm measurements to gauge level of industrial activity, not that there is some unhealthy, or even unusual, spike in pollution due to Apple's presence. Water is wet, running equipment requires more energy, no duh. The headline should read, "Analysts' air-quality analysis of Chinese cities suggests higher-than-expected demand for iPhone 12" or something like that.
 
Katy, Katy, Katy, isn’t everybody ramping up there after coming off covid lockdowns and global demand increases and Black Friday to Christmas production takes off?
 
Seems like a pretty far reach to link a rise in air pollution to the “demand for iPhone 12”
 
I noticed a black cat walking across the street and then I tripped and stumbled.

Conclusion: Black cats cause falls
 
Honestly, this is about one of the stupidest stories I’ve ever read.
I also went to get groceries last week. When the smog rolls in we can blame that. An iPhone production isn’t going to make that kind of impact. Contribute? Perhaps. But it’s gonna be minor.
 
What a clickbait bunch of ****. Zhengzhou is a MAJOR manufacturing hub that makes everything from iPhones to cars. There’s also a massive ramp up of gaming console manufacturer if happening right now for the holiday season.
 
Amazing all this vitriol for one of the best companies on environmental and ethical concerns. Of course, they are not perfect, but their efforts to care and effect positive change are top-tier. If Apple suddenly became the low bar with every other company beating them, we might actually have a clean, sustainable environment, and decent working conditions for employees.

BTW: Who was clamoring for all this outsourcing in the 80's and 90's? I was against it then for the simple reason that environmental, safety, working conditions, pay and retirement were not addressed to even a minimum international standard.
Do Apple's "ethical" concerns extend to the forced/slave labor the Chinese use? Do their concerns extend to the lack of diversity Apple has in their executive board?
 
Please, don't be dumb.🤨 Removing the power adaptet IS environmet friendly. Just think a for a moment (especially in long term).
How about those AirPods once the batteries give out? (And can't be replaced). Not too environmentally friendly, are they?
 
Great, more ignorant false facts Apple haters will spew out. Even thought there's no science in this hack job study.
I would actually be ok with everyone moving to a 2 year release cycle. It will never happen but it would make sense to consumers.
What would that accomplish. People don't stop buying iPhones after its release, they buy them all year long. I guess by your logic, they should cancel Christmas as there's a spike in iPhone sales during that time as well. Idiot haters.
 
The purpose of the air quality study was to determine whether there has been a production increase attributable to the iPhone 12 models, not to establish some sort of casual link between manufacturing and harm to the environment.

they are saying iPhone production is linked to pollution.

I get what you’re saying. The pollution could be a surrogate for production/demand.
 
Please, don't be dumb.🤨 Removing the power adaptet IS environmet friendly. Just think a for a moment (especially in long term).
Yeah, and so is going to a system where new iPhones are released every 2 years. You would see more noticeable gains in hardware and they could stick to software upgrades annually. Now, just think for a moment what that would do for the environment...short term AND long term.
 
Not really, no. People are now looking to buy MagSafe chargers. So Apple is going to make money on chargers, and leave the ones that people already have redundant - the chargers that were in use before MagSafe. And chargers are not something that are just lying around uselessly, at least where I am from. Every single charger and EarPods in my house is in active use, and there is no redundancy and no boxful anywhere. Apple removing chargers and EarPods is more a commentary on the people that buy their devices and on Apple's greed, not about Apple saving the planet.
The environmental savings from the charger not being in the box is that they can now fit twice as many iPhones in a shipping container, or on a plane. That means half the pollution for shipping, which when they ship millions of devices a year, is a lot less pollution. This also saves Apple a lot in shipping, its ok to have 2 reasons to do something, environment and more profits.
And the new phones still charge using the old bricks and charging cables. No one is being forced to buy new chargers.
 
Yeah, and so is going to a system where new iPhones are released every 2 years. You would see more noticeable gains in hardware and they could stick to software upgrades annually. Now, just think for a moment what that would do for the environment...short term AND long term.
You’re calling for the end of capitalism, which I agree with, but good look getting quarterly bloodsuckers to approve a change in a business that is essentially printing money at this point
 
Yeah, and so is going to a system where new iPhones are released every 2 years. You would see more noticeable gains in hardware and they could stick to software upgrades annually. Now, just think for a moment what that would do for the environment...short term AND long term.
And let's not stop there. Cars, TVs, refrigerators. Imagine if money wasn't poured into R&D, but spent on improving the products' software and/or firmware. /s

But that will never fly...
 
You’re calling for the end of capitalism, which I agree with, but good look getting quarterly bloodsuckers to approve a change in a business that is essentially printing money at this point
You agree with an end to capitalism? That is pretty rich for someone who posts as often as you do about everything from the latest/greatest iPhone to luxury cars.


As for the Article, I also call bull. My wife is from Henan province, and I've been to ZhengZhou (CGO) MANY times in the past 20 years. There has always been massive amounts of air pollution, mainly due to the huge amount of heavy industry. I doubt seriously that an assembly plant would have a meaningful impact on that. Not to mention that for many years there have been large numbers of private apartments and homes (in towns and villages) in the greater ZhengZhou area that are still heated using coal.
 
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