At Apple shareholder’s meeting, Tim Cook tells off climate change deniers

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/2993150551x0x717...

Correction: some investors are panicked about the future of the stock. This is my favorite cartoon that describes how those investors operate: http://imgur.com/vuDioSI

By implementing these policies Apple can show leadership and influence their peers and support the clean energy industry. This is the right thing to do.

That's a first-order effect. But second-order effects of the price changes include encouraging investment in green energy and discouraging investment in non-green energy. That will shift the long-term incentives for all market participants.

Considering that the market for fossil fuel energy is so much larger than that for renewable energy, I'm going to say that Apple's choice will have a bigger positive effect on the renewable sector than on prices for non-renewable energy.

Heavily taxing energy for any reasons always leads to lower economic growth and unemployment. That is because no tax applies globally, so there are always places to move to access the cheapest energy. And usually the places that production one to have lower environmental controls on energy production, leading to a net-worse position for the environment and the people where the production used to be.

Australia implemented the highest 'carbon tax' in the world in 2012. This contributed to the closing of several heavy industry factories within 12-18 months, including aluminum shelters. These factories have all been relocated to places like china and Saudi Arabia, with net-worse outcomes for the environment as a result, and a weaker economy in Australia. A region-specific energy tax is a bad idea because it achieves none of its goals, and measurably makes things worse.

This isn't really about Apple, it is more about the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) of which Apple is a member and the NCPPR going after them. NCPPR isn't some new organization, so they have a lot of things on their agenda (consider nuclear missiles were once an item on it).

Not saying their right or wrong on this one, mostly just saying Ars Technica did its usual crappy job on anything with a political bent. They don't seem to do much research into the who or even try to interview anyone.

1) or not

There's a similar group with a similar agenda who trolled GE after GE announced some kind of wind power initiative. I don't know how much stock they owned but given GE's market cap at the time, I'm sure it wasn't a lot of the company on a percentage basis...

Which scientists?

I'm sorry, what planet are you living on? This is regularly argued an national cable news all the time. You can't be taken the least bit seriously when you put such an obvious falsehood as the first argument supporting your ridiculous claim.

But their press release says

> Apple is wasting untold amounts of shareholder money to combat so-called climate change.

which sounds like denial to me. Would you prefer to call them "Climate Change Skeptics," the term coined by radical conservatives to attempt to paint themselves as not crazy and anti-scientific?

Everyone plays the "name yourself according to something non-controversial, name your opponent according to something controversial" game. I wouldn't get too upset about it.

This is absolutely false. There are denialists that deny the earth is warming, there are more that deny humans have anything to do with it and then more that deny that carbon emissions are worth it and then more still that deny it's a bad thing. Many of them contend all of these points in a throw everything at the wall strategy.

To say this is to deny the established causes behind climate change - excess carbon emissions. I doubt the relationship is linear, but the solution is to emit less carbon emissions. This should no longer be controversial.

Based on pure ROI is pure crazy.

http://www.nationalcenter.org/eptf.html

> "Here's the bottom line: Apple is as obsessed with the theory of so-called climate change as its board member Al Gore is,"

> After today's meeting, investors can be certain that Apple is wasting untold amounts of shareholder money to combat so-called climate change.

... etc

Every single mention of climate change is prefixed with "so-called", in this PR and every other one. If you read through these articles you'll find that they believe climate change stopped in 1997.

That said, I'm pretty sure climate change is happening - but I'm not really certain its anthropogenic, and even if it is, I don't think the genie can be put back in the bottle anyhow.

I think focusing on carbon seemingly alone is a distraction, Using less resources to do a thing is a good thing anyhow, its cheaper in the long run, carbon alone doesn't get us there.

Most environmentalists aim to reduce known human impacts on climate change. This is actually closer to reducing human control on climate change than doing nothing.

1. Climate change is a big problem, if not for the present then at least for the near future, unless we do something about it.

2. Given that, we should all make an effort to do what we reasonably can about it, instead of caring about nothing whatsoever except money.

If the NCPPR disagree with the first claim, then they should present their best case for that disagreement. I think they're mistaken, but if they have evidence for their position, then let's hear it.

But instead of making that case, they mixed it in with disagreement with the second claim, which is a bad way to argue (mixing empirical questions and value judgments) and makes them come across like sociopaths to boot.

I'm actually with you on doubting the ability of public policy to deal with it. We aren't going to stop it, and we will suffer from it. Our only option is to figure out how to adapt to it.

I suppose we shouldn't try, then. Not even a little bit.

- "Liberals" is a group of people who all think the same way.

- The only reason nuclear power isn't widely used is "Liberals not caring about climate change".

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