Apple flounces out of US Chamber on greenhouse gases
Cult on climate change
Apple has resigned from the US Chamber of Commerce due to the American business organization's criticism of efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
"Apple is committed to protecting the environment and the communities in which we operate around the world," reads a letter to Chamber president Thomas J. Donohue from Apple vice president Catherine Novelli. "As a company we are working hard to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions by relying on renewable energy at our facilities and designing more energy-efficient products for our customers...
"For those companies who cannot or will not do the same, Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us in this effort."
Apple is just the latest in a long line of US companies to resign from the Chamber over its stance on climate change. Last week, Chamber president Thomas J. Donohue released a statement seeking to clarify its stance. But although Donohue said the Chamber supported "strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change," he criticized a bill passed by the US House of Representatives earlier this year.
"We oppose [the bill] because it is neither comprehensive nor international, and it falls short on moving renewable and alternative technologies into the marketplace and enabling our transition to a lower carbon future," Donohue said. "It would also impose carbon tariffs on goods imported into the United States, a move that would almost certainly spur retaliation from global trading partners."
And this, it seems, has not gone down well with Apple. "We would prefer that the Chamber take a more progressive stance on this critical issue and play a constructive role in addressing the climate crisis. However, because of the Chamber's position differs so sharply with Apple's, we have decided to resign out membership effective immediately."
In late September, prior to Donohue's comments, Apple overhauled its environmental website in an effort to show it's working to reduce the impact of its product on God's green earth, providing gobs of data on the Cupertino cult's annual carbon emissions. Many have criticized the cult for emitting more stuff than the likes of Dell and HP. ®
COMMENTS
Climate Change <!> Man-Made
So we've been here for what, seven seconds in a 24-hour "life of the Earth" anology, and producing significant amounts of carbon for much, much less than 5% of that (hell, it's only really been the last what, 150 years out of over three THOUSAND!) so unless dinosaurs had a much more advanced society than is currently believed, there should be little doubt that the climate goes in cycles.
Archeological evidence PROVES this by having semi-regular layers made from the remains of plants, animals etc - if you get rocks associated with glaciers every hundred thousand "layers", you can bet there's a fairly regular cycle there. If you can work out how old each layer is (carbon-14 dating etc) then you can get a pretty good idea of the cycle time too. This is "known" because lots of different groups have INDIVIDUALLY tested the evidence and reached the same conclusions - repeated testing and validation being the old "Scientific Method" I was taught at school.
The "Climate Change is all our fault and we should stop doing anything at all" brigade, on the other hand, seem to have gone back to the older religious version of Scientific Method where the truth is whatever they say it is, and woe betide anyone who dares to say different.
Remember the Cold Fusion controversy? One team claims to have produced cold fusion but then nobody else can replicate their results, so obviously they are wrong. But someone takes data NASA has admitted is possibly a little, um, flawed (as in "We don't have accurate data so we'll just make it up and hope nobody notices...") and then creatively interprets it using his own formulae, then manages to "lose" the data and the way he fiddled the figures, sorry, worked out his easily demonstratable method of taking raw data and getting "proof" that just happens to further his own ends, when told to do so by a court of law.
If humaniti were really the sole cause of climate change then there would be no real difference between the various strata from the first thin crust to the current layer of frozen magma we dwell on.
Yes, we can make a difference - but it's the sort of difference made by a bug to the speed of your car as it squashes itself on your windshield. A far better reason to save energy is that the resources we have (comparatively) easy access to are going to run out eventually. Not only that, but the more energy you "save" means you don't need to waste money on, say heating your house or filling your car fueltank. (On a related topic, ever noticed how the more energy we save by, say, insulating our homes and buying more fuel-efficient cars, the more the energy compaines charge so they keep their profits??)
Yes, the climate is changing, but then we live on a planet that is one of the most complex system of interactions imaginable. IF the green meanies were right, then it would not matter how much we reduce our "carbon footprint" since the damage to the biosphere has already occurred and the change has started - there is no way to reverse it, no matter how hard you try. It's not like a conveyor belt - you can't turn turn the motor off and it stops running - "Climate Change" is happening and there is nothing you can do about it now.
A far better question is to ask who benefits most from the whole "man-made climate change" theory? The energy companies do as they can charge us more for each watt we use. The "environmental lobby" does since it gives them their fifteen muinutes of fame (would anyone still remember Al Gore if he'd just kept his mouth shut like most 'failed' US political candidates?) The scientific world does since it gives so many of them reasons to apply for funding. The media does since it gives them an endless stream of horror stories (exactly HOW did Climate Change cause the tsunami and earthquakes around the south Pacific last week?) to peddle to the masses. The State does because it gives a reason to limit where and when the public can travel, and who they are allowed to talk to when they get there...
We've reached the top of the first incline on the "Cool Earth" roller-coaster. The balance has shifted (maybe a few years earlier than if we hadn't started burning fossil fuels, maybe a few - like 50!- thousand years late on the Ice Age cycle) and we are now on the drop to the first corner.
Sit back and enjoy the ride. It's too damn late to get off.
*shrug*
"on balance, be beneficial to humans” because of fewer cold-related deaths in winter months"
Yeah I remember that one too, a few people don't die from cold as opposed to the huge numbers dying from flooding, more powerful hurricanes and other natural disasters, water being polluted from said flooding, starvation as crops are wiped out due drought and.. err.. that flooding.. entire cities forced to relocate..
Millions die from climate catastrophes.. but the great news is we get a shipping route through the arctic circle and 5 people that would have died from hypothermia live long enough to be one of the millions that die from natural (unnatural?) disasters.
Never mind, being naively optimistic we can buy homes in Surrey or Essex and wait for them to become Hawaiian-like sea front property, warm enough to grow palm trees around the driveway and turn our back gardens into a pineapple plantations. Because in these people's fantasy world that will happen as opposed to the reality of what's left of the country alternating between deserts and mosquito infested swampland, before the new coast of Essex disappears under a brisk tide.
So ...
... are they going to axe Al Gore, Jr, because me flies all over the world to tell people to reduce their carbon footprint?
Or are they going to quit doing deals with anyone in China because of their human rights records?
And I'm a multiple-Mac owner.
Idiot politicians
Donohue: "It would also impose carbon tariffs on goods imported into the United States, a move that would almost certainly spur retaliation from global trading partners."
Here's a newsflash for Mr. Dumbas... er, Donahue: Make the goods in the U.S. and you won't have either problem.
Carbon
May I remind everyone that no one person or organization is creating carbon! There isn't any more carbon in/on the earth today than before. We are just converting it from one form to another....
How much "base" (coal, natural gas, nuclear) energy is used to create a battery? A Solar Panel? A Wind turbine? An Electric Car?
Are we really getting a reduction in carbon burning with these new "technologies"?
How many frequent flier miles do our "environmentalists" have in traveling the world trying to get Kyoto signed?
I do believe we need to take better care of our surroundings, but the rest of the "green" movement is nothing more than keeping the "masses" under control with scare tactics.
War on Communism, War on Drugs, War on Terror, War on "climate change", Financial Meltdowns, ......these things will kills before too much carbon burning ever will.
