Oh my...<p><i>"Too often investors look at short-term returns and are unaware of corporate policy decisions that may affect long-term financial prospects. After today's meeting, investors can be certain that Apple is wasting untold amounts of shareholder money to combat so-called climate change. The only remaining question is: how much?"</i> [1]<p>Let's all ignore climate change. Clearly that would give us better long-term financial prospects. And will definitely not be a huge economic disaster.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-Apple_Tim_Cook_Climate_022814.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-Apple_Tim_Cook_Climate_0228...</a>
This group, NCPPR, has a long history of not only denying climate science [1] by misconstruing their sources [2], but also defending the tobacco industry [3] and denying involvement in corruption scandals [4].<p>1. <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA388.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA388.html</a><p>2. <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/295/5554/476.abstract" rel="nofollow">http://www.sciencemag.org/content/295/5554/476.abstract</a><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050414163144/http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v418/n6895/abs/418291b_fs.html" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20050414163144/http://www.nature....</a><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050414163147/http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v418/n6895/abs/418292a_fs.html" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20050414163147/http://www.nature....</a><p>3. <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030930182136/http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/ncppr.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20030930182136/http://www.prwatch...</a><p><a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA198.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA198.html</a><p>4. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a9s0nfJm4uZA&refer=top_world_news" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a9s0n...</a><p><a href="http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Think-tank-head-claims-Abramoff-deceived-her-1943377.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Think-tank-he...</a><p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/23indian.html?_r=0&ei=5094&en=77d0036a5f15c93b&hp=&ex=1119585600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/23indian.html?_r=...</a>
<i>NCPPR demanded that Apple discontinue the programs and commit only to projects that are explicitly profitable.</i><p>The word <i>demanded</i> seems to be a very very strong statement. It's almost like a command. I'd be really surprised if that was really the word NCPPR used in the letter. <i>encouraged</i>, or <i>suggested</i> would be better. What power does NCPPR has over Apple to <i>demand</i> Apple to take action X?<p>To climate change deniers out there: while there is a natural part of climate change (as Sun continues to burn, the surface temperature continues to increase and eats the golden green zone between Earth and Sun and eventually will boil Earth one day), wastes produced by humans are also contributing climate eliminate changes.<p>And even if climate change is a <i>scam</i>, I'd rather to feel safer, knowing we are using clean energy than breathing air full of hazardous particles and wait for disaster to come. A lot of the changes and proposed changes to defend climate change actually makes life better. Just think about ways to protect underground subway system and electricity from flooding and securing the harbor from potential sea level rise. Use recycled papers rather than cutting down new trees all the time. Conversing water and finding new reusable energy resource to sustain the on-growing population. All these shits (excuse my Chinese here) are either directly or indirectly a result of learning about climate change and Earth sustainability. And guess what? They are new business opportunity.
It seems to me that these folks are using the shareholder meeting - and Tim cooks response - as theatre to get in the public eye. I'd never heard of them before (and now I know to avoid them) and they've succeeded in getting their message in front of many more people.<p>This is the reason greenpeace and similar target apple publicly, even though apple was already doing much of what they were asking for.
Was anyone else amused by the reference to "the Al gore contingency in the room"? For non-native English speakers, I'll note that there's a noun "contingency" with a meaning related to the adjective "contingent" (meaning roughly "conditional"), but not directly related to the noun "contingent" (meaning roughly "faction").
Apple <i>should disclose</i> at least basic information about the scope of their investments. This is just common sense, and it's especially important at a time when investors are panicked about the future of the stock.
I'm really sceptical and suspicious to the type of environmental policies that Apple and other companies do.<p>The effect on global warming is near zero, possibly even negative. The decision to use green energy decreases the price of non-green energy, so other companies will buy more of it.<p>I really don't like how unsystematic and non-transparent this approach is. A clean solution would be a tax on non-green energy. It would make the economy-environment tradeoff very clear.
I'm not a big fan of TC. But this quote (from the article) gave him a +10 in my books:<p>"When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI."
Another take is that these kind of sustainable practices are desirable to Apple's high-value employees. By acting in a way that increases the retention of those employees and helps with recruiting new ones with similar priorities, they are investing in the company's future.
The reason deniers exist generally is because there's a problem they don't want to face. Another, equally fatal approach to any problem is to attempt to <i>jump</i> to a solution. The correct approach is to try to understand the problem better which requires thinking -- in societal terms, it means <i>research</i>.<p>So, by all means, let's tell off the deniers, expand solar and wind, reduce coal, even make lifestyle gestures -- but put the bulk of effort into researching safe nuclear power and researching geo-engineering. (Unless I'm misreading the situation, there seem to be taboos around both at present.)
Is anybody else really annoyed by the image banner on their site[1]?<p>Not only is it broken into two images, there's a br tag causing most of the misalignment. Also, the two splices don't have the same height. I've checked this in chrome, firefox, and ie 7-10 and it doesn't work in any of them.<p>[1]<a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationalcenter.org/</a>
Anyone interested in trying to explore the
topic of climate change at NCPPR could
probably apply for a summer internship in 2014 -
here's a 2013 version:<p><a href="http://www.theihs.org/koch-summer-fellow-program/host/national-center-public-policy-research" rel="nofollow">http://www.theihs.org/koch-summer-fellow-program/host/nation...</a><p>Oh, btw: consider the source...
How much of Apple stock does NCPPR own anyway? Amusing to see that nowhere in its long whiny press release does it announce that it will divest itself of AAPL. Whatever happened to putting your money where your mouth is or voting with your feet?
"Climate Change Denier" is a term coined by radical environmentalists in an attempt to paint their opponents as crazy and stupid. Most rational people don't deny that climate change is occurring. Many people simply side with scientists that have examined the facts and determined that human attempts at trying to <i>control</i> climate change are about as effective as Indian rain dances.<p>That said, Tim Cook's response was correct. The measure this group proposed was actually very broad. They wanted the company to base all decisions on ROI only. Had it been adopted by the board, it would have instantly opened the company up to a flood of shareholder lawsuits over any number of expenditures that don't directly generate profits.
If liberals really cared about climate change, we would all be using nuclear power and Obama would not have cut Bush's program to develop fuel cell cars.